Pitch raise

[Tom Cole]

Leslie W Bartlett wrote:
> 
> 
> >
> >Here is a question for you to ponder?  When pitch raising do you fine
> >tune the
> >piano immediately after or come back after the piano has settled, say
> >3-5 days
> >or one month?  Does it depend on how much you raise the pitch?
> >
>  Thanks to those who responded to my question regarding pitch raising.  I
> think the above question is the one that concerns me more-  discussion
> regarding immediate "fine tuning" along with the pitch raise, or pitch
> raise follwed by fune tunings days or weeks later.
> 
Leslie,

I use RCT to raise pitch according to the calculations of the pitch
raise feature. I spend about 20 minutes doing this which results in a
piano which is nearly in tune but not stable, since I don't spend time
with test blows or pin wiggling. I immediately follow with a smooth
tuning where I now concentrate on both fine tuning and stability.

I end up with a tuning I'm fairly happy with, plus or minus depending on
how far out of pitch the piano was to begin with. I often don't
recommend an early return. If they were able to play on a very out of
tune piano without experiencing excruciating pain, then they will
probably be very happy with it after the tuning and I encourage them to
call if they think it needs to be retuned sooner.

Of course, on a piano that might break strings, I'm much more careful
about overpulling the pitch, keeping it to A=440 on the first pass. I'll
do a second going over, with overpull if I dare, before giving it the
final smooth tuning, all on the same visit.

In some cases, where the owner is a musician and they want the tuning to
be optimum, I will recommend an early return because there will be
_some_ drift after a pitch raise/fine tuning.

I will almost never do a pitch raise only, and then schedule a return
for fine tuning, because I want the piano to be in tune and stable as
much as possible on the first visit. Also, I would need to charge more
for the second trip and, although the customer would be getting a piano
that might sound a little better (to my critical ears), I don't think I
can justify the extra cost to someone with non-critical ears.

None of this is hard and fast. "It depends", as someone said...
on the piano and the customer.

Tom

-- 
Thomas A. Cole RPT
Santa Cruz, CA