SAT Use

[Maxpiano@AOL.COM]

List -

I've been using an SAT since February (SAT III since June) after tuning 
aurally about 45 years.  I have a few questions that I don't recall being 
discussed on this list in the years I have been on (but then, I miss a lot 
because I don't have time to keep up with reading all the posts).

>From the start, the SAT showed me something I had only marginally been aware 
of in tuning aurally, and that is that many strings change in pitch as the 
tone decays.  This seems particularly noticeable from about F5 on up, and is 
usually a drop in pitch.  Some strings, however, go up in pitch.

What is the cause of this change?  Is it a change in the plane in which the 
strings vibrate?

Where should one try to stop the lights, on the attack or the decay?  At this 
point I set them if possible in the middle, where the attack is sharp and the 
decay flat.  The results please me as well as any aural tuning I have done.

I would also be interested in knowing how many of you SAT users normally try 
to stop the lights consistently in octaves 6 and 7.  I find myself settling 
for increasing motion as I approach the top.  At this point I am satisfied if 
it sounds as good as or better than I would do by ear.

My purchase of the SAT was spurred on by the promise of working faster (and 
earning more).  I have been using it consistently now fir 6 months except for 
rare occasions when I had to revert to aural tuning because things were not 
going well.   However, to this point I see no measurable increase in speed.  
I think it relieves me of some stress, and it is really a help on pitch 
raises.  I can record the exact amount of offset on non-standard pitch 
tunings.  I think what is happening is that I am getting more picky.  And I 
am very well satisfied with the results I am getting. 

Finally, do most of you visual tuners mute the whole piano or tune unisons as 
you go along?  A friend loaned me a Coleman/Diefebaugh tape made perhaps 1980 
promoting muting the whole piano (as well as the SAT over the SOT), stating 
that tuning one string of a unison and going over the whole piano, then one 
outside string over the whole piano, and finally the third, would lead to 
more stable tuning.  The thesis was that this would better allow the strings 
to move over the bridge without rolling it.  However, in the SAT manual, Dr. 
Sanderson recommends tuning unisons as one goes along.  Dr. Jim Coleman, what 
is your position now?  

Bill Maxim