Bill answered Johns question: > With the Accu-fork, it is simple since it has a slider adjustment allowing > one to easily determine the pitch of a piano before a pitch raise. How is > it done with a metal fork? > > Just curious. > > John Formsma > Blue Mountain, MS >> with: >You do it essentially the same way. The rule of thumb is that you need to >tune 1/3 sharper than your targeted pitch. If your starting pitch is 3 beats >flat of your fork, for example, you tune your starting pitch one full beat >sharp of the fork. Of course, if you have an electronic tuner, you can make >a more precise calculation but that does not necessarily mean that your >results will be that much "better". > >Not all pianos respond in exactly the same way. The offset you use with an >ETD or the calculated sharpness you do aurally in a pitch raise tuning will >always produce a rough tuning but hopefully one which will be close enough >that you can follow it with a good, stable and fine tuning on the second pass. > >I almost never attempt to tune a piano in just one pass. Most of my >concert/performance/recording tunings are "par 3", meaning that I expect to >have to do 3 passes on a piano which they always say before I start "doesn't >sound too bad, it'll probably just need a touch up". <G> Bill, I do a ton of integrated pitch raise/tunings. One shop probably generates 3 to 5 of these (10 cycles or more flat, haven't been tuned in years) babies for me each week. I agree that not every piano responds exactly the same way, so multiple passes have to be used, (but I still them all in a single visit.) I've always heard from other aural techs that they "overshoot" the initial target by 1/3 of the measured difference. However this has rarely worked for me. I use middle-C for my pitch, and lay my temperament from F3 to F4. Are you using A-440 for your initial pitch, or are you using middle C? My experience has shown me that I usually have to overshoot by 1/2 of the pitch differential, not 1/3. If the piano reads 3 cycles flat at middle-C, then I almost always have to stretch to 1.5 cycles above pitch to create the correct offset. HOWEVER, this is WAY too high if the piano has a high bass note count, i.e. a spinet. This is because middle-C is located so low in the tenor section (almost at the tenor break) that it never gets a chance to drop much when the unisons are pulled up. When this is the case, I have much better success using the 1/3-over offset, or even less. I don't have an A-440 fork, nor do I wish to re-engineer my ET temperament scheme to fit. However, I'm curious if other aural techs who regularly perform aural pitch raises using A-440 forks find the 1/3-over high enough? BTW: I have found many technicians that misunderstand the terminology of a 1/3-over offset. This is 1/3 over the measured pitch difference between the current pitch, and its target pitch (i.e. 1 cycle over when the piano is 3 cycles flat, or 2 cycles over when the piano is 6 cycles flat). THIS IS NOT 133.3% TENSION. It is simply 1/3 further than the intended change in pitch, NOT 1/3 OVER FULL TENSION. When I state I often must use a 1/2-over offset, I mean that if the piano is 4 cycles flat, I usually must aim 2 cycles sharp. (NOT 50% OVER TENSION, SO NO, I'M NOT COMING ANYWHERE CLOSE TO BREAKING TENSION AVERAGE, WHICH IN MANY PIANOS IS 150% TENSION, OK). So yes, if a piano is 16 cycles flat, I will often start as high as 8 cycles sharp, but only if the piano has a large flexible soundboard, and middle-C is fairly high in the tenor section (i.e. Steinway Model B). NO, strings do not usually break during my pitch raises. I find that I'll break just as many strings playing the piano during test blows on a non-pitch raise tuning, as I'll break strings during aural pitch raising. Have other techs ever found the stock 1/3-over offset too little? Hey even 1/3 can be too much sometimes, especially on spinets. It's really spooky seeing how similarly pianos will respond to a highly skilled pitch raise (even aural, heh heh). Now, I'm surprised only about once a month by a piano that ended more than 1 cent off when done. A really good formulaic approach helps. Just be sure to re-mute each section immediately after the first pass. Then you won't be tempted to treat previously tuned notes as "etched in stone". It only takes 30 seconds to remute with temperament strip, and now you can tweak quickly before moving on to the next section. All of this talk about ETD's making aural tuner "better" tuners is interesting. However, I didn't blossom as an aural tuner until I mastered integrating pitch-alterations and fine-tuning into single visit tunings. (AKA get it right the first time, so the client doesn't call back that night and whine about having to wait for that follow-up final tuning visit). Once aural pitch alteration is mastered, nothing can stop you. Even tuning on concert instruments involves some pitch alteration, just to a lesser degree. I use the same system, but omit repeating passes whenever that section was close enough to assure stablility during unison tuning. The beauty to remuting each section is it allows me to "re-calibrate" and perfect my temperament (and slightly re-direct the pitch too), before moving on to the next section. I'm looking for input about ETD pitch raising too. Being an aural tuner, I constantly check to see how previously tuned notes have or haven't drifted since initially set. (AKA check tests). Do ETD's have the ability to redundantly check previously tuned notes and currently tuned notes simultaneously? My biggest complaint about SAT machines is their "single" mindedness. They check ONLY the currently "selected" note being tuned, don't they? Are laptop based RCT and Tunelab type ETD's better at "listening" to the whole piano simultanously? I'd be a whole lot more interested in an ETD that could listen to multiple notes simultaneously, and comfirm the accuracy of BOTH notes, (the previously tuned note, and the current note, during check tests). This is because, if I ever used an ETD, I still could not bring myself to abandon using all of those great check tests which are now second nature. Give me an ETD that will accurately evaluate 2 or more pitches simultaneously (i.e. a check test), and I'd be a whole lot more interested in Cyber-tuning. Even better, get me one that listens to all 88 at once, (NO akward little switches for selecting the next note up or down), and I'd be even happier. To use it to create ET, or pitch raising, would take away too much of my fun. However, for me, the perfect use of an ETD would be to verify my "aural" work. I'd love to use it ONLY as another check test. I'm not interested in having it "reproduce" my previous best work. Find me a good check-testing ETD for final verification of my aural tuning/pitch raising, or for creating those antique historical tunings where necessary, and I'd use it right now. (Especially if it could make a good cup of coffee<G>). Besides, I need a good excuse to tell my wife why I "need" to buy a laptop. Cheers, Brian Henselman, RPT
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