Yamaha PTII

[Kevin E. Ramsey]

    I don't have a Yamaha scope, but I follow around a guy who's a contract
tuner who uses one at a dealership here in Phoenix. First of all, I
understand that they only have about twenty tunings on them, and that they
are designed primarily to tune Yamaha's. The Yamaha, as most well made Asian
pianos, have a very low level of inharmonicity. Therefore, it is not going
to be able to compensate enough to do a really adequate job on pianos which
have a higher level of inharmonicity. (Like Steinway, or Baldwin). My main
problem with the guy who uses the Yamaha scope, is that he is always leaving
the bass too sharp, and un-stretched. I have pointed out to him that his
fifths should not be beating rapidly going down into the bass, and he does
care, but seems to not be able to do much about it. I really like talking to
him and trying to help him understand more about what we do, and wish that
he had an Accu-tuner so that I could at least talk to him about some of the
theory, but I don't have the time at work to teach him how to tune aurally.
And I really haven't worked with a Yamaha scope at all, and thus do not know
how to trick it into giving me what I want.
    Maybe I should "mentor" him after hours. I still don't think I would
have the hours necessary to teach him to tune aurally.


Kevin E. Ramsey
ramsey@extremezone.com
----- Original Message -----
From: <d.l.ezell@att.net>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Cc: "Tony Caught" <caute@optusnet.com.au>; <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Monday, April 09, 2001 5:26 PM
Subject: Re:Yamaha PTII


> Do any of you guys use a Yamaha Piano Tuning Scope?
> I've used one for over 2 years now and have had only 2
> complaints about my tuning.
> One lady piano player at a church (where the piano
> hadn't been tuned in 4 years) told my sister to tell me
> that I tuned the Piano too sharp.
> So when I retuned it I used the flat temperment setting
> on the Yamaha Piano Scope and she was satisfied with it
> then.
>  On another occasion I had a complaint that the upper
> octaves were a little off(I was using the stretch tuning
> of the scope on that one, set for a Spinet size Piano)
> but to my ear they sounded fine.
> Any comments would be appreciated.
>