Here are my notes, slightly revised since Convention: Reno PTG Institute SAT III Class Jim Coleman, Sr. ( Notes slightly expanded) Harmonics vs partials. Showing exponential increase of higher partials. OLD STYLE F4 TUNING - ONLY ONE MEASUREMENT. Play F4, Tune, stop dots (LEDs) at F5, Stop dots at A6 with cents buttons. This displays Stretch Number. Hold down SHIFT, press STO-Stretch. Press Stretch again to get into Stretch Mode TUNING. Left window will show C3, Rt window will show cents value for this note. Start tuning at A4. When that is good change SAT to A3 to see how the 4-2 octave relationship looks. When you play the A4 and look at the display, you can see how much sharper the A4 is compared to what the A3 will be when it is tuned. When the SAT is at A3 it will be listening at A5, its 4th partial. When playing A4, its 2nd partial will display showing the dots moving to the Rt. usually. An aural test will show the F3-A4 (10th) beating just slightly faster than the F3-A3 (M3rd). Most of us like a little additional stretch of the A3-A4 octave so that the 10th will beat a half beat per second (bps) faster than the 3rd. At the listening pitch of A5 you need the A4 note to display about 1.0 cents higher than the A3 when it is tuned. Old style F4 Stretch tuning only goes from C3 to F6. If one prepares some FAC tunings ahead of time on 10 pages of memory, one can select a page of memory which has a similar value to the value of F6 of this present tuning in order to continue on up to note 88. Likewise, one can select a page of memory which has a value the same as the note C3 for tuning down into the Bass. LISTENING TO BEATS. As you tune down the scale from A4, you can listen to M3rds beginning 4 half steps down. 7 half steps down, you can listen to the 5ths. I like to follow both of these intervals down while tuning. There is no law saying that an electronic tuner-technician cannot listen while he tunes. If in the process he notices that the 3rds are slowing down too fast, he can incorporate the Double Octave Beat (DOB) to stretch out the octaves a little more. In the Bass, if one likes tighter octaves, negative DOB can be incorporated to make the 6-3 octave relationship pure. I like to begin this at B2 going down into the Bass, or wherever the wound strings begin. ACCUFORK II With 2 Accuforks one can hear beats of many speeds. When listening to beats at A4, one can hear a beat an octave higher which can be a problem in aurally setting the A4. Be sure to listen to the Fundamental. Tune a one octave temperament with the A3, A#3, B3, C4 of the AccuFork Test or correct it with contiguous 3rds, 4ths and 5ths. SIMPLE FAC TUNING *** ONLY ONE MEASUREMENT ***. In the SAT III the default stretch numbers are 8.0, 7.0, 6.0 for the 3 notes which we normally measure. Measure ONLY THE A4 and use the defaults of the other two. Select a page of Memory. Hold down STRETCH, hold down MEM, release STRETCH, release release MEM. In general the F3 Stretch number controls the additional stretch of the Bass and the C6 number controls the additional stretch of the High Treble, especially the top octave. This additional stretch or shrink of the octave can be controlled by the DOB on the fly as you go. This will work for the SAT I, II if you just put in the dummy stretch numbers 8.0 for F3 and 6.0 for C6. Then instead of using DOB which you don't have, you can do gradual resets as the beats indicate more stretch is needed in either direction. GETTING THE A440 FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT ON! Now you can start tuning immed- iately, you don't have to do a lot of measuring before tuning. TUNE the A4 immediately after turning on the SAT III and getting out of Calibrate mode. Play and tune A4 very accurately, then with the OCT button, jump up to A6, measure the sharpness of A4's 4th partial by stopping the dots with the MSR or cents buttons. Multiply this figure by 0.8, adjust the cents window to this value and hold down SHIFT-STOStretch. Assume the default stretch values for F3 and C6. Select your page of Memory and do the STRETCH to MEM rollover to compute the tuning. Set SAT III to A3 to view the octave relationship even before tuning A3. Add DOB if it is indicated. For SAT I or II users, you can increase the A4 Stretch value to widen the center octaves as explained in the May '97 Journal articles. Just remember to add the same amount to reset as you added to the A4 Stretch number when you go from B4 to C5. Keep this reset up to C8 unless you like even more stretch in the treble. AUTO NOTE STEPPING. Hold down SHIFT and press NOTE/Up to use automatic note changing in the up direction. You can also hold down SHIFT and NOTE/Dn to progress in the downward direction. You may toggle each direction on or off. You may have both directions turned on. USING SEQUENCING TO PRACTICE YOUR AURAL TEMPERAMENT. Hold down the SHIFT button and press the OCT/Up once to bring up the 1st sequence which is the Baldassin/Sanderson two octave temperament. I have stored the Baldassin- Sanderson-Kimbell-Tremper temperament as Se-2 (second sequence). To bring this up, I hold down the SHIFT button and press OCT/Up once more. SE-2 will appear in the Rt. window. Touching the NOTE/Up button once will start the sequence at A4. It is more convenient to use a footswitch or thumb switch. Regular computers do not have this capability. Begin demo of BSKT using eyes and ears. STORING YOUR OWN SEQUENCES. Holding down PAGE/Up, go beyond page 198 to Sequence page SE-1. Select your 1st note and octave. With the CENTS button, select 1 (no decimals will appear in the Rt window at this time). Hold down SHIFT, press MEM to store this first sequence note. Select your next note/octave, then with CENTS button, enter 2, then SHIFT-MEM. Continue in like manner selecting Note/OCT 1st then entering the sequence number in the Rt window. It is good to have this sequence written down first before you start so you don't get confused (you ask how I know?). CONVERTING A MEMORY TUNING INTO AN HISTORICAL TEMPERAMENT. There are 2 pages of memory above 198 and the 4 Seq. pages which can contain 14 historical temperament deviations from ET. These 12 note deviations can be applied or added to any complete tuning in memory. They will affect the 12 notes in each of the 7 1/4 octaves. For example: the 12 deviations stored from C1 to B1 on page 1-7t will be added to each of their respectivel notes from A0 to C8 of a selected page of memory. Each octave of this page 1-7t will hold a separate group of 12 deviations. The next page above the one titled 1-7t is titled 1-14 which will hold 7 more sets of historical deviations. These are input at the factory for you if you care to use them. You may overwrite them with your own preferences. The Kirnberger III is stored in octave C1-B1 of page 1-14t. To use this temperament, you would first select the page of memory for this particular piano you are tuning. Then hold down the SHIFT button and press the PAGE/Up button until 8t appears in the Rt window. This immediatley adds the Kirnberger deviations to each note as you tune the piano. I stored the Coleman XI on my page 1-7t in octave 3. I set 3.0 cents for C3 and pressed SHIFT-MEM to store, then 0.0 for C#3, etc. through B4 at -3.0. Here are all the values from C through B: 3.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, -3.0, 4.0, -2.0, 2.0, 0.0, -1.0, 2.0, -3.0. This is a very mild Well Temperament which has no bad 5ths or 4ths, but has graduated beat rates in the M3rd progressing evenly from no sharps or flats to 6 sharps or flats. When I wish to use this temperament, I calculate my tuning on a page of Memory, then hold down SHIFT and press PAGE/Up 3 times to get to 3t in the Rt. window. This incorporates the temperament deviations on my selected page of memory. GIVING YOURSELF A SIMULATED PTG TUNING TEST, PART 1. First, put your very best FAC tuning on a good quality piano. Write down the values for the notes C3 to B3. Then press the PAGE/Dn button to locate the EEE page, then the POI page, then stop at the SUP1 page. Input the values of C3 to B3 by holding down the SHIFT button and pressing the MEM button for each of the written values. At C4 it will be necessary to play the tuned C4, adjust the Cents to stop the dots and store this values as the previous values were stored (this is due to the fact that the exam uses 2nd partials instead of 4th partials which the FAC tuning uses in this octave). Store each values similarily through B4. Select page UUU by holding down the PAGE button until it stops a UUU. Detune the piano to these values. Next, tune the piano aurally in the area of C3 to B4 the very best you can without looking at the SAT III. Turn on SAT III, press PAGE/Dn to get to page EEE. At each note from C3 to B4, play the note and stop the dots with the MSR or CENTS buttons, hold down SHIFT, press MEM and advance until all tuned notes are recorded. Change note to the lowest note of your temperament (usually F3), hold down Green SHIFT2 button and press NOTE/Dn. This records your temperament octave. Then hold down the Green SHIFT2 button and press OCT/Dn to score any penalty points. which you may have incurred. These will show up as a plus or minus number in the Rt window as you hold down the NOTE/Up or NOTE/Dn. If you have 8 or less penalty points you pass the temperament. If you have 13 or less penalty points from C3 to B4, you pass the Midrange. If time permits: Pitch Raising anyway you like, Battery check, Tuning to different pitches, adding S/N Zero Reset, copying FAC #'s to another page of memory, recalling Stretch numbers, Warm stop or start, audio in and out, MIDI in & out, 4 light readings for greater accuracy Octave compromises. Jim Coleman, Sr. PS I have removed myself as a distributor of SAT IIIs. Yes, we are still good friends. I did this to remove any criticism of bias because I was selling SATs. I can now give my unbiased opinion of the SAT III. It is still my favorite electronic tuning instrument and I expect it to continue to be for some time. I am primarily an educator not a salesman. You have questions? Write me privately.
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