Susan writes: "But then, apparently lots of people tune the unisons by hand, anyway, and tweaking and stabilizing unisons is what takes me the bulk of tuning time, anyway." It is my understanding that even straight machine tuners almost always tune almost all unisons by ear. I know I do. Even if you "stop the lights" on each string separately, the unison may not sound it's best. I suppose it's because that even with the fundamental pitches all the same, some partials can be very noisy due to flaws in the strings or a difference in string elasticity, etc. (notably--no pun intended--at the 12th). There have also been some interesting, if inconclusive, discussions here about the interaction of the strings of a unison. Also, especially on the third string of a trichord, I don't want to have to stop and mute unless there are false beats or other extraneous noises going on, and it has been my experience that the machines have trouble enough listening to even two strings at once. I don't have any experience with the VT or some of the other ETD's. Maybe there is a difference. The fastest tuner I ever saw--about 40 minutes on a Yamaha Studio in good condition, with me jabbering at him the whole time--was strictly aural (C fork, 4ths & 5ths Braid-White F-F temperament, no felt strips, did unisons as he went using only one slit-rubber trebble mute). His tuning sounded good when he left (he's tuned at our church for many years) but I don't think his tuning holds up too well (I am the pianist). Wish he'd take 5 more minutes and set his pins and strings a little better. He was amazingly fast--looked like he was suffering the palsey as he work each pin. Not PTG, never was. Well, now, I drifted a bit there, didn't I? Have a super week, everyone. I'm going to visit my mother in Oregon for a couple of weeks so the list might be a little dull after Tuesday <G>. Alan Barnard Salem, MO P.S. By the way, as for taking time tuning, I think I could do 40 minute tunings if I could just ignore everything from B6 and up. Ha.
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