close enough>??

[Farrell]

I guess I would have to say better to do 2 passes. I will agree that often, a small raise like that cited, will work out real nice. But I have had pianos where the bass section didn't drop from the overpull, and other somewhat unusual responses. I guess I just don't see the pitch raises being that predictable on all pianos - too much variation. At least that has been my observation.

Terry Farrell
  
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <A440A@aol.com>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Tuesday, January 21, 2003 10:03 AM
Subject: close enough>??


> Greetings, 
>    I have been reading the discussions on speed, tuning accuracy, etd vs. 
> aural, etc..  So, this a.m.  I thought I would try a controlled test. The 
> piano is a Yamaha C3, one year old.  It is in a large instrument rehearsal 
> hall at the university.  I had tuned it 11/22/02 to ET at 440.  
>    This morning I checked it and found it sounded reasonably in tune with 
> itself insofar as unisons and single octaves were concerned.  The Double and 
> Triple octaves were dead sounding and checking against the SAT, it was flat.  
> The flatness was:  
> A0 at -3 cents
> A2 at -4
> C3  -10 cents
> C4 = -8
> C5= -7
> C6= -10
>  C7= -12
> C8= -14 
> 
>     I decided to do a straight, one-pass, totally machine, damn the 
> torpedoes, SAT pitch raise.  I began on A0 and went to the top of the piano, 
> changing the pitch correction figures at each A and D as I went.  By the time 
> I reached the 5th octave, the C was -9 cents, due to the pulling done below.  
> S0, I was using a 2.2 cent overpull at this point and was leaving clean 
> unisons as I went.  The entire process took 54 minutes.   
>    I finished just as an accompanist and two string players walked in, so 
> asked them to play it and listen.  Around here, everybody knows that they can 
> be honest with me, and they also know that there is no telling what sort of 
> temperament I might be throwing at them, so there is no fear or loathing 
> involved in letting ol' Ed know that this or that tuning doesn't work for 
> them.  Their response was: 
> "It sounds beautiful!"  I asked them to check the double and triple octaves.  
> Their response was, " They are so clean and even!"  
>    As the music, cases, and rosin bags were being opened, I zeroed the 
> machine and went back to check my results.  Every single A was within one 
> cent of where it was supposed to be, all the C's were too, except a slight 
> sharpening in the last two octaves,(resulting, I surmise, from there being no 
> further strings above them to take advantage of the overpull results). 
>    So, this raises the question of always needing two passes.  Is a one cent 
> variation worth the extra time? I believe it is not, in this venue, where the 
> pitch will change that much from day to day, depending on the lights, 
> presence of the orchestra, HVAC fluctuations,etc. Had I been in a recording 
> studio,  I would have done a rough pass first, but more for insurance than 
> anything else.    
>     In so much of the debate over relative values of machines vs. ears,  we 
> overlook the practical considerations.  I would like to see a comparison of 
> results that pits two tuners against one another in a more real world 
> setting. Something like, two pianos that are 8 cents flat, with maybe a 
> cleaning crew in the hallway, and with a 1 hour deadline, etc.  Oh yea,  it 
> would also be good for these two tuners to have already tuned two or three 
> pianos in the hours previous to the test, so fatigue factors get to be 
> introduced, also.   
>     It is one thing to compare tuning procedures in museum or test lab 
> settings, but in the real world of getting the job done for money,  I 
> wouldn't begin to favor a strictly aural approach.  Perhaps on a really poor 
> scale, the results would be closer, but on a good piano, in good condition, I 
> submit that the use of a machine allows far better results with far less 
> stress.
> Regards,   
> Ed Foote RPT 
> ( At the St. Louis regional conference several years ago, I had to tune the 
> piano in 65 minutes.  It was 20 cents flat, there was a change of temperament 
> to be done, and the window washers were outside the big plate glass windows 
> with a large hose squirting on them as I worked.  The feedback I got that day 
> in the temperament class was that the piano sounded really, really good....)
> _______________________________________________
> pianotech list info: https://www.moypiano.com/resources/#archives