False Beats: A whole new approach!

[cswearingen@daigger.com]

Hello Everyone,

This brings up a question for me.  I have that little tool that Schaff
sells to get rid of false beats.  It looks to me just to be a curved piece
of nickel-plated brass with a groove in the end.  I can't remember what I
paid for it but I'm sure it was too much.

Occasionally, I do pull it out when I'm tuning up in the treble and I get
to an area where there are some false beats.  I place the grooved end on
the string and give some jabs in hopes of better seating the string.  I'm
also careful not to press or jab too hard so as not to force teh string to
cut into the bridge.  Sometimes it seems to improve matters but I've never
had a situation where it completely cleaned up a false beating string.
And, in many cases, it doesn't seem to do anything.

Is this type of device still the preferred method of dealing with false
beats or is there some other technique that tends to have better results?

Thanks,
Corte Swearingen
Chicago


                                                                                                         
                      "Alan"                                                                             
                      <tune4u@earthlink        To:       "Pianotech" <pianotech@ptg.org>                 
                      .net>                    cc:                                                       
                      Sent by:                 Subject:  False Beats: A whole new approach!              
                      pianotech-bounces                                                                  
                      @ptg.org                                                                           
                                                                                                         
                                                                                                         
                      08/30/2003 11:22                                                                   
                      AM                                                                                 
                      Please respond to                                                                  
                      Pianotech                                                                          
                                                                                                         
                                                                                                         




David's post on the amazingly stable Kawai grand triggered this
post--specifically that it had high treble false beats in an acustically
live room.

I recently tuned a 60's era spinet that was way out of wack. The customer
wanted to know if it was a "keeper" or whether she should start saving for
a new piano. Ignoring the obvious and prejudicial answer, I said that we'd
have to see how it sounds after repairs and tuning.

After bridge repairs, two new strings, a 120+ cent pitch raise and two
tuning passes, it sounded amazingly not-so-bad. I told her so and she
agreed. As the discussion was rather in depth and she wanted me to be
frank--Frank Who? one might ask--I did point out that there were false
beats in the upper treble. She asked me to demonstrate, and I did.

This was her reaction: "Well, that's just a bonus: extra vibrato."

So you see, we should have been promoting the positive side of this
phenomenon all along!

Alan R. Barnard
Salem, MO




---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.512 / Virus Database: 309 - Release Date: 8/19/2003