Hi all - I've been out of the loop this last week, and am just trying to catch up on the pianotech reading. Thanks David, for giving the KV 1.2 a try; I'm glad you've found it usefull. For the 'new' people out there here's a little background: I created the Koval variable temperament series to take advantage of some of the strengths I had found studying a wide range of historical and modern temperaments. What I wanted, was a temperament that would provide a good range of color while keeping the individual offsets from equal temperament small. I had always experimented with 'morphing' temperaments; the dividing or multiplying offsets to strengthen or weaken the effect of the temperament. While this works on all temperaments, I was dissapointed by the outcome many times. With some help from other 'temperament adventurers' I was able to use a spreadsheet to not only look at the width of the third, but also chart the projected beat rate for the different intervals in a chord. Yet there was still something missing, some effect that I could hear, but couldn't predict on the computer. What I ended up charting was the relationship between the beats of the major third and the minor third in a chord. This beat syncronicity, (I think Robert Wendell came up with that one...) where the beats are at a simple relationship can be found in many of the historical examples, especially in the remote keys. Aha! This is the effect that Bill Bremmer used to go on about, trying to explain why the rough keys didn't play as rough as expected. So, I worked up this temperament, which allows dividing and multiplying the strength of the effect. After much tuning, I've settled on the three "stopping points" that seem to play the best. These give the effect of a quasi-equal, a Victorian, and a Well temperament. Since the same number set is used, going from one strength to another doesn't involve moving the strings too far. The naming of the KV series relates to the offset for C,(and F) so you can know the amount for the largest ET offset. I'll try to type this so it should come out clear. Here are the offsets for the KV1.2 , KV2.1, and the KV4.4 note__1.2_____2.1_____4.4 C_____1.2_____2.1_____4.4 C#___-.16____-.28_____-.59 D_____.48____.84_____1.76 D#____.72___1.26_____2.64 E_____-.48___-.84_____-1.76 F____1.2____2.1______4.4 F#___-.32___-.56_____-1.17 G_____.8____1.4_____2.93 G#___.32____.56_____1.17 A_____0______0______0 A#___1.04___1.82____3.81 B____-.6____-1.05____-2.2 (boy, I really hope I typed them right!) Remember that these are spreadsheet numbers, trying to come up with a precise target for tuning. We would all be lucky to work on instruments that allow us to tune this close. The reality, especially if we're talking about smoothing out spinets, is that we're doing pretty good to get the string to stay within a half a cent of where we're aiming, for a normal tuning. SAT owners, don't sweat over the hundreths, just round them off an give it a try! These numbers won't match what's on the rollingball.com site, or even what's in your VT today, since I've made some further adjustments. Ron Koval Chicagoland _________________________________________________________________ Learn how to help protect your privacy and prevent fraud online at Tech Hacks & Scams. http://special.msn.com/msnbc/techsafety.armx
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