John, The mention of using 4ths and 5ths all the way down the bass caught my attention. I also find those intervals useful all the way down the bass in some pianos . Another quick test I use is adding the 5th and octave all the way down and adding the triple octave on top. Try to make this chord sound as beatless as possible. I would classify these test as 'musical' and not necessarily 'technical'. As others have said use what interval gets the best sounding results. Joel Joel Jones, RPT Madison, WI On Jul 18, 2008, at 3:09 PM, John Formsma wrote: > On Thu, Jul 17, 2008 at 9:07 PM, Jonathan Golding > <jgmdpiano at gmail.com> wrote: >> When tuning the last octave of the piano's bass section I would like >> to know people's opinions on how they get the best results. For me, I >> find this a tricky area to get consistently good results. Some bass >> strings sound dead whereas others are harsh sounding and some have >> lots of overtones. As well, each piano seems to have a different >> amount of stretch to take into consideration. When tuning the last >> octave I usually check using the Maj 17th against the Maj 10th for >> approximate equal beating. When I play the octaves together >> harmonically I find that this leaves the last octave sounding too >> high to my ear. Any comments or suggestions? Any single partial for >> this area which could be helpful? >> > > It should go without saying that the better your tuning in the > midrange is, the better it will be in the bass. > > Generally, I'd say (at first) listen to bass octaves at the 6:3 > partials. That at least gets you in the ball park. Rough it in, then > refine, right? (I tune the bass a tad wider than this on many pianos.) > The more you tune, the quicker you hear the right spot for that > piano. And the fewer tests that have to be done. > > I'm finding 4ths and 5ths useful all the way down to the lowest > octave. They're helpful for roughing it in. You can also use the > double octave and octave-fifth to refine. E.g. C2-C4 and C2-G3. Get > them to beat equally, and you'll be fine. These are harder to hear in > the low bass, but there are other tests that can take over when this > one is no longer useful. > > There is a point in the scale at which the 12:6 partials become > prominent. This can be tricky because it is the same pitch as the 6:3 > partial except an octave higher. As you're listening for the 6:3, the > 12:6 call for your attention. But tuning the 12:6 partials beatless is > mainly only for the concert grands. Just be careful of getting off > track by tuning the 12:6 beatless. > > To help against doing that, always be comparing double, triple, and > quadruple octaves. And listen quickly to the octave-fifth and double > octave-fifths. > > After the octaves sound good, like Wim said ... do the descending > double-octave and seventh. Or, the octave-seventh. I start at > C2-A#3, and go down, listening for even progression. Your mistakes > will show up clearly with this test. > > -- > JF -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 3054 bytes Desc: not available Url : https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20080718/6405ba07/attachment.bin
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