ETD'S ??? HELP

[A440A at aol.com]

Ron writes:

<< I am concerned because I have 

  > walked in immediately behind many very poor ETD tunings. I admit to 
knowing 

  > absolutely nothing about these things and how they work. What I've seen 

  > hasn't impressed me.

           I suppose the first thing to keep in mind is that ETD's are just 
tools.  The quality of the job depends on the skill of the worker.  I have seen 
more sub-par tunings coming from aural tuners than those that use the 
machines.  That doesn't mean that the machines are the answer.  What the ETD will do 
is indicate a pitch to hit and nothing more.  The stability will depend on the 
tuner's development of understanding the string and its friction.  It is not 
uncommon for a machine to give a heightened sense of expertise to an 
inexperienced tuner.  The tuning may sound just fine for a day or two, then the lack of 
stability shows itself.  
    The machine will give a perfect tuning if used on a perfect piano.  Other 
than that, the lesser the quality of the piano, the more the tech will have 
to apply their judgment.  Small scales don't lend themselves to the output of a 
microchip, so the tuner's judgment becomes increasingly important as the 
quality of scale deteriorates.  
   There are bells and whistles, chiefly, pitch corrections.  I found it 
impossible to leave a piano at broadcast standards from 10 cents away in an 75 
minutes by strictly aural means.  I tried for years but was always a few cents 
off between triple octaves, for example.  Used on a familiar piano, my SAT has 
done this numerous times.  Also, for me, the ability to provide the variety of 
temperaments that are more suitable to the use of the piano has proven to be a 
real boon.  The ability to quantify stretch can also be very instructive, and 
the fact that the data can be recorded and analyzed in a great teaching 
aspect. 
 

  > I think I am looking for a good, very experienced ETD salesman that can 
show 

  > me why I need one of these things.

  
You may not need one, but they can be a tremendous asset.  I tuned aurally, 
for top dollar, in recording studios for 16 years, (admittedly, with Bill 
Garlick's training), and the acquisition of a SAT made me a better tuner, simply 
because I had more information to make decisions with. 
  One of the primary requirements is that the user of an ETD develop 
eye/wrist coordination instead of just ear/wrist coordination.  This is not difficult, 
but does take some time.  There are very few of us that aurally operate with 
.3 cent tolerance, but a good machine will do this all day long.
   The ETD's also allow one to record an aural tuning, then offer it up on 
successive uses on the same piano, which allows us to refine the tuning over 
several iterations.  This allows a process of cumulative refinement that is not 
available to the strictly aural tuner, who must reinvent the tuning every time. 
 I submit that there is no one that is aurally more consistent than the 
memory of a machine.    

 > With a number of different ETDs out there, has anyone come up with a best 

  > and worst list? >>

    They are sort of like wives, everybody has different desires, budgets, 
and needs, and what works for one may not work for another. Machines are easier 
to try out, though.  
Regards,



Ed Foote RPT 
http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html
www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/well_tempered_piano.html
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