I would be interested in Jim Coleman's take on Bernard's tuning concept. I don't know if he still is on the List...? David Ilvedson, RPT Pacifica, CA 94044 ----- Original message ---------------------------------------- From: "Richard Brekne" <ricb at pianostemmer.no> To: "Pianotech List" <pianotech at ptg.org> Received: 3/9/2009 2:38:40 PM Subject: [pianotech] Clarification on P-12ths >Hi Bernard >As per your request here is a brief recount of what Andrés visit to >Bergen around 2000 had to do with my own P-12th journey. >André was here doing the first of his now well known hammer replacement >seminars. Not that he'd not done classes before, but this seminar was my >concept and one that he has developed and refined in the years that have >passed since then. I'd replaced a set of hammers on a Steinway C and >balanced them ala Stanwood more or less, and he was to do a regulation >and voicing seminar. We had 6 participants and 3 days if I remember >correctly. >Naturally in the course of such a seminar tuning discussions come up, >and indeed in one of these André did talk about the major 6th - double >10th tests for dealing with treble octaves. And the context was indeed >octaves. No mention of 12ths was made and no mention of you or anything >to do about you was made. This method for getting nice treble octaves >was one of several tossed back and forth by the participants and nothing >was really new to anyone. After all... this way of approaching octaves >goes back a long ways for whatever that is worth. >It was a timely reminder for my part as I was already on the P-12ths >path and looking for an alternative to the single partials ETD's >approach. Indeed I got into quite a spat with a couple folks at the time >because I'd suggested that the single partial approach available at the >time was limited at best. I'd already started using Tune-lab to direct >reference several octave coincident pairs in effort to simulate a kind >of multi-partials ETD. Rick Baldersin's book had a lot to say on both >octaves and other intervals tests... including the 12th. I'd been >reading in old journals at the same time and bumped into a few articles >of interest that were also relevant to the 12th interval.... so quite >naturally I used Tune-lab to simply impose a pure 3:1 12th on a piano to >see how that would work... and I reported the findings here on pianotech >and on CAUT. >I remember Ron Koval (I think it was) immediately shot a hole in my >first attempt at a 12ths temperament region pointing out that I'd simply >taken the 19th root of 3 and increasing each successive note from and >including D3 to A4. The hole was obvious enough... it resulted in a >straight line instead of the familiar curve. So I devised a way of >using Tunelab 97's tuning curve editor to address that. I tuned D3 and >A4 to 440, then D4 to a 6:3 octave with D3 and A3 to a 6:3 octave with >A4, and aurally adjusted the both A3 and D4 so that their respective >5ths against D3 and A4 were ok to my ear and that their relationship >together as a 4th was also ok. I then manually sampled the resulting 3rd >partial of A3, D4 and A4, accepted the 3rd of D3 as 440 entered these >values into TL97 curve editor and used Robert Scotts then so called >quadratic interpolation to generate a curve. I had to make three curves >actually and combine them as the editor only accepted 3 values at a time >for this. I then expanded this in similar fashion so that the final >curve was from D2 to F6. >Now to what degree André can be said to have influenced me in this whole >process I can not say beyond saying that he told me nothing really new, >but that combined with all the other things I was reading, thinking >about, doing it was just one more bit piece that encouraged me along. >How much one can trace any of this back to your influence on André is >not for me to say. But in this indirect way, it must be acknowledged >that through the grapevine you may have indeed created a ripple effect >that reached my shores. To be truthful with you tho... I'm quite sure I >would have headed here anyways. >Personally, I'd say that if you had influenced André in this matter at >some point, then that fact speaks more to your standing as a respected >technician in Europe in general then it touches on this issue, and in a >far more meaningful way... and you have much to be proud about. Both >Mensurix and your PureOnly tuning software have gained significant >degrees of respect over here and it should be just a matter of time >before at least PureOnly starts selling stateside as well... which I >would encourage and look upon with satisfaction. >Now... I hope you will retract your longstanding accusation that I have >consciously stolen this from you and admit the obvious, that my own >P-12ths journey was quite independent of your own, if not completely so >in reality and that we can once and for all put this side of the whole >subject matter behind us. >Cheers >Richard Brekne
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