As an older person who has only tuned aurally up to now, I would still recommend a Sanderson Accu-Tuner. If you want to tell the device what to do rather than it telling you, it is the way to go. It is the best device for using in the Direct Interval mode. If there are pianos that you tune repeatedly, you can establish a program for that piano, refine it and then rely on that program thereafter.
The display is the easiest to learn to interpret for someone such as you. I have avoided "aural atrophy" by continuing to mix aural and electronic tuning on every job. I have been to all extremes about stretch in order to find out what really works best. Since I am an examiner, I have to conduct master tunings rather frequently. I have explored it all but I come back to a solid basic: 4:2 type octave for Temperament and Midrange (C3-C5).
Most any default program, including the SAT will calculate the Midrange slightly wider than that, the "compromise between a 4:2 and 6:3 octave". It is what technicians were asking for, so they got it. I believe the idea is that it would better accommodate the outer octaves if the Midrange were expanded just a little more than seemed natural.
In a recent master tuning that I conducted on a Boston piano at a Steinway dealership, the Steinway store owner (who is a fine concert technician) performed the preliminary tuning the way he would tune naturally. I found however that the central octaves were extremely wide. I had to narrow everything down substantially. Yet, when I reached the 5th, 6th and 7th octaves, where I found a perfect compromise, very nearly matched what he had done. This meant that I could achieve a calmer, more harmonious sound from the Midrange, yet I could still find a beautiful sounding, bright sound for the Treble and High Treble. After the unisons were tuned for that master tuning, the Steinway dealer was amazed at how good the piano actually sounded.
There is a lot of discussion about whether an exam master tuning, being a very neutral but highly perfected tuning is really the best kind of sound for a piano. In the process, we have to decide that one kind of interval cannot be favored over any other. That, indeed is the fundamental essence of tuning a piano scale. Inharmonicity has to be accommodated. If one kind of interval is allowed to prevail over another, the result will be dissonance. When all intervals are equally compromised, the result will be the most consonant sound.
The aural construction of a temperament (the precisely equal division of the scale, if we are talking about Equal Temperament (ET), ), is often considered the most difficult part of aural piano tuning to perfect. Therefore, piano technicians have long sought to have some electronic help with it. It is often seen in surveys, the question about how electronics are used and one of the questions is usually, "Just for the Temperament". (If I can just get that part solved, I can do the rest bey ear).
Indeed, many technicians did that with the old Strobe Tuner type device. The problem with it was that technicians would only read the pitch on the fundamental and tune each note accordingly. It may not have been a totally bad result but it was also not what a skilled aural tuner would do. Dr. Sanderson worked on the problem and came up with the first really viable solution.
Once the cat was out of the bag, however, any number of other smart guys went on to develop their own software that could be used in many ways, have many functions and display other kinds of information. That is all well and good but for an aural tuner who really wants to be in control of what he or she is doing, the Sanderson devices still afford the best way to be in control, know what is happening and to create and maintain tunings that satisfy every intention. Personally, I am not interested in any other kind of electronic assistance.
I can use my SAT IV in the FAC mode (but rarely do) to produce a Midrange that satisfies my ear if I deploy the D.O.B. (Double Octave Beat) function at -0.2. It effectively reduces the default stretch of the Midrange by just the right amount. I can then go on to put the device in Direct Interval mode for the 5th and 6th octaves but then I find that the device has already been almost entirely accurate when canceling the D.O.B. at C5. If I put the device in the TUNE mode beginning at C5 and up to C7, If I find the point where a double octave and an octave-fifth are equally sharp and flat respectively, I find that the results almost always match what the calculated program would have provided.
This goes contrary to the very popular "pure 12ths" idea because it means that the octave-5th (12th) is favored over the double octave. That means consonance in one interval but dissonance in the other. If, in order to avoid that, the entire Midrange has been expanded, then the entire Midrange will sound harsher than it really needs to be.
The fact is that a consonant sounding Midrange can be matched with a consonant Treble and High Treble with both double octaves and octave-fifths sounding so closely alike (but technically mismatched) that they both are perceived to be perfectly in tune. This is what accomplishes the goal of what is called, "beat masking". I think of it as "beat cancellation". A chord played that includes both the double octave and octave-fifth will have each interval beating exactly alike but ever so slightly so as to really hear no beat at all. The two beats effectively cancel each other. This is what makes the piano sound in tune with itself!
With an SAT device, you can explore all of this. It may be possible with other software but certainly not as easily. With an SAT device, you can lock in what is really correct and save it for future use, either at the second pass or a future tuning of the same piano.
A new SAT IV costs about $1600 from what I last heard but a new or used SAT III may be much less costly. Inventronics can and will restore any of its previously owned devices to like new condition and will provide a warranty. Even a reconditioned SAT II device can be a bargain,
If you want a dedicated device, not software that you have to install on another device and then be dependent upon how much space on that device and the longevity of that device, the vulnerability of that device, then you will choose an SAT IV or reconditioned SAT III. If you need help in how to manipulate the device to work according to your needs, I would be happy to help you personally.
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William Bremmer
RPT
Madison WI
608-238-8400
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Original Message:
Sent: 12-26-2017 18:06
From: Jon Page
Subject: Electronic tuning systems
I'm regressing to my pre-ETD days as far as stretch. I had been leaning to sharper and sharper for the treble. I devised stretches that work well but now I'm relegating them to certain jazz applications. A crystal-clear, clean sound is appreciated by some jazzers. A piano-bar (seating around) is a good example. Think: sizzle or as one guy put it; Like skating on ice. But lately, I've been stretching only to the lower 6th octave and relying on more 2:1 in the high treble thru my series of stretches (determined by piano length). The VT allows percentage appropriations for partial sampling which I find to be highly customizable by blending partials (ie: 2:1 40%, 3:1 60%). Kent Swafford has developed a series of stretches for the VT in ET. However, I rarely tune ET, preferring Ron Koval's series of temperaments, Koval Victorian being the most popular with piano teachers' pianos. Thus, I use my customized stretches, which anyone can develop their own. Tuning is subjective, to a degree.
I rely on the VT for setting the pitch and tune the unison aurally. In the treble I tune each string with the VT and finesse aurally. The benefit to me of an EDT is lower decibels. I let the machine do the heavy lifting and I fine tune the result by ear. Tuning one string/octave to another wears on your auditory senses after a while, not to mention noisy environments.
There is a learning curve as you have to adjust from tuning hand-to-ear to hand-to-eye.
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Regards,
Jon Page
Original Message:
Sent: 12-26-2017 16:48
From: Richard West
Subject: Electronic tuning systems
Congratulations on learning how to tune aurally. That skill will serve you well no matter what device you choose.
1. You can go cheap; you can go expensive. The more expensive ones will give you more consistent results/readings without worry. Cheaper ones may give you a good result on one piano, and not so good on another. The way you will know is when you check everything aurally. I am an "old" aural tuner and still tune aurally; I use an Accutuner mostly for pitch raises. When I first got an ETD, I was trying to create master tunings for the pianos I tuned regularly. My experience was that 6 months after taking lots of time to create/store a master tuning, that tuning didn't give the same result 6 months later. I did go to some effort to ensure accuracy the first time around, so you can imagine my surprise 6 months later. The only explanation is that small changes in the bridge position, or length of the strings, etc., etc., were enough to make me adjust my tuning for the new conditions. I stopped trying to make master tunings after that.
2. Accuracy: Why is it that several of the devices will give different readings, when the same note is measured multiple times? Why do some suggest taking the average reading as the actual reading?
3. What do you want to hear? All the current ETDs give excellent results. I believe in them. The results will pass the PTG exam and are accepted by 99% of the piano playing public. But do the results sound good to you? There is no standard way to tune. The machines are adjustable to tune the way you want to tune, i.e., to get the sound you want. The better the machine, the easier and more consistent results. But your aural training will be the final judge. You are in a better position than the ETD only tuner. You may find, for example, that when you set your ETD for a pure 12th "style" tuning, that you don't like the sound of that choice. If a person has minimal aural skills, how does that person know what he's getting? The ETD tuner has to depend on the machine to do what it is advertised as doing. I find the pure 12th to be too much stretch for my taste. I also find that we all have to be careful in how much latitude we should tolerate. That's a purely personal opinion, but I've contented for many years that the range of acceptability among professional tuners is questionable. Without some defined standard, none of us has a way of truly judging what we do. The closest I've come to having a real discussion and comparison is when tuning a master tuning. We all can settle on a final setting for each note of the tuning. One person may prefer a little more stretch on a daily basis, but the differences among the three tuners is slight. But of course "slight" differences are what it's all about. How much of a slight difference still falls within the professional range of accuracy?
4. Some machines have more features than can be really useful if you want to do research. There's a learning curve for that. But for day-to-day usefulness all the ETDs are easy to learn right out of the box.
5. Dependency: When I was using my ETD more heavily, I found that I would trust the machine over what my ear was telling me. Sometimes that was valid, sometimes not. Eventually I went back to aural only because I felt my aural skill atrophied. Whether you use an ETD or your ears, you're going to slip up somewhere along the line. A good tuner can have a bad day and still leave the piano sounding good. I decided I'd rather keep using my aural skills, and keep them sharp, knowing that I was getting good results. I enjoy aural tuning. If I left a tuning that maybe didn't measure out with numbers on the machine, so be it. If I were an ETD only tuner, there would be tunings that didn't measure out aurally either. In some ways we're all just trying to get it as close as we can, the operative word being "close." And when are we close enough.
Good luck with your choice. ETDs are fun and valuable, so the purchase is a wise one for you. But aural tuning is also fun and very satisfying.
Original Message------
Greetings, I'm a 25 year aural tuner and an RPT. I'm ready to suppliment my tunings with a tuning system such as Veritune and Cybertuner. My question is availability and quality of less expensive systems. Any thoughts?
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Edward Mastin
Syracuse NY
315-422-1291
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