Hi Benjamin:
I'm not so sure that moving the pins again for a small correction is less stable. I guess it would depend upon your technique, and how you set the pins. When I tune, I always ask that all the windows and doors be closed, even if it is uncomfortable for me. A slight change in temperature will affect the pitch of the strings. Same thing happens if it (upright) has a dammpchaser in it. When you open the lid, the heat escapes and the strings get colder. So, if you have a room where the temperature changes, you can't get a perfectly stable tuning. So, how accurate can you be anyway in those circumstances? If I have no control over that situation, I'll do my best to put it in tune, maybe go over it again, and let things be. When I'm done, I don't want edgy unisons, I want them as clean as possible. I think that is more important than a fraction of a cent off. I want the fifths to be clean and real slow, thirds to progress nicely, double octaves to be clean, etc. If they aren't, and I've gone through it twice, something has affected the tuning, or my initial overpull was too high and it didn't stay back down on the second pass. Which led me to try to keep my first pass as close as possible to final pitch.
Then, I usually tell the client that it will need another tuning soon. A pitch raise and tune will not last as long as a piano that needs only a regular (less than 5 cent) tuning. So, there's no real need to obsess over .3 cents in a pitch raise. It will change at least that amount in a short amount of time.
Paul McCloud
San Diego
Peter,
I think this is what Richard meant (correct me if I'm wrong, Richard): When doing a pitch raise, one must decide how accurate is accurate enough for that piano, for that pianist, for that situation. Not moving the pins again will make it more stable, but will moving them again make it more accurate? If so, is the degree of accuracy one gains worth the risk of instability?
Which leads us back to the question: how accurate is accurate?
For example, earlier this week I tuned the piano that used to be owned by the actor who played Two-Face in the 1989 BatMan movie series (forgive me, I forget the name). The piano was sold with his ranch, and the current owners wanted to have the piano in tune to have a retired artist come and play on it. Obviously, one wants to have the highest degree of accuracy possible in that situation.
Yesterday I tuned a Baldwin Acrosonic in the home of a hoarder. It was surrounded by junk, and the people told me they left the doors and windows open 24/7 (many houses here in Lompoc don't have AC yet). That time I just settled for SmartTune, which I measured afterwards and found it was consistently within 0.3 cents of where it should be. Most notes within 0.2 cents, again. Given what they told me, there was little reason to correct that 0.2 cent error, as I know some of the notes had moved already by the time I left. To be honest, I'd be surprised if the piano resembled being tuned on Friday by Sunday.
How accurate do you settle for in your day to day work? After the piano is tuned, with all unisons, can you confidently say that it's exactly where it should be? 0.0 cents off, all notes? Do you measure afterwards to make sure? I doubt many of us achieve that degree of accuracy on a daily basis, despite what we claim. So, how accurate is accurate?
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Benjamin Sanchez
Professional Piano Services
(805)315-8050
www.professional-piano-services.comBenPianoPro@comcast.net
Original Message------
— Somewhat Long Post —
Peter,
I think this is what Richard meant (correct me if I'm wrong, Richard): When doing a pitch raise, one must decide how accurate is accurate enough for that piano, for that pianist, for that situation. Not moving the pins again will make it more stable, but will moving them again make it more accurate? If so, is the degree of accuracy one gains worth the risk of instability?
Which leads us back to the question: how accurate is accurate?
For example, earlier this week I tuned the piano that used to be owned by the actor who played Two-Face in the 1989 BatMan movie series (forgive me, I forget the name). The piano was sold with his ranch, and the current owners wanted to have the piano in tune to have a retired artist come and play on it. Obviously, one wants to have the highest degree of accuracy possible in that situation.
Yesterday I tuned a Baldwin Acrosonic in the home of a hoarder. It was surrounded by junk, and the people told me they left the doors and windows open 24/7 (many houses here in Lompoc don't have AC yet). That time I just settled for SmartTune, which I measured afterwards and found it was consistently within 0.3 cents of where it should be. Most notes within 0.2 cents, again. Given what they told me, there was little reason to correct that 0.2 cent error, as I know some of the notes had moved already by the time I left. To be honest, I'd be surprised if the piano resembled being tuned on Friday by Sunday.
How accurate do you settle for in your day to day work? After the piano is tuned, with all unisons, can you confidently say that it's exactly where it should be? 0.0 cents off, all notes? Do you measure afterwards to make sure? I doubt many of us achieve that degree of accuracy on a daily basis, despite what we claim. So, how accurate is accurate?
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Benjamin Sanchez
Professional Piano Services
(805)315-8050
www.professional-piano-services.com
BenPianoPro@comcast.net
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Original Message:
Sent: 03-28-2018 19:04
From: Peter Grey
Subject: Minor pitch adjustment turning out to be a major pitch adjustment
Richard,
You have confused ME with what you said.
Pwg
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Peter Grey
Stratham NH
603-686-2395
pianodoctor57@gmail.com
Original Message:
Sent: 03-27-2018 09:55
From: Richard West
Subject: Minor pitch adjustment turning out to be a major pitch adjustment
Benjamin,
You have two good questions there. I would answer them by saying that stability and accuracy can be at odds with one another. In my experience a one-pass tuning seems very stable and the quality of the tuning is decent. But the accuracy just isn't quite there and so a second pass is usually needed. The second pass, however, can be problematic. It introduces a kind of instability that doing things multiple times can cause. To say nothing of the frustrations of tweaking that unison one more time to get it just right. The main problem with doing the second pass is improving the accuracy without introducing instability.
This is at the heart of what we do and the standards we set. For most customers a one-pass tuning would be close enough. But for us fussy, perfectionist types, close enough isn't good enough. And therein lies the problem. It takes a lot of patience and experience to improve accuracy without compromising or weakening stability.
So my question is this: Are you tuning for yourself and your own standards, or are you tuning for your customer, who would find the one-pass improvement to be just fine, but you might find customers' "good enough" might not be good enough for you.
Richard West
Original Message------
-Long Post-
"This is where I give my vote for iRCT. IRCT analyses the piano from a sample of five (or six) As and accurately estimates the over-pull of each note by sampling every note as you tune. If you use it according to directions you will usually find nearly every note remarkably close to proper pitch even after a 20c pitch raise."
Ditto here. I took measurements last week on a piano that was about 22 cents flat prior to a smart tune with iRTC. When done with the first pass, I took measurements, and every note was within 0.3 cents of where it should have been. Most were within 0.2 cents.
I decided to do a second pass, and see if it really would be more stable. My second pass, retuning every string, ended up being more of a unison touch up than a traditional second pass. Here's what gets me: Knowing that particular piano, I think it would have been just as stable, if not more so, with just a single pass.
I was criticized for saying this a few months back. We don't need to have this discussion again, because it's clear that no one is going to change their stance on the issue. Fine, I don't have the need to constantly pick fights with others.
But I do have a genuine question. There are two phrases that I see somewhat constantly in tuning literature:
1. Giving it two passes will make it more stable.
2. Moving it the least amount as possible will make it more stable.
In my mind, these are two opposing statements. I'm not seeing how both can be true at the same time. Is there a way to reconcile these statements?
Someone told me they're both true because your second pass will be moving it less than the first pass. No argument there. However, wouldn't it be better to just place it where it should be in the first place than to have to go back and replace it afterwards? That would seem to me, at least in theory, a more stable path.
With modern technology, now we have the ability to do that to a certain degree. I'm not talking about pianos 87 cents off. I'm talking mostly about pianos less than 15 cents off. Is there a scientific reason we still hold to the aural method of giving it two passes when modern technology allows us to accurately place the note with one pass?
Thanks for any answers. I write this with a civil voice, and a genuine quest for knowledge. Hoping all answers will come from the same spirit,
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Benjamin Sanchez
Professional Piano Services
(805)315-8050
www.professional-piano-services.com
BenPianoPro@comcast.net
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