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Easy Piano Tuner

  • 1.  Easy Piano Tuner

    Posted 04-15-2018 15:51
    Long Post...

    Easy Piano Tuner (EPT) is a new piano tuning app that I wanted to share on this forum. (PLEASE NOTE: I'm NOT selling this product and I get nothing out of telling you about it. That being said, I wanted to share my experience with it and this is assuming you have the full or Pro version of it.)

    I've been using EPT consistently for about three months now and have really been enjoying it. Enjoying may be an odd word to use but it really is just fun to use. It doesn't have all the "bells & whistles" that other higher priced ETA's have but then it's a ton less expensive. So, if you like to tweak things or use historical (or other) temperaments this isn't for you. It simply does a smooth ET tuning. What's fun about it is you just tune. Therefore, the time it takes me to tune a piano is probably about 15 minutes faster than it was with other ETA's. 

    This app is available on the Google Play Store, so because of that you can have it on any device you own that will run Google Play Store apps. I'm running it on 4 devices right now, one of them being my Chromebook. If you keep up on all things Google, you'll know that most Chromebooks will now run apps from the Play Store. This is good news because the rumor is that the Chromebook OS will someday be the OS for tablets, so EPT will seamlessly run on those. Also, there are regular updates with improvements all the time.

    One of the advantages of EPT is being able to read all 88 notes very quickly. By doing this you can see exactly where the pianos tuning is currently at and spot the areas that you'll need to give the most attention to. You simply play each note (I mute off the two outside strings) and it records it, adjusts the tuning curve with the latest information and puts a blue dot where the pitch is currently at. A black line represents the tuning curve and you can see it adjust as you sample notes. There are two other screens to look at but so far I haven't really used those. 

    The app has three settings for moving note to note. AUTO, which will go to ANY note on the piano when you play it. STEP, which will stay very close to where you're at and not jump around and LOCK mode which you have to move manually note to note. I find myself mostly using the AUTO mode because you can check another octave and it follows you wherever you go, but the STEP and LOCK modes are handy for a noisy environment or the upper and lower regions where the notes aren't very clear sometimes. 

    There's a listening mode and lock mode for sampling notes. Once you've tuned the whole piano you can lock it and the next time you open up that file it will still be locked. Yes, you can save each tuning, in fact whether you save it or not it's automatically saved, so if something happens and, oops you forgot to save it, it will still be there. The date and time is recorded in the file. 

    It can be calibrated, the pitch changed and has a very handy (and accurate) Pitch raise or over-pull function. You record 3 notes in each octave before you start tuning. 

    It handles spinets very well, which is good news for me because I tune a lot of them. 

    There are four things to look at when tuning a note. 1. Phase display, which shows you the harmonics being measured. 2. Note display, which gives you a digital readout. 3. A needle readout. 4. The blue dot on the graph scale. All combined there's a lot of information that may take a while to get used to but I've found it all very helpful and accurate.

    There's another discussion going on that has some good information in it from the developer: Easy Piano Tuner discussion.


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    "That Tuning Guy"
    Scott Kerns
    www.thattuningguy.com
    Tunic OnlyPure, TuneLab & Easy Piano Tuner user
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  • 2.  RE: Easy Piano Tuner

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 04-16-2018 15:08
    This from a review:

    "I have been using Tunelab but also Entropy. Now I have the paid version of Easy Piano Tuner. As the name says it is very easy to use and has a great graphical interface. The only problem I have experienced is that A7 to C8 on my Blüthner are not stable displays on this program with wild random swings above and below on alternate key hits. Also these notes are not always correctly identified. These strings do not have false beats and I do not see this problem when using Tunelab"

    Here is the answer from the publisher: Willey Piano January 26, 2018
    "Thank you for the review and for the feedback. I just wanted to say that we are aware of the problem with the top few keys of the piano and are working on a fix."

    So Scott, have you found it to display more erratically in the top octave than other apps?

    It's curious to me that the user of the review is using so many tuning apps. Why not stick with one good one? Personally I would likely not use a tuning app in which overpull could not be adjusted. Some may use the same percentages on all their pianos, but I prefer to vary it based on the piano type and amount of raise. I tallied my tunings from the last couple of years, and about 1/3 needed a significant pitch raise.

    The bigger question: are we seeing a gradual but inevitable dethroning of the expensive programs like CT and VT? After all, there came an inflection point where a humble $500 Canon Rebel digicam could outshoot a $3500 Hasselblad (which explains how I acquired a mint Hasselblad...).




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    Scott Cole
    Talent OR
    541-601-9033
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  • 3.  RE: Easy Piano Tuner

    Posted 04-16-2018 15:52

    This from a review:

    "I have been using Tunelab but also Entropy. Now I have the paid version of Easy Piano Tuner. As the name says it is very easy to use and has a great graphical interface. The only problem I have experienced is that A7 to C8 on my Blüthner are not stable displays on this program with wild random swings above and below on alternate key hits. Also these notes are not always correctly identified. These strings do not have false beats and I do not see this problem when using Tunelab"

    Here is the answer from the publisher: Willey Piano January 26, 2018
    "Thank you for the review and for the feedback. I just wanted to say that we are aware of the problem with the top few keys of the piano and are working on a fix."

    So Scott, have you found it to display more erratically in the top octave than other apps?
    Scott Cole,  04-16-2018 15:07
    Yes, the problem has been taken care of, at least in the beta version. I signed up to be a beta tester for this app, so we get the updates before others. This app, like many apps on Google Play, are always being tweaked and improved, so this isn't anything unusual. This is the only serious piano tuning app available on Google Play right now. I'm not including Entropy Tuner because support seems to have dropped off for it, although from what I've heard, does a good job but is much more labor intensive.

    ------------------------------
    "That Tuning Guy"
    Scott Kerns
    www.thattuningguy.com
    Tunic OnlyPure, TuneLab & Easy Piano Tuner user
    ------------------------------



  • 4.  RE: Easy Piano Tuner

    Posted 04-16-2018 16:20

    It's curious to me that the user of the review is using so many tuning apps. Why not stick with one good one? Personally I would likely not use a tuning app in which overpull could not be adjusted. Some may use the same percentages on all their pianos, but I prefer to vary it based on the piano type and amount of raise. I tallied my tunings from the last couple of years, and about 1/3 needed a significant pitch raise.

    The bigger question: are we seeing a gradual but inevitable dethroning of the expensive programs like CT and VT? After all, there came an inflection point where a humble $500 Canon Rebel digicam could outshoot a $3500 Hasselblad (which explains how I acquired a mint Hasselblad...).
    Scott Cole,  04-16-2018 15:07
    I have three tuning apps and the reason for that is curiosity and just having fun with something new I guess. They all have their strengths and weaknesses. Right now EPT has sped up my tuning time and made my job much easier with great results. By the way, the overpull maximum can be adjusted and now the Lowest unwound string in the tuning file settings DOES affect the overpull calculation. It didn't before. That's some of those continuing improvements. 

    I consider CyberTuner and Verituner to kinda be the "big dogs" on the block (I'm not including Accu-Tuner because it's a device not an app) being capable of being tweaked and adjusted and many piano tuners want that. So, at least in function, I don't see them being dethroned. Possibly in numbers of users they might be. 

    Yes, I've commented before that it's a curious age we live in. Very high powered devices get less expensive all the time.

    ------------------------------
    "That Tuning Guy"
    Scott Kerns
    www.thattuningguy.com
    Tunic OnlyPure, TuneLab & Easy Piano Tuner user
    ------------------------------



  • 5.  RE: Easy Piano Tuner

    Member
    Posted 04-16-2018 16:26
    Does EasyPT record the tuning in any way?


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    jason's cell 425 830 1561

    On Mon, Apr 16, 2018 at 1:19 PM, Scott Kerns via Piano Technicians Guild






  • 6.  RE: Easy Piano Tuner

    Posted 04-16-2018 18:39

    Does EasyPT record the tuning in any way?
    Jason Kanter,  04-16-2018 16:25
    Yes, if you have the pro version. You can record information about the piano and it's saved in a file that can be reused. In fact (and I think this may be unique to EPT) if you don't purposely save the tuning, the file is automatically saved with just the date in the file information. Very handy if you accidentally forget to save your tuning!

    ------------------------------
    "That Tuning Guy"
    Scott Kerns
    www.thattuningguy.com
    Tunic OnlyPure, TuneLab & Easy Piano Tuner user
    ------------------------------



  • 7.  RE: Easy Piano Tuner

    Member
    Posted 04-16-2018 19:27
    How about exporting data to a computer, or at least displaying the offsets for each partial? I'm interested in creating graphs that represent a tuning. Sort of like this, if it comes through:



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    jason's cell 425 830 1561

    On Mon, Apr 16, 2018 at 3:39 PM, Scott Kerns via Piano Technicians Guild






  • 8.  RE: Easy Piano Tuner

    Posted 04-16-2018 19:36
    I don't know about that Jason. You'd have to contact the developer for info like that. Click here to contact him.

    ------------------------------
    "That Tuning Guy"
    Scott Kerns
    www.thattuningguy.com
    Tunic OnlyPure, TuneLab & Easy Piano Tuner user
    ------------------------------



  • 9.  RE: Easy Piano Tuner

    Member
    Posted 04-16-2018 19:41
    I'll try the software first. Your descriptions are intriguing. 

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    jason's cell 425 830 1561

    On Mon, Apr 16, 2018 at 4:35 PM, Scott Kerns via Piano Technicians Guild






  • 10.  RE: Easy Piano Tuner

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 04-17-2018 19:35
    Replying to the question about exporting data to a computer and displaying offsets for each partial:
    Yes, it is possible to export and extract some data, but it's not a very user-friendly process. (That isn't really the point of the app.) For example here's an Excel graph of the tuning (railsback) curve for a Boston grand I tuned the other day.


    You aren't able to extract the target partials (those are calculated fresh in the app) but you can get the frequencies of each harmonic as measured by the app. These, combined with the tuning curve, are what are used to display the graph at the bottom of the app screen. 

    If you're interested, here are some steps that you could use to extract the data from a saved tuning file. (There's no one right way to do it.)
    1. In the app, in the page that shows the tuning files, long-press on the file you want and select "Export". 
    2. Use a separate file management app to locate the exported tuning file on your device and email it to yourself. Or you can plug the device into your computer with a USB cord and transfer it that way.
    3. Download and install the program called Notepad++ on your computer
    4. Download the exported tuning file onto your computer and open it with Notepad++
    5. Open the "Find and Replace" tool (Ctrl+H on Windows) and make sure the option for "Search mode: extended" is selected
    6. Find and replace all "," with \n     (Note: the quotation marks are part of what you are replacing!)
    7. Find and replace all ":" with ,       (Again, that's quotation mark, colon, quotation mark)
    8. Find and replace all " with           (Replace all remaining quotation marks with nothing)
    9. Save and close Notepad++. Then select the file name, and change the file extension from .etf to .csv  
    10. Open the .csv file in Excel or your favorite spreadsheet program. 
    11. (Optional) Select all and sort the spreadsheet by the first column. This will group together the different types of data. 

    The tuning curve offsets (in cents, from 12-tone equal temperament) are listed after the word "delta". 
    You also get to see the inharmonicity, harmonic frequencies (measured), and relative strengths of each partial. If you want to graph the inharmonicity do it on a log scale.

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    Anthony Willey
    Shoreline WA
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  • 11.  RE: Easy Piano Tuner

    Member
    Posted 04-17-2018 20:18
    That's great info, except no graphic came through the various thresholds that had to be crossed. I'd love to see the graphic - can you email me directly? jkanter@rollingball.com

    Thanks

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    jason's cell 425 830 1561

    On Tue, Apr 17, 2018 at 4:34 PM, Anthony Willey via Piano Technicians Guild






  • 12.  RE: Easy Piano Tuner

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 04-17-2018 21:33
      |   view attached
    Sure. I'll try once more with the graphic as well.

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    Anthony Willey
    Shoreline WA
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  • 13.  RE: Easy Piano Tuner

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 04-18-2018 11:23
    Jason,

    This looks interesting, but without reference and legend, it is mostly
    meaningless. Tot what do each of the symbols, numbers, lines and colors refer?
    What are the samples - every note or just specific samples?

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    Dave Conte
    Owner
    North Richland Hills TX
    817-581-7321
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  • 14.  RE: Easy Piano Tuner

    Member
    Posted 04-18-2018 11:44
    I know that i provided no context or explanation. Working on a journal article. Stay tuned.