PianoTech Archive

  • 1.  VT and SAT III

    Posted 01-23-2002 17:19 
    From "Jim Coleman, Sr." <pianotoo@imap2.asu.edu>

Since several discussions have come up relative to the Verituner, 
I thought it might be of interest to some to hear what occurred 
here on the 6th of January.

Paul Bailey came over to Arizona to help me in a class on 
Historical Tuning at the AZ St Conference. While here I thought it 
would be a good test to see how the Verituner handled the tuning 
of a spinet. I happened to have a Wurlitzer spinet in the shop.
Paul guided me through the process of using the Verituner. We measured
all the significant notes which included the 5 A's, the notes on 
either side of the stringing break on the  treble bridge and the 
highest note on the Bass bridge. This circumvents tuning the 
entire piano as a first pass and then recalculating the tuning to 
get the best tuning for fine tuning. I was pleased that the 
Verituner did such a good job smoothing across the break in the 
temperament area.

I decided then to do the SAT dual page method outlined in an 
appendix of the SAT III manual. This involved measuring the notes 
G3 and G#3 (in the place of the usual F3, but storing them as F3 
on each of two pages of memory). The A4 was measured once and the 
default value of C6 was not measured but accepted. So, with just 3 
measurements, I computed both pages of memory. I tuned the plain 
wire notes with  the tuning computed where I had measured the G#3, 
and I tuned the wound tenor section and the Bass with the page 
where I had used the value for G3 in place of the normal F3. We 
then turned on the Verituner and played all the notes of the area 
from C3 through A4 and the piano made the VT patterns stand still 
in every case, and better than when I was tuning with the VT. 
This shows that the Verituner does a good job, but the SAT III 
is much simpler to operate.

As many of you know I no longer sell Accutuners, but it is still 
my personal preference.

Incidentally, in our Historical Tuning class, one Steinway L was 
tuned with the Verituner, another L was tuned with the TunelabPro, 
and the other L was tuned with the SAT III. In the first round of 
voting, the Tlabpro tuned ET showed a slight preference over the  
SAT tuned Coleman 11, with the VT tuned Kelner temperate last. In 
the next voting, C-11 was highest, with the Kelner last. In the last 
voting after switching piano positions, 
the Kelner temperament came up highest barely over the C-11 and 
the ET was last.

I believe this shows there is not a dime's worth of difference in 
the tuning ability of the tuning programs and in the various 
temperaments when it comes to listening to music being played. A 
great variety of music was played on each instrument and in many keys.
It also might show that Historical Temperaments can grow on you.

Jim Coleman, Sr.


  • 2.  VT and SAT III

    Posted 01-23-2002 22:13 
    From Greg Newell <gnewell@ameritech.net>

not a dime's worth of difference in the result but quite a bit in the
cost, eh?

"Jim Coleman, Sr." wrote:

> Since several discussions have come up relative to the Verituner,
> I thought it might be of interest to some to hear what occurred
> here on the 6th of January.
>
> Paul Bailey came over to Arizona to help me in a class on
> Historical Tuning at the AZ St Conference. While here I thought it
> would be a good test to see how the Verituner handled the tuning
> of a spinet. I happened to have a Wurlitzer spinet in the shop.
> Paul guided me through the process of using the Verituner. We measured
> all the significant notes which included the 5 A's, the notes on
> either side of the stringing break on the  treble bridge and the
> highest note on the Bass bridge. This circumvents tuning the
> entire piano as a first pass and then recalculating the tuning to
> get the best tuning for fine tuning. I was pleased that the
> Verituner did such a good job smoothing across the break in the
> temperament area.
>
> I decided then to do the SAT dual page method outlined in an
> appendix of the SAT III manual. This involved measuring the notes
> G3 and G#3 (in the place of the usual F3, but storing them as F3
> on each of two pages of memory). The A4 was measured once and the
> default value of C6 was not measured but accepted. So, with just 3
> measurements, I computed both pages of memory. I tuned the plain
> wire notes with  the tuning computed where I had measured the G#3,
> and I tuned the wound tenor section and the Bass with the page
> where I had used the value for G3 in place of the normal F3. We
> then turned on the Verituner and played all the notes of the area
> from C3 through A4 and the piano made the VT patterns stand still
> in every case, and better than when I was tuning with the VT.
> This shows that the Verituner does a good job, but the SAT III
> is much simpler to operate.
>
> As many of you know I no longer sell Accutuners, but it is still
> my personal preference.
>
> Incidentally, in our Historical Tuning class, one Steinway L was
> tuned with the Verituner, another L was tuned with the TunelabPro,
> and the other L was tuned with the SAT III. In the first round of
> voting, the Tlabpro tuned ET showed a slight preference over the
> SAT tuned Coleman 11, with the VT tuned Kelner temperate last. In
> the next voting, C-11 was highest, with the Kelner last. In the last
> voting after switching piano positions,
> the Kelner temperament came up highest barely over the C-11 and
> the ET was last.
>
> I believe this shows there is not a dime's worth of difference in
> the tuning ability of the tuning programs and in the various
> temperaments when it comes to listening to music being played. A
> great variety of music was played on each instrument and in many keys.
> It also might show that Historical Temperaments can grow on you.
>
> Jim Coleman, Sr.

--
Greg Newell
mailto:gnewell@ameritech.net


  • 3.  VT and SAT III

    Posted 01-24-2002 13:14 
    From "Keith Hamilton" <tuner@zoominternet.net>

Great post Ron and very interesting. Would it be possible for you to
give the group your numbers in excel format so we could look at and
graph them for ourselves?

Keith Hamilton




    
                                                
    
					
                                                    

        
                                                
				
    
                                                
    
                                                    
                                                        
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  • 4.  VT and SAT III

    Posted 01-24-2002 18:43
      |   view attached 
    From "Ron Koval" <drwoodwind@hotmail.com>

Interesting post, Jim.  Yes, when it is a musical test, over the years the 
tuneoffs have been pretty close.  Unisons, unisons, unisons, may be the best 
advice for what to stress!  But if I read you right about the Wurlitzer 
spinet tuning:

snip
We measured all the significant notes which included the 5 A's, the notes on 
either side of the stringing break on the treble bridge and the highest note 
on the Bass bridge.  This circumvents tuning the entire piano as a first 
pass and then recalculating the tuning to get the best tuning for fine 
tuning.
snip

You guys did a single pass tuning in fine mode after the samples?  If so, I 
think you only got as close as about 3 cents to a fully optimized tuning.  
As an experiment, today I checked with the Wurli spinet here, and sampled, 
and typed (and retyped)the results.  I'm including a *.gif file of the 
resultant graph of 4 steps of sampling.  Series 1 approximates what you did, 
and series 4 is the final result.

Series 1 - 5 A's and break notes
Series 2 - add plain wire notes to just past the treble break (d5)
Series 3 - C3 down to A0
Series 4 - finish samples to C7

I started by sampling just A4, then added the other A's.  These two 
graphlines are not shown.  It's an experiment I've wanted to do for some 
time; I wondered how much the tuning curve shifted with additional samples.  
It's tedious, but if Paul still has the tuning saved, he can type out the 
tuning from 1- 88, then recalculate, and do it again to see how much the 
tuning shifts.

Also when you wrote after retuning with the SAT III:
snip
We then turned on the Verituner and played all the notes of the area from C3 
through A4 and the piano made the VT patterns stand still in every case, and 
better than when I was tuning with the VT.
snip

What did the tuning numbers show?  Did you have trouble with the VT display 
while you were tuning?  This is interesting, how you could stop the display 
using a different machine, and "better"........  But take a look at the 
graph, in that section of the tuning, and up an octave, there is minimal 
difference between the curves.  Lower and higher, however, that's a 
different story.

and then the conclusion of your comparison:

snip
I believe this shows there is not a dime's worth of difference in the tuning 
ability of the tuning programs and in the various temperaments when it comes 
to listening to music being played.
snip

I think we should add....

When the pianos being tuned are matched Steinway L's.

Moral of the story?  I think for the best tunings using the VT, adopt a 
two-pass method of tuning, even if the first pass is a non-tuning pass.  It 
takes me less than 5 minutes.  I believe the results are worth it.

Ron Koval




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