Pianotech

I recommend you take your mic and move it to at least 10 different spots on a concert grand piano all over the soundboard, akin to the paper by Fazioli in 2017 and their contact mic experiments. Every spot is noticeably different. 

I started my music school training as a teenager by becoming a recording engineer and I put myself through music school that way. Years later I went from being a music professor to getting my advanced degrees in engineering. Of course I now have a fundamental understanding of the situation.

Without the physics training, a recording engineer will find out the hard way about small mic position changes. Now, this is so well documented in the literature, of course. Using the same mic for your ETD, and doing lots of positional changes, listen to the sound subjectively as though you are professionally recording the piano, not just using the tuning app. If the recording sounds subjectively 'good' it is probably in an ideal spot. It is 'hit and miss'. My experience with the technical analysis that I present in my classes is that small position changes will affect the tuning by 1 cent or more, worst case.

The ETD makers quietly acknowledge this problem. They don't want to expose it because it undermines their salesmanship of the app.

This problem led me to invent the PianoSens device. It is not just a 'guitar like pickup.' As an EE, I solved many problems doing this design.

I place the sensor < 1/8th string length to pick up all the partials > 8 partials, and making small movements of several centimeters in this 'region' and it has literally no discernible variance, which is loically to be expected. You can see small amplitude differences, of course, but not much. Tuning variances are now about 0.1 cents, not 1 cent. 

Steven Norsworthy

Professional Engineer, Professional Musician

RF2BITS.com

PianoSens.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101
------------------------------

Steven, I have read some of the posts on Pianoscope and PianoSens by you, Frank, and others – commendable state-of-the-art development work, in my opinion, in a relatively short time. I tune aurally, but your work has given the visual tuner yet another good tool to use. The PianoSens does seem (to me) to add extra effort and time to perform a tuning, but it still is an interesting tool.

I have a couple comments/suggestions for you and for others who might be following the threads on Pianoscope and PianoSens.

First, I think we could really use some "single-blind" types of tests, if I am using the term correctly, with a goal of objectively comparing different approaches to tuning a piano. (Excuse me if this has already been done.) You are probably used to this type of testing from your professional and academic work. Get some objective folks to tune the same (or near-identical) pianos using both aural tuning and visual tuning, and for the visual tunings using different ETDs – and for Pianoscope, both with/without PianoSens. Maybe a piano store would volunteer their pianos after-hours, or a university music department. The results would all be judged aurally, of course, and "blindly" – by other tuner or pianist volunteers. Besides "seeing" which tuning approach is most desirable, I would be very interested for the visual tunings if the accuracy of the ETDs make a difference: 0.1 cents, 0.05 cents. 0.4 cents, 1 cent, etc.

Second, for those reading this who might be at a career point of considering using aural tuning versus visual tuning, I would like to put in a plug for aural tuning. I know that I am biased, but I have the experience (!) and I find the aural approach both interesting and enjoyable, and very accurate. Every interval you use inherently incorporates the inharmonicity of the instrument. (And with your tests you can hear all your mistakes in real time!) Dependent upon the aural tuning approach that you use (see my Web site for some charts on my approach) there can be no need to count beats, and at least for the piano industry Equal Temperament standard (12 Tone Equal Temperament based on the octave) the incorporated physics and mathematics of the coincident partials (the "beats") are simple to understand. And unisons are tuned to the limits of each physical unison based on their inherent physical characteristics, or limits, within that piano.

Regards, Norman

------------------------------
Norman Brickman
Potomac Piano Service
Potomac, Maryland
potomacpiano@verizon.net
https://potomacpiano.com
(301) 983.9321

Original Message:
Sent: 01-07-2024 00:54
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

I recommend you take your mic and move it to at least 10 different spots on a concert grand piano all over the soundboard, akin to the paper by Fazioli in 2017 and their contact mic experiments. Every spot is noticeably different. 

I started my music school training as a teenager by becoming a recording engineer and I put myself through music school that way. Years later I went from being a music professor to getting my advanced degrees in engineering. Of course I now have a fundamental understanding of the situation.

Without the physics training, a recording engineer will find out the hard way about small mic position changes. Now, this is so well documented in the literature, of course. Using the same mic for your ETD, and doing lots of positional changes, listen to the sound subjectively as though you are professionally recording the piano, not just using the tuning app. If the recording sounds subjectively 'good' it is probably in an ideal spot. It is 'hit and miss'. My experience with the technical analysis that I present in my classes is that small position changes will affect the tuning by 1 cent or more, worst case.

The ETD makers quietly acknowledge this problem. They don't want to expose it because it undermines their salesmanship of the app.

This problem led me to invent the PianoSens device. It is not just a 'guitar like pickup.' As an EE, I solved many problems doing this design.

I place the sensor < 1/8th string length to pick up all the partials > 8 partials, and making small movements of several centimeters in this 'region' and it has literally no discernible variance, which is loically to be expected. You can see small amplitude differences, of course, but not much. Tuning variances are now about 0.1 cents, not 1 cent. 

Steven Norsworthy

Professional Engineer, Professional Musician

RF2BITS.com

PianoSens.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101
------------------------------

As you know, years ago (I wasn't there), at a convention there was a "tune-off" comparing two identical pianos, one tuned by Jim Coleman Sr. (I believe) and Virgil Smith.  Jim was using the new Accutuner at the time, Virgil was tuning the other one by ear.  When the final vote was tallied, it was split down the middle.  We could do the same thing, if we could make the same set-up. 

The way I like to compare aural vs ETD tuning is like this.  Imagine you're drawing a graph.  Plot all the points on the graph, then draw a curve connecting the points.  Some points are not going to lie exactly on the curve, but you draw the curve as closely as possible.  Still these outlier points are there.  Tuning by ear is like plotting points, and by ETD it's drawing the curve. 

Back in the early '80's, when the Accutuner first came out, there were no app-based ETD's.  The Accutuner mimics the aural tuning technique, in that it compares one partial at a time to a generated target.  It works very well, and I used the Accutuner since I started in 1988.  Unisons done by ear of course.  The new app-based ETD's were a revolution in the tuning process because they began using computer algorithms which are able to measure many overtones at the same time, and use them all in the calculation.  The algorithms used, mostly, are called FFT's.  These allow the ETD programmer to create a user interface which makes a visual indication of where the pitch is, and where it ought to be. The result is that a much better accuracy of pitch calculation can be made which takes into account all of the available partial frequencies.  The ability to adjust octave width by octaves, or by 12ths, 19ths, or other choices, and interval spacing, can be made with accuracy within tenths of a cent.  Both aural methods and computer assisted tuning can produce excellent results.  But the level of accuracy in ETD tuning is, in my opinion, more than is possible by ear.  Like comparing something made with a CNC machine compared to making it with hand tools. 

Having said that, knowing how to check and verify the results of your machine tuning is necessary because of errors in the measurement process (using a mic vs a sensor), false beats, mismatched strings, resonances, etc.  You still have to verify and make judgments by ear, so it's not 100% fool proof on every string or unison.  If you're pleased with your aural method, makes your day more interesting and satisfying, who can argue with that?  For the record, I'm not in favor of eliminating the aural part of the RPT test. 

The following is my personal experience as a long time ETD user.  Since I started using Pianoscope, I've been able to achieve a level of accuracy better than anything I had done or used before, to the point that I can tune unisons entirely string by string with no beats.  That is not recommended by any ETD maker, of course.  All say to do unisons by ear.  The difference is in using the latest FFT's, a user interface that clearly shows the movement of the string, and a freeze function that reads the string frequency during a finite duration of time after the attack.  I wish all of the ETD's had that feature, as it is not possible to estimate exactly how much time has elapsed since the attack, and the frequency changes as time passes.  If you measure each string separately during the same time frame, you are able to tune more accurately and consistenly.  This freeze time is also adjustable.  Note that measurement is more accurate over a longer period of time, and  there is no system of measurement that can take a "snapshot" of a frequency at an instant of time.  It has to be measured over a finite period.  Tuning with Pianoscope and the sensor takes me a little longer than before because I can see the errors.  That last little effort is necessary to get as close as possible to the target within .1 cent.  Once you go down this road, you'll begin to hear unisons that are more than .2 cents off, and you'll be able to correct them without wasting time.  Like a small black spot on a white sheet, you'll hear the difference if they are off.  Please note this is my personal experience, and I'm not on anyone's payroll, nor was I given the app or the sensor.  I was involved in the evolution of the sensor with Steve Norsworthy as a beta tester, and a beta tester for PIanoscope.  I've used it on grands and uprights, the latter with some limitations of placement.  Feel free to contact me about this.

Steven, I have read some of the posts on Pianoscope and PianoSens by you, Frank, and others – commendable state-of-the-art development work, in my opinion, in a relatively short time. I tune aurally, but your work has given the visual tuner yet another good tool to use. The PianoSens does seem (to me) to add extra effort and time to perform a tuning, but it still is an interesting tool.

I have a couple comments/suggestions for you and for others who might be following the threads on Pianoscope and PianoSens.

First, I think we could really use some "single-blind" types of tests, if I am using the term correctly, with a goal of objectively comparing different approaches to tuning a piano. (Excuse me if this has already been done.) You are probably used to this type of testing from your professional and academic work. Get some objective folks to tune the same (or near-identical) pianos using both aural tuning and visual tuning, and for the visual tunings using different ETDs – and for Pianoscope, both with/without PianoSens. Maybe a piano store would volunteer their pianos after-hours, or a university music department. The results would all be judged aurally, of course, and "blindly" – by other tuner or pianist volunteers. Besides "seeing" which tuning approach is most desirable, I would be very interested for the visual tunings if the accuracy of the ETDs make a difference: 0.1 cents, 0.05 cents. 0.4 cents, 1 cent, etc.

Second, for those reading this who might be at a career point of considering using aural tuning versus visual tuning, I would like to put in a plug for aural tuning. I know that I am biased, but I have the experience (!) and I find the aural approach both interesting and enjoyable, and very accurate. Every interval you use inherently incorporates the inharmonicity of the instrument. (And with your tests you can hear all your mistakes in real time!) Dependent upon the aural tuning approach that you use (see my Web site for some charts on my approach) there can be no need to count beats, and at least for the piano industry Equal Temperament standard (12 Tone Equal Temperament based on the octave) the incorporated physics and mathematics of the coincident partials (the "beats") are simple to understand. And unisons are tuned to the limits of each physical unison based on their inherent physical characteristics, or limits, within that piano.

Regards, Norman

------------------------------
Norman Brickman
Potomac Piano Service
Potomac, Maryland
potomacpiano@verizon.net
https://potomacpiano.com
(301) 983.9321

Original Message:
Sent: 01-07-2024 00:54
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

I recommend you take your mic and move it to at least 10 different spots on a concert grand piano all over the soundboard, akin to the paper by Fazioli in 2017 and their contact mic experiments. Every spot is noticeably different. 

I started my music school training as a teenager by becoming a recording engineer and I put myself through music school that way. Years later I went from being a music professor to getting my advanced degrees in engineering. Of course I now have a fundamental understanding of the situation.

Without the physics training, a recording engineer will find out the hard way about small mic position changes. Now, this is so well documented in the literature, of course. Using the same mic for your ETD, and doing lots of positional changes, listen to the sound subjectively as though you are professionally recording the piano, not just using the tuning app. If the recording sounds subjectively 'good' it is probably in an ideal spot. It is 'hit and miss'. My experience with the technical analysis that I present in my classes is that small position changes will affect the tuning by 1 cent or more, worst case.

The ETD makers quietly acknowledge this problem. They don't want to expose it because it undermines their salesmanship of the app.

This problem led me to invent the PianoSens device. It is not just a 'guitar like pickup.' As an EE, I solved many problems doing this design.

I place the sensor < 1/8th string length to pick up all the partials > 8 partials, and making small movements of several centimeters in this 'region' and it has literally no discernible variance, which is loically to be expected. You can see small amplitude differences, of course, but not much. Tuning variances are now about 0.1 cents, not 1 cent. 

Steven Norsworthy

Professional Engineer, Professional Musician

RF2BITS.com

PianoSens.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101
------------------------------

One would hope Pianoscope and PianoSens would submit their software and hardware to PTG'sExaminations and Test Standards Committee for evaluation. If Pianoscope were to be used in testing process that would of course be necessary. Several ETDs have testing modules built in. I'd guess the folks on the committee would be quite interested in trying out the hardware.

The "gold standard" would of course continue to be a "Super Tuning" prepared by three Certified Tuning Examiners. I believe the bench mark requires 3 RPTs, one of whom is a CTE, but 3 CTEs would be ideal for evaluation.

Just my 2 cents from an RPT who has used several models of ETDs over the past 40 or so years.

As you know, years ago (I wasn't there), at a convention there was a "tune-off" comparing two identical pianos, one tuned by Jim Coleman Sr. (I believe) and Virgil Smith.  Jim was using the new Accutuner at the time, Virgil was tuning the other one by ear.  When the final vote was tallied, it was split down the middle.  We could do the same thing, if we could make the same set-up. 

The way I like to compare aural vs ETD tuning is like this.  Imagine you're drawing a graph.  Plot all the points on the graph, then draw a curve connecting the points.  Some points are not going to lie exactly on the curve, but you draw the curve as closely as possible.  Still these outlier points are there.  Tuning by ear is like plotting points, and by ETD it's drawing the curve. 

Back in the early '80's, when the Accutuner first came out, there were no app-based ETD's.  The Accutuner mimics the aural tuning technique, in that it compares one partial at a time to a generated target.  It works very well, and I used the Accutuner since I started in 1988.  Unisons done by ear of course.  The new app-based ETD's were a revolution in the tuning process because they began using computer algorithms which are able to measure many overtones at the same time, and use them all in the calculation.  The algorithms used, mostly, are called FFT's.  These allow the ETD programmer to create a user interface which makes a visual indication of where the pitch is, and where it ought to be. The result is that a much better accuracy of pitch calculation can be made which takes into account all of the available partial frequencies.  The ability to adjust octave width by octaves, or by 12ths, 19ths, or other choices, and interval spacing, can be made with accuracy within tenths of a cent.  Both aural methods and computer assisted tuning can produce excellent results.  But the level of accuracy in ETD tuning is, in my opinion, more than is possible by ear.  Like comparing something made with a CNC machine compared to making it with hand tools. 

Having said that, knowing how to check and verify the results of your machine tuning is necessary because of errors in the measurement process (using a mic vs a sensor), false beats, mismatched strings, resonances, etc.  You still have to verify and make judgments by ear, so it's not 100% fool proof on every string or unison.  If you're pleased with your aural method, makes your day more interesting and satisfying, who can argue with that?  For the record, I'm not in favor of eliminating the aural part of the RPT test. 

The following is my personal experience as a long time ETD user.  Since I started using Pianoscope, I've been able to achieve a level of accuracy better than anything I had done or used before, to the point that I can tune unisons entirely string by string with no beats.  That is not recommended by any ETD maker, of course.  All say to do unisons by ear.  The difference is in using the latest FFT's, a user interface that clearly shows the movement of the string, and a freeze function that reads the string frequency during a finite duration of time after the attack.  I wish all of the ETD's had that feature, as it is not possible to estimate exactly how much time has elapsed since the attack, and the frequency changes as time passes.  If you measure each string separately during the same time frame, you are able to tune more accurately and consistenly.  This freeze time is also adjustable.  Note that measurement is more accurate over a longer period of time, and  there is no system of measurement that can take a "snapshot" of a frequency at an instant of time.  It has to be measured over a finite period.  Tuning with Pianoscope and the sensor takes me a little longer than before because I can see the errors.  That last little effort is necessary to get as close as possible to the target within .1 cent.  Once you go down this road, you'll begin to hear unisons that are more than .2 cents off, and you'll be able to correct them without wasting time.  Like a small black spot on a white sheet, you'll hear the difference if they are off.  Please note this is my personal experience, and I'm not on anyone's payroll, nor was I given the app or the sensor.  I was involved in the evolution of the sensor with Steve Norsworthy as a beta tester, and a beta tester for PIanoscope.  I've used it on grands and uprights, the latter with some limitations of placement.  Feel free to contact me about this.

Steven, I have read some of the posts on Pianoscope and PianoSens by you, Frank, and others – commendable state-of-the-art development work, in my opinion, in a relatively short time. I tune aurally, but your work has given the visual tuner yet another good tool to use. The PianoSens does seem (to me) to add extra effort and time to perform a tuning, but it still is an interesting tool.

I have a couple comments/suggestions for you and for others who might be following the threads on Pianoscope and PianoSens.

First, I think we could really use some "single-blind" types of tests, if I am using the term correctly, with a goal of objectively comparing different approaches to tuning a piano. (Excuse me if this has already been done.) You are probably used to this type of testing from your professional and academic work. Get some objective folks to tune the same (or near-identical) pianos using both aural tuning and visual tuning, and for the visual tunings using different ETDs – and for Pianoscope, both with/without PianoSens. Maybe a piano store would volunteer their pianos after-hours, or a university music department. The results would all be judged aurally, of course, and "blindly" – by other tuner or pianist volunteers. Besides "seeing" which tuning approach is most desirable, I would be very interested for the visual tunings if the accuracy of the ETDs make a difference: 0.1 cents, 0.05 cents. 0.4 cents, 1 cent, etc.

Second, for those reading this who might be at a career point of considering using aural tuning versus visual tuning, I would like to put in a plug for aural tuning. I know that I am biased, but I have the experience (!) and I find the aural approach both interesting and enjoyable, and very accurate. Every interval you use inherently incorporates the inharmonicity of the instrument. (And with your tests you can hear all your mistakes in real time!) Dependent upon the aural tuning approach that you use (see my Web site for some charts on my approach) there can be no need to count beats, and at least for the piano industry Equal Temperament standard (12 Tone Equal Temperament based on the octave) the incorporated physics and mathematics of the coincident partials (the "beats") are simple to understand. And unisons are tuned to the limits of each physical unison based on their inherent physical characteristics, or limits, within that piano.

Regards, Norman

------------------------------
Norman Brickman
Potomac Piano Service
Potomac, Maryland
potomacpiano@verizon.net
https://potomacpiano.com
(301) 983.9321

Original Message:
Sent: 01-07-2024 00:54
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

I recommend you take your mic and move it to at least 10 different spots on a concert grand piano all over the soundboard, akin to the paper by Fazioli in 2017 and their contact mic experiments. Every spot is noticeably different. 

I started my music school training as a teenager by becoming a recording engineer and I put myself through music school that way. Years later I went from being a music professor to getting my advanced degrees in engineering. Of course I now have a fundamental understanding of the situation.

Without the physics training, a recording engineer will find out the hard way about small mic position changes. Now, this is so well documented in the literature, of course. Using the same mic for your ETD, and doing lots of positional changes, listen to the sound subjectively as though you are professionally recording the piano, not just using the tuning app. If the recording sounds subjectively 'good' it is probably in an ideal spot. It is 'hit and miss'. My experience with the technical analysis that I present in my classes is that small position changes will affect the tuning by 1 cent or more, worst case.

The ETD makers quietly acknowledge this problem. They don't want to expose it because it undermines their salesmanship of the app.

This problem led me to invent the PianoSens device. It is not just a 'guitar like pickup.' As an EE, I solved many problems doing this design.

I place the sensor < 1/8th string length to pick up all the partials > 8 partials, and making small movements of several centimeters in this 'region' and it has literally no discernible variance, which is loically to be expected. You can see small amplitude differences, of course, but not much. Tuning variances are now about 0.1 cents, not 1 cent. 

Steven Norsworthy

Professional Engineer, Professional Musician

RF2BITS.com

PianoSens.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101
------------------------------

One would hope Pianoscope and PianoSens would submit their software and hardware to PTG'sExaminations and Test Standards Committee for evaluation. If Pianoscope were to be used in testing process that would of course be necessary. Several ETDs have testing modules built in. I'd guess the folks on the committee would be quite interested in trying out the hardware.

The "gold standard" would of course continue to be a "Super Tuning" prepared by three Certified Tuning Examiners. I believe the bench mark requires 3 RPTs, one of whom is a CTE, but 3 CTEs would be ideal for evaluation.

Just my 2 cents from an RPT who has used several models of ETDs over the past 40 or so years.

------------------------------
Patrick Draine RPT
Billerica MA
(978) 663-9690

Original Message:
Sent: 01-10-2024 11:54
From: Paul McCloud
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

As you know, years ago (I wasn't there), at a convention there was a "tune-off" comparing two identical pianos, one tuned by Jim Coleman Sr. (I believe) and Virgil Smith.  Jim was using the new Accutuner at the time, Virgil was tuning the other one by ear.  When the final vote was tallied, it was split down the middle.  We could do the same thing, if we could make the same set-up. 

The way I like to compare aural vs ETD tuning is like this.  Imagine you're drawing a graph.  Plot all the points on the graph, then draw a curve connecting the points.  Some points are not going to lie exactly on the curve, but you draw the curve as closely as possible.  Still these outlier points are there.  Tuning by ear is like plotting points, and by ETD it's drawing the curve. 

Back in the early '80's, when the Accutuner first came out, there were no app-based ETD's.  The Accutuner mimics the aural tuning technique, in that it compares one partial at a time to a generated target.  It works very well, and I used the Accutuner since I started in 1988.  Unisons done by ear of course.  The new app-based ETD's were a revolution in the tuning process because they began using computer algorithms which are able to measure many overtones at the same time, and use them all in the calculation.  The algorithms used, mostly, are called FFT's.  These allow the ETD programmer to create a user interface which makes a visual indication of where the pitch is, and where it ought to be. The result is that a much better accuracy of pitch calculation can be made which takes into account all of the available partial frequencies.  The ability to adjust octave width by octaves, or by 12ths, 19ths, or other choices, and interval spacing, can be made with accuracy within tenths of a cent.  Both aural methods and computer assisted tuning can produce excellent results.  But the level of accuracy in ETD tuning is, in my opinion, more than is possible by ear.  Like comparing something made with a CNC machine compared to making it with hand tools. 

Having said that, knowing how to check and verify the results of your machine tuning is necessary because of errors in the measurement process (using a mic vs a sensor), false beats, mismatched strings, resonances, etc.  You still have to verify and make judgments by ear, so it's not 100% fool proof on every string or unison.  If you're pleased with your aural method, makes your day more interesting and satisfying, who can argue with that?  For the record, I'm not in favor of eliminating the aural part of the RPT test. 

The following is my personal experience as a long time ETD user.  Since I started using Pianoscope, I've been able to achieve a level of accuracy better than anything I had done or used before, to the point that I can tune unisons entirely string by string with no beats.  That is not recommended by any ETD maker, of course.  All say to do unisons by ear.  The difference is in using the latest FFT's, a user interface that clearly shows the movement of the string, and a freeze function that reads the string frequency during a finite duration of time after the attack.  I wish all of the ETD's had that feature, as it is not possible to estimate exactly how much time has elapsed since the attack, and the frequency changes as time passes.  If you measure each string separately during the same time frame, you are able to tune more accurately and consistenly.  This freeze time is also adjustable.  Note that measurement is more accurate over a longer period of time, and  there is no system of measurement that can take a "snapshot" of a frequency at an instant of time.  It has to be measured over a finite period.  Tuning with Pianoscope and the sensor takes me a little longer than before because I can see the errors.  That last little effort is necessary to get as close as possible to the target within .1 cent.  Once you go down this road, you'll begin to hear unisons that are more than .2 cents off, and you'll be able to correct them without wasting time.  Like a small black spot on a white sheet, you'll hear the difference if they are off.  Please note this is my personal experience, and I'm not on anyone's payroll, nor was I given the app or the sensor.  I was involved in the evolution of the sensor with Steve Norsworthy as a beta tester, and a beta tester for PIanoscope.  I've used it on grands and uprights, the latter with some limitations of placement.  Feel free to contact me about this.

------------------------------
Paul McCloud, RPT
Accutone Piano Service
www.AccutonePianoService.com
pavadasa@gmail.com

Original Message:
Sent: 01-10-2024 08:23
From: Norman Brickman
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Steven, I have read some of the posts on Pianoscope and PianoSens by you, Frank, and others – commendable state-of-the-art development work, in my opinion, in a relatively short time. I tune aurally, but your work has given the visual tuner yet another good tool to use. The PianoSens does seem (to me) to add extra effort and time to perform a tuning, but it still is an interesting tool.

I have a couple comments/suggestions for you and for others who might be following the threads on Pianoscope and PianoSens.

First, I think we could really use some "single-blind" types of tests, if I am using the term correctly, with a goal of objectively comparing different approaches to tuning a piano. (Excuse me if this has already been done.) You are probably used to this type of testing from your professional and academic work. Get some objective folks to tune the same (or near-identical) pianos using both aural tuning and visual tuning, and for the visual tunings using different ETDs – and for Pianoscope, both with/without PianoSens. Maybe a piano store would volunteer their pianos after-hours, or a university music department. The results would all be judged aurally, of course, and "blindly" – by other tuner or pianist volunteers. Besides "seeing" which tuning approach is most desirable, I would be very interested for the visual tunings if the accuracy of the ETDs make a difference: 0.1 cents, 0.05 cents. 0.4 cents, 1 cent, etc.

Second, for those reading this who might be at a career point of considering using aural tuning versus visual tuning, I would like to put in a plug for aural tuning. I know that I am biased, but I have the experience (!) and I find the aural approach both interesting and enjoyable, and very accurate. Every interval you use inherently incorporates the inharmonicity of the instrument. (And with your tests you can hear all your mistakes in real time!) Dependent upon the aural tuning approach that you use (see my Web site for some charts on my approach) there can be no need to count beats, and at least for the piano industry Equal Temperament standard (12 Tone Equal Temperament based on the octave) the incorporated physics and mathematics of the coincident partials (the "beats") are simple to understand. And unisons are tuned to the limits of each physical unison based on their inherent physical characteristics, or limits, within that piano.

Regards, Norman

------------------------------
Norman Brickman
Potomac Piano Service
Potomac, Maryland
potomacpiano@verizon.net
https://potomacpiano.com
(301) 983.9321

Original Message:
Sent: 01-07-2024 00:54
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

I recommend you take your mic and move it to at least 10 different spots on a concert grand piano all over the soundboard, akin to the paper by Fazioli in 2017 and their contact mic experiments. Every spot is noticeably different. 

I started my music school training as a teenager by becoming a recording engineer and I put myself through music school that way. Years later I went from being a music professor to getting my advanced degrees in engineering. Of course I now have a fundamental understanding of the situation.

Without the physics training, a recording engineer will find out the hard way about small mic position changes. Now, this is so well documented in the literature, of course. Using the same mic for your ETD, and doing lots of positional changes, listen to the sound subjectively as though you are professionally recording the piano, not just using the tuning app. If the recording sounds subjectively 'good' it is probably in an ideal spot. It is 'hit and miss'. My experience with the technical analysis that I present in my classes is that small position changes will affect the tuning by 1 cent or more, worst case.

The ETD makers quietly acknowledge this problem. They don't want to expose it because it undermines their salesmanship of the app.

This problem led me to invent the PianoSens device. It is not just a 'guitar like pickup.' As an EE, I solved many problems doing this design.

I place the sensor < 1/8th string length to pick up all the partials > 8 partials, and making small movements of several centimeters in this 'region' and it has literally no discernible variance, which is loically to be expected. You can see small amplitude differences, of course, but not much. Tuning variances are now about 0.1 cents, not 1 cent. 

Steven Norsworthy

Professional Engineer, Professional Musician

RF2BITS.com

PianoSens.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101
------------------------------

Patrick, FYI (and consistent with Paul's comment), I would think that administering the PTG tuning exam for RPT's has gotten tougher lately. As I mentioned to Jason Kanter in his recent post here on Tuning Modules, the PTG Education Hub along with Jason in his post now seem to be tolerant of (a) perfect fourths, and/or (b) perfect fifths, and/or (c) perfect twelfths, along with the usual (d) perfect octaves. The existence of any of the first 3 cases means the tuning candidate is not tuning in the industry standard (12 TET based on the octave -- Equal Temperament) and will *not* have perfect octaves. That has to give more of a challenge to the test administrators! Regards, Norman.

------------------------------
Norman Brickman
Potomac Piano Service
Potomac, Maryland
potomacpiano@verizon.net
https://potomacpiano.com
(301) 983.9321

Original Message:
Sent: 01-10-2024 13:56
From: Patrick Draine
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

One would hope Pianoscope and PianoSens would submit their software and hardware to PTG'sExaminations and Test Standards Committee for evaluation. If Pianoscope were to be used in testing process that would of course be necessary. Several ETDs have testing modules built in. I'd guess the folks on the committee would be quite interested in trying out the hardware.

The "gold standard" would of course continue to be a "Super Tuning" prepared by three Certified Tuning Examiners. I believe the bench mark requires 3 RPTs, one of whom is a CTE, but 3 CTEs would be ideal for evaluation.

Just my 2 cents from an RPT who has used several models of ETDs over the past 40 or so years.

------------------------------
Patrick Draine RPT
Billerica MA
(978) 663-9690

Original Message:
Sent: 01-10-2024 11:54
From: Paul McCloud
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

As you know, years ago (I wasn't there), at a convention there was a "tune-off" comparing two identical pianos, one tuned by Jim Coleman Sr. (I believe) and Virgil Smith.  Jim was using the new Accutuner at the time, Virgil was tuning the other one by ear.  When the final vote was tallied, it was split down the middle.  We could do the same thing, if we could make the same set-up. 

The way I like to compare aural vs ETD tuning is like this.  Imagine you're drawing a graph.  Plot all the points on the graph, then draw a curve connecting the points.  Some points are not going to lie exactly on the curve, but you draw the curve as closely as possible.  Still these outlier points are there.  Tuning by ear is like plotting points, and by ETD it's drawing the curve. 

Back in the early '80's, when the Accutuner first came out, there were no app-based ETD's.  The Accutuner mimics the aural tuning technique, in that it compares one partial at a time to a generated target.  It works very well, and I used the Accutuner since I started in 1988.  Unisons done by ear of course.  The new app-based ETD's were a revolution in the tuning process because they began using computer algorithms which are able to measure many overtones at the same time, and use them all in the calculation.  The algorithms used, mostly, are called FFT's.  These allow the ETD programmer to create a user interface which makes a visual indication of where the pitch is, and where it ought to be. The result is that a much better accuracy of pitch calculation can be made which takes into account all of the available partial frequencies.  The ability to adjust octave width by octaves, or by 12ths, 19ths, or other choices, and interval spacing, can be made with accuracy within tenths of a cent.  Both aural methods and computer assisted tuning can produce excellent results.  But the level of accuracy in ETD tuning is, in my opinion, more than is possible by ear.  Like comparing something made with a CNC machine compared to making it with hand tools. 

Having said that, knowing how to check and verify the results of your machine tuning is necessary because of errors in the measurement process (using a mic vs a sensor), false beats, mismatched strings, resonances, etc.  You still have to verify and make judgments by ear, so it's not 100% fool proof on every string or unison.  If you're pleased with your aural method, makes your day more interesting and satisfying, who can argue with that?  For the record, I'm not in favor of eliminating the aural part of the RPT test. 

The following is my personal experience as a long time ETD user.  Since I started using Pianoscope, I've been able to achieve a level of accuracy better than anything I had done or used before, to the point that I can tune unisons entirely string by string with no beats.  That is not recommended by any ETD maker, of course.  All say to do unisons by ear.  The difference is in using the latest FFT's, a user interface that clearly shows the movement of the string, and a freeze function that reads the string frequency during a finite duration of time after the attack.  I wish all of the ETD's had that feature, as it is not possible to estimate exactly how much time has elapsed since the attack, and the frequency changes as time passes.  If you measure each string separately during the same time frame, you are able to tune more accurately and consistenly.  This freeze time is also adjustable.  Note that measurement is more accurate over a longer period of time, and  there is no system of measurement that can take a "snapshot" of a frequency at an instant of time.  It has to be measured over a finite period.  Tuning with Pianoscope and the sensor takes me a little longer than before because I can see the errors.  That last little effort is necessary to get as close as possible to the target within .1 cent.  Once you go down this road, you'll begin to hear unisons that are more than .2 cents off, and you'll be able to correct them without wasting time.  Like a small black spot on a white sheet, you'll hear the difference if they are off.  Please note this is my personal experience, and I'm not on anyone's payroll, nor was I given the app or the sensor.  I was involved in the evolution of the sensor with Steve Norsworthy as a beta tester, and a beta tester for PIanoscope.  I've used it on grands and uprights, the latter with some limitations of placement.  Feel free to contact me about this.

------------------------------
Paul McCloud, RPT
Accutone Piano Service
www.AccutonePianoService.com
pavadasa@gmail.com

Original Message:
Sent: 01-10-2024 08:23
From: Norman Brickman
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Steven, I have read some of the posts on Pianoscope and PianoSens by you, Frank, and others – commendable state-of-the-art development work, in my opinion, in a relatively short time. I tune aurally, but your work has given the visual tuner yet another good tool to use. The PianoSens does seem (to me) to add extra effort and time to perform a tuning, but it still is an interesting tool.

I have a couple comments/suggestions for you and for others who might be following the threads on Pianoscope and PianoSens.

First, I think we could really use some "single-blind" types of tests, if I am using the term correctly, with a goal of objectively comparing different approaches to tuning a piano. (Excuse me if this has already been done.) You are probably used to this type of testing from your professional and academic work. Get some objective folks to tune the same (or near-identical) pianos using both aural tuning and visual tuning, and for the visual tunings using different ETDs – and for Pianoscope, both with/without PianoSens. Maybe a piano store would volunteer their pianos after-hours, or a university music department. The results would all be judged aurally, of course, and "blindly" – by other tuner or pianist volunteers. Besides "seeing" which tuning approach is most desirable, I would be very interested for the visual tunings if the accuracy of the ETDs make a difference: 0.1 cents, 0.05 cents. 0.4 cents, 1 cent, etc.

Second, for those reading this who might be at a career point of considering using aural tuning versus visual tuning, I would like to put in a plug for aural tuning. I know that I am biased, but I have the experience (!) and I find the aural approach both interesting and enjoyable, and very accurate. Every interval you use inherently incorporates the inharmonicity of the instrument. (And with your tests you can hear all your mistakes in real time!) Dependent upon the aural tuning approach that you use (see my Web site for some charts on my approach) there can be no need to count beats, and at least for the piano industry Equal Temperament standard (12 Tone Equal Temperament based on the octave) the incorporated physics and mathematics of the coincident partials (the "beats") are simple to understand. And unisons are tuned to the limits of each physical unison based on their inherent physical characteristics, or limits, within that piano.

Regards, Norman

------------------------------
Norman Brickman
Potomac Piano Service
Potomac, Maryland
potomacpiano@verizon.net
https://potomacpiano.com
(301) 983.9321

Original Message:
Sent: 01-07-2024 00:54
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

I recommend you take your mic and move it to at least 10 different spots on a concert grand piano all over the soundboard, akin to the paper by Fazioli in 2017 and their contact mic experiments. Every spot is noticeably different. 

I started my music school training as a teenager by becoming a recording engineer and I put myself through music school that way. Years later I went from being a music professor to getting my advanced degrees in engineering. Of course I now have a fundamental understanding of the situation.

Without the physics training, a recording engineer will find out the hard way about small mic position changes. Now, this is so well documented in the literature, of course. Using the same mic for your ETD, and doing lots of positional changes, listen to the sound subjectively as though you are professionally recording the piano, not just using the tuning app. If the recording sounds subjectively 'good' it is probably in an ideal spot. It is 'hit and miss'. My experience with the technical analysis that I present in my classes is that small position changes will affect the tuning by 1 cent or more, worst case.

The ETD makers quietly acknowledge this problem. They don't want to expose it because it undermines their salesmanship of the app.

This problem led me to invent the PianoSens device. It is not just a 'guitar like pickup.' As an EE, I solved many problems doing this design.

I place the sensor < 1/8th string length to pick up all the partials > 8 partials, and making small movements of several centimeters in this 'region' and it has literally no discernible variance, which is loically to be expected. You can see small amplitude differences, of course, but not much. Tuning variances are now about 0.1 cents, not 1 cent. 

Steven Norsworthy

Professional Engineer, Professional Musician

RF2BITS.com

PianoSens.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101
------------------------------

Paul, thanks for the update on the aural versus visual "tune-off" – sounds like from the 80's or early 90's. I think we need a new tune-off due to people like me thinking that precise ETD accuracy numbers given out, like 0.1 cents, are not significant. I think for all intents and purposes we might just as well assume zero ETD error, since there will still be plenty of challenges to keep the tuner busy, like pin twist, bending pins, bearing friction points, plate shift from tuning adjacent notes, string stretch, tight or jumpy pins, physical unison imperfections, etc.

With a new tune-off I suspect that qualified visual tunings using latest-generation ETD's versus qualified aural tunings will still come out as equally desirable. Both approaches will encounter the same problem areas such as the scale of a particular piano and the various tuning challenges I mentioned that tax a tuner. No magic bullets in my opinion.

If Pianoscope and PianoSens folks think their product produces superior results, it would be great if they would sponsor the new tune-off. Regards, Norman

Patrick, FYI (and consistent with Paul's comment), I would think that administering the PTG tuning exam for RPT's has gotten tougher lately. As I mentioned to Jason Kanter in his recent post here on Tuning Modules, the PTG Education Hub along with Jason in his post now seem to be tolerant of (a) perfect fourths, and/or (b) perfect fifths, and/or (c) perfect twelfths, along with the usual (d) perfect octaves. The existence of any of the first 3 cases means the tuning candidate is not tuning in the industry standard (12 TET based on the octave -- Equal Temperament) and will *not* have perfect octaves. That has to give more of a challenge to the test administrators! Regards, Norman.

------------------------------
Norman Brickman
Potomac Piano Service
Potomac, Maryland
potomacpiano@verizon.net
https://potomacpiano.com
(301) 983.9321

Original Message:
Sent: 01-10-2024 13:56
From: Patrick Draine
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

One would hope Pianoscope and PianoSens would submit their software and hardware to PTG'sExaminations and Test Standards Committee for evaluation. If Pianoscope were to be used in testing process that would of course be necessary. Several ETDs have testing modules built in. I'd guess the folks on the committee would be quite interested in trying out the hardware.

The "gold standard" would of course continue to be a "Super Tuning" prepared by three Certified Tuning Examiners. I believe the bench mark requires 3 RPTs, one of whom is a CTE, but 3 CTEs would be ideal for evaluation.

Just my 2 cents from an RPT who has used several models of ETDs over the past 40 or so years.

------------------------------
Patrick Draine RPT
Billerica MA
(978) 663-9690

Original Message:
Sent: 01-10-2024 11:54
From: Paul McCloud
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

As you know, years ago (I wasn't there), at a convention there was a "tune-off" comparing two identical pianos, one tuned by Jim Coleman Sr. (I believe) and Virgil Smith.  Jim was using the new Accutuner at the time, Virgil was tuning the other one by ear.  When the final vote was tallied, it was split down the middle.  We could do the same thing, if we could make the same set-up. 

The way I like to compare aural vs ETD tuning is like this.  Imagine you're drawing a graph.  Plot all the points on the graph, then draw a curve connecting the points.  Some points are not going to lie exactly on the curve, but you draw the curve as closely as possible.  Still these outlier points are there.  Tuning by ear is like plotting points, and by ETD it's drawing the curve. 

Back in the early '80's, when the Accutuner first came out, there were no app-based ETD's.  The Accutuner mimics the aural tuning technique, in that it compares one partial at a time to a generated target.  It works very well, and I used the Accutuner since I started in 1988.  Unisons done by ear of course.  The new app-based ETD's were a revolution in the tuning process because they began using computer algorithms which are able to measure many overtones at the same time, and use them all in the calculation.  The algorithms used, mostly, are called FFT's.  These allow the ETD programmer to create a user interface which makes a visual indication of where the pitch is, and where it ought to be. The result is that a much better accuracy of pitch calculation can be made which takes into account all of the available partial frequencies.  The ability to adjust octave width by octaves, or by 12ths, 19ths, or other choices, and interval spacing, can be made with accuracy within tenths of a cent.  Both aural methods and computer assisted tuning can produce excellent results.  But the level of accuracy in ETD tuning is, in my opinion, more than is possible by ear.  Like comparing something made with a CNC machine compared to making it with hand tools. 

Having said that, knowing how to check and verify the results of your machine tuning is necessary because of errors in the measurement process (using a mic vs a sensor), false beats, mismatched strings, resonances, etc.  You still have to verify and make judgments by ear, so it's not 100% fool proof on every string or unison.  If you're pleased with your aural method, makes your day more interesting and satisfying, who can argue with that?  For the record, I'm not in favor of eliminating the aural part of the RPT test. 

The following is my personal experience as a long time ETD user.  Since I started using Pianoscope, I've been able to achieve a level of accuracy better than anything I had done or used before, to the point that I can tune unisons entirely string by string with no beats.  That is not recommended by any ETD maker, of course.  All say to do unisons by ear.  The difference is in using the latest FFT's, a user interface that clearly shows the movement of the string, and a freeze function that reads the string frequency during a finite duration of time after the attack.  I wish all of the ETD's had that feature, as it is not possible to estimate exactly how much time has elapsed since the attack, and the frequency changes as time passes.  If you measure each string separately during the same time frame, you are able to tune more accurately and consistenly.  This freeze time is also adjustable.  Note that measurement is more accurate over a longer period of time, and  there is no system of measurement that can take a "snapshot" of a frequency at an instant of time.  It has to be measured over a finite period.  Tuning with Pianoscope and the sensor takes me a little longer than before because I can see the errors.  That last little effort is necessary to get as close as possible to the target within .1 cent.  Once you go down this road, you'll begin to hear unisons that are more than .2 cents off, and you'll be able to correct them without wasting time.  Like a small black spot on a white sheet, you'll hear the difference if they are off.  Please note this is my personal experience, and I'm not on anyone's payroll, nor was I given the app or the sensor.  I was involved in the evolution of the sensor with Steve Norsworthy as a beta tester, and a beta tester for PIanoscope.  I've used it on grands and uprights, the latter with some limitations of placement.  Feel free to contact me about this.

------------------------------
Paul McCloud, RPT
Accutone Piano Service
www.AccutonePianoService.com
pavadasa@gmail.com

Original Message:
Sent: 01-10-2024 08:23
From: Norman Brickman
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Steven, I have read some of the posts on Pianoscope and PianoSens by you, Frank, and others – commendable state-of-the-art development work, in my opinion, in a relatively short time. I tune aurally, but your work has given the visual tuner yet another good tool to use. The PianoSens does seem (to me) to add extra effort and time to perform a tuning, but it still is an interesting tool.

I have a couple comments/suggestions for you and for others who might be following the threads on Pianoscope and PianoSens.

First, I think we could really use some "single-blind" types of tests, if I am using the term correctly, with a goal of objectively comparing different approaches to tuning a piano. (Excuse me if this has already been done.) You are probably used to this type of testing from your professional and academic work. Get some objective folks to tune the same (or near-identical) pianos using both aural tuning and visual tuning, and for the visual tunings using different ETDs – and for Pianoscope, both with/without PianoSens. Maybe a piano store would volunteer their pianos after-hours, or a university music department. The results would all be judged aurally, of course, and "blindly" – by other tuner or pianist volunteers. Besides "seeing" which tuning approach is most desirable, I would be very interested for the visual tunings if the accuracy of the ETDs make a difference: 0.1 cents, 0.05 cents. 0.4 cents, 1 cent, etc.

Second, for those reading this who might be at a career point of considering using aural tuning versus visual tuning, I would like to put in a plug for aural tuning. I know that I am biased, but I have the experience (!) and I find the aural approach both interesting and enjoyable, and very accurate. Every interval you use inherently incorporates the inharmonicity of the instrument. (And with your tests you can hear all your mistakes in real time!) Dependent upon the aural tuning approach that you use (see my Web site for some charts on my approach) there can be no need to count beats, and at least for the piano industry Equal Temperament standard (12 Tone Equal Temperament based on the octave) the incorporated physics and mathematics of the coincident partials (the "beats") are simple to understand. And unisons are tuned to the limits of each physical unison based on their inherent physical characteristics, or limits, within that piano.

Regards, Norman

------------------------------
Norman Brickman
Potomac Piano Service
Potomac, Maryland
potomacpiano@verizon.net
https://potomacpiano.com
(301) 983.9321

Original Message:
Sent: 01-07-2024 00:54
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

I recommend you take your mic and move it to at least 10 different spots on a concert grand piano all over the soundboard, akin to the paper by Fazioli in 2017 and their contact mic experiments. Every spot is noticeably different. 

I started my music school training as a teenager by becoming a recording engineer and I put myself through music school that way. Years later I went from being a music professor to getting my advanced degrees in engineering. Of course I now have a fundamental understanding of the situation.

Without the physics training, a recording engineer will find out the hard way about small mic position changes. Now, this is so well documented in the literature, of course. Using the same mic for your ETD, and doing lots of positional changes, listen to the sound subjectively as though you are professionally recording the piano, not just using the tuning app. If the recording sounds subjectively 'good' it is probably in an ideal spot. It is 'hit and miss'. My experience with the technical analysis that I present in my classes is that small position changes will affect the tuning by 1 cent or more, worst case.

The ETD makers quietly acknowledge this problem. They don't want to expose it because it undermines their salesmanship of the app.

This problem led me to invent the PianoSens device. It is not just a 'guitar like pickup.' As an EE, I solved many problems doing this design.

I place the sensor < 1/8th string length to pick up all the partials > 8 partials, and making small movements of several centimeters in this 'region' and it has literally no discernible variance, which is loically to be expected. You can see small amplitude differences, of course, but not much. Tuning variances are now about 0.1 cents, not 1 cent. 

Steven Norsworthy

Professional Engineer, Professional Musician

RF2BITS.com

PianoSens.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101
------------------------------

Paul, thanks for the update on the aural versus visual "tune-off" – sounds like from the 80's or early 90's. I think we need a new tune-off due to people like me thinking that precise ETD accuracy numbers given out, like 0.1 cents, are not significant. I think for all intents and purposes we might just as well assume zero ETD error, since there will still be plenty of challenges to keep the tuner busy, like pin twist, bending pins, bearing friction points, plate shift from tuning adjacent notes, string stretch, tight or jumpy pins, physical unison imperfections, etc.

With a new tune-off I suspect that qualified visual tunings using latest-generation ETD's versus qualified aural tunings will still come out as equally desirable. Both approaches will encounter the same problem areas such as the scale of a particular piano and the various tuning challenges I mentioned that tax a tuner. No magic bullets in my opinion.

If Pianoscope and PianoSens folks think their product produces superior results, it would be great if they would sponsor the new tune-off. Regards, Norman

Patrick, FYI (and consistent with Paul's comment), I would think that administering the PTG tuning exam for RPT's has gotten tougher lately. As I mentioned to Jason Kanter in his recent post here on Tuning Modules, the PTG Education Hub along with Jason in his post now seem to be tolerant of (a) perfect fourths, and/or (b) perfect fifths, and/or (c) perfect twelfths, along with the usual (d) perfect octaves. The existence of any of the first 3 cases means the tuning candidate is not tuning in the industry standard (12 TET based on the octave -- Equal Temperament) and will *not* have perfect octaves. That has to give more of a challenge to the test administrators! Regards, Norman.

------------------------------
Norman Brickman
Potomac Piano Service
Potomac, Maryland
potomacpiano@verizon.net
https://potomacpiano.com
(301) 983.9321

Original Message:
Sent: 01-10-2024 13:56
From: Patrick Draine
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

One would hope Pianoscope and PianoSens would submit their software and hardware to PTG'sExaminations and Test Standards Committee for evaluation. If Pianoscope were to be used in testing process that would of course be necessary. Several ETDs have testing modules built in. I'd guess the folks on the committee would be quite interested in trying out the hardware.

The "gold standard" would of course continue to be a "Super Tuning" prepared by three Certified Tuning Examiners. I believe the bench mark requires 3 RPTs, one of whom is a CTE, but 3 CTEs would be ideal for evaluation.

Just my 2 cents from an RPT who has used several models of ETDs over the past 40 or so years.

------------------------------
Patrick Draine RPT
Billerica MA
(978) 663-9690

Original Message:
Sent: 01-10-2024 11:54
From: Paul McCloud
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

As you know, years ago (I wasn't there), at a convention there was a "tune-off" comparing two identical pianos, one tuned by Jim Coleman Sr. (I believe) and Virgil Smith.  Jim was using the new Accutuner at the time, Virgil was tuning the other one by ear.  When the final vote was tallied, it was split down the middle.  We could do the same thing, if we could make the same set-up. 

The way I like to compare aural vs ETD tuning is like this.  Imagine you're drawing a graph.  Plot all the points on the graph, then draw a curve connecting the points.  Some points are not going to lie exactly on the curve, but you draw the curve as closely as possible.  Still these outlier points are there.  Tuning by ear is like plotting points, and by ETD it's drawing the curve. 

Back in the early '80's, when the Accutuner first came out, there were no app-based ETD's.  The Accutuner mimics the aural tuning technique, in that it compares one partial at a time to a generated target.  It works very well, and I used the Accutuner since I started in 1988.  Unisons done by ear of course.  The new app-based ETD's were a revolution in the tuning process because they began using computer algorithms which are able to measure many overtones at the same time, and use them all in the calculation.  The algorithms used, mostly, are called FFT's.  These allow the ETD programmer to create a user interface which makes a visual indication of where the pitch is, and where it ought to be. The result is that a much better accuracy of pitch calculation can be made which takes into account all of the available partial frequencies.  The ability to adjust octave width by octaves, or by 12ths, 19ths, or other choices, and interval spacing, can be made with accuracy within tenths of a cent.  Both aural methods and computer assisted tuning can produce excellent results.  But the level of accuracy in ETD tuning is, in my opinion, more than is possible by ear.  Like comparing something made with a CNC machine compared to making it with hand tools. 

Having said that, knowing how to check and verify the results of your machine tuning is necessary because of errors in the measurement process (using a mic vs a sensor), false beats, mismatched strings, resonances, etc.  You still have to verify and make judgments by ear, so it's not 100% fool proof on every string or unison.  If you're pleased with your aural method, makes your day more interesting and satisfying, who can argue with that?  For the record, I'm not in favor of eliminating the aural part of the RPT test. 

The following is my personal experience as a long time ETD user.  Since I started using Pianoscope, I've been able to achieve a level of accuracy better than anything I had done or used before, to the point that I can tune unisons entirely string by string with no beats.  That is not recommended by any ETD maker, of course.  All say to do unisons by ear.  The difference is in using the latest FFT's, a user interface that clearly shows the movement of the string, and a freeze function that reads the string frequency during a finite duration of time after the attack.  I wish all of the ETD's had that feature, as it is not possible to estimate exactly how much time has elapsed since the attack, and the frequency changes as time passes.  If you measure each string separately during the same time frame, you are able to tune more accurately and consistenly.  This freeze time is also adjustable.  Note that measurement is more accurate over a longer period of time, and  there is no system of measurement that can take a "snapshot" of a frequency at an instant of time.  It has to be measured over a finite period.  Tuning with Pianoscope and the sensor takes me a little longer than before because I can see the errors.  That last little effort is necessary to get as close as possible to the target within .1 cent.  Once you go down this road, you'll begin to hear unisons that are more than .2 cents off, and you'll be able to correct them without wasting time.  Like a small black spot on a white sheet, you'll hear the difference if they are off.  Please note this is my personal experience, and I'm not on anyone's payroll, nor was I given the app or the sensor.  I was involved in the evolution of the sensor with Steve Norsworthy as a beta tester, and a beta tester for PIanoscope.  I've used it on grands and uprights, the latter with some limitations of placement.  Feel free to contact me about this.

------------------------------
Paul McCloud, RPT
Accutone Piano Service
www.AccutonePianoService.com
pavadasa@gmail.com

Original Message:
Sent: 01-10-2024 08:23
From: Norman Brickman
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Steven, I have read some of the posts on Pianoscope and PianoSens by you, Frank, and others – commendable state-of-the-art development work, in my opinion, in a relatively short time. I tune aurally, but your work has given the visual tuner yet another good tool to use. The PianoSens does seem (to me) to add extra effort and time to perform a tuning, but it still is an interesting tool.

I have a couple comments/suggestions for you and for others who might be following the threads on Pianoscope and PianoSens.

First, I think we could really use some "single-blind" types of tests, if I am using the term correctly, with a goal of objectively comparing different approaches to tuning a piano. (Excuse me if this has already been done.) You are probably used to this type of testing from your professional and academic work. Get some objective folks to tune the same (or near-identical) pianos using both aural tuning and visual tuning, and for the visual tunings using different ETDs – and for Pianoscope, both with/without PianoSens. Maybe a piano store would volunteer their pianos after-hours, or a university music department. The results would all be judged aurally, of course, and "blindly" – by other tuner or pianist volunteers. Besides "seeing" which tuning approach is most desirable, I would be very interested for the visual tunings if the accuracy of the ETDs make a difference: 0.1 cents, 0.05 cents. 0.4 cents, 1 cent, etc.

Second, for those reading this who might be at a career point of considering using aural tuning versus visual tuning, I would like to put in a plug for aural tuning. I know that I am biased, but I have the experience (!) and I find the aural approach both interesting and enjoyable, and very accurate. Every interval you use inherently incorporates the inharmonicity of the instrument. (And with your tests you can hear all your mistakes in real time!) Dependent upon the aural tuning approach that you use (see my Web site for some charts on my approach) there can be no need to count beats, and at least for the piano industry Equal Temperament standard (12 Tone Equal Temperament based on the octave) the incorporated physics and mathematics of the coincident partials (the "beats") are simple to understand. And unisons are tuned to the limits of each physical unison based on their inherent physical characteristics, or limits, within that piano.

Regards, Norman

------------------------------
Norman Brickman
Potomac Piano Service
Potomac, Maryland
potomacpiano@verizon.net
https://potomacpiano.com
(301) 983.9321

Original Message:
Sent: 01-07-2024 00:54
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

I recommend you take your mic and move it to at least 10 different spots on a concert grand piano all over the soundboard, akin to the paper by Fazioli in 2017 and their contact mic experiments. Every spot is noticeably different. 

I started my music school training as a teenager by becoming a recording engineer and I put myself through music school that way. Years later I went from being a music professor to getting my advanced degrees in engineering. Of course I now have a fundamental understanding of the situation.

Without the physics training, a recording engineer will find out the hard way about small mic position changes. Now, this is so well documented in the literature, of course. Using the same mic for your ETD, and doing lots of positional changes, listen to the sound subjectively as though you are professionally recording the piano, not just using the tuning app. If the recording sounds subjectively 'good' it is probably in an ideal spot. It is 'hit and miss'. My experience with the technical analysis that I present in my classes is that small position changes will affect the tuning by 1 cent or more, worst case.

The ETD makers quietly acknowledge this problem. They don't want to expose it because it undermines their salesmanship of the app.

This problem led me to invent the PianoSens device. It is not just a 'guitar like pickup.' As an EE, I solved many problems doing this design.

I place the sensor < 1/8th string length to pick up all the partials > 8 partials, and making small movements of several centimeters in this 'region' and it has literally no discernible variance, which is loically to be expected. You can see small amplitude differences, of course, but not much. Tuning variances are now about 0.1 cents, not 1 cent. 

Steven Norsworthy

Professional Engineer, Professional Musician

RF2BITS.com

PianoSens.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101
------------------------------

Paul, thanks for the update on the aural versus visual "tune-off" – sounds like from the 80's or early 90's. I think we need a new tune-off due to people like me thinking that precise ETD accuracy numbers given out, like 0.1 cents, are not significant. I think for all intents and purposes we might just as well assume zero ETD error, since there will still be plenty of challenges to keep the tuner busy, like pin twist, bending pins, bearing friction points, plate shift from tuning adjacent notes, string stretch, tight or jumpy pins, physical unison imperfections, etc.

With a new tune-off I suspect that qualified visual tunings using latest-generation ETD's versus qualified aural tunings will still come out as equally desirable. Both approaches will encounter the same problem areas such as the scale of a particular piano and the various tuning challenges I mentioned that tax a tuner. No magic bullets in my opinion.

If Pianoscope and PianoSens folks think their product produces superior results, it would be great if they would sponsor the new tune-off. Regards, Norman

Patrick, FYI (and consistent with Paul's comment), I would think that administering the PTG tuning exam for RPT's has gotten tougher lately. As I mentioned to Jason Kanter in his recent post here on Tuning Modules, the PTG Education Hub along with Jason in his post now seem to be tolerant of (a) perfect fourths, and/or (b) perfect fifths, and/or (c) perfect twelfths, along with the usual (d) perfect octaves. The existence of any of the first 3 cases means the tuning candidate is not tuning in the industry standard (12 TET based on the octave -- Equal Temperament) and will *not* have perfect octaves. That has to give more of a challenge to the test administrators! Regards, Norman.

------------------------------
Norman Brickman
Potomac Piano Service
Potomac, Maryland
potomacpiano@verizon.net
https://potomacpiano.com
(301) 983.9321

Original Message:
Sent: 01-10-2024 13:56
From: Patrick Draine
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

One would hope Pianoscope and PianoSens would submit their software and hardware to PTG'sExaminations and Test Standards Committee for evaluation. If Pianoscope were to be used in testing process that would of course be necessary. Several ETDs have testing modules built in. I'd guess the folks on the committee would be quite interested in trying out the hardware.

The "gold standard" would of course continue to be a "Super Tuning" prepared by three Certified Tuning Examiners. I believe the bench mark requires 3 RPTs, one of whom is a CTE, but 3 CTEs would be ideal for evaluation.

Just my 2 cents from an RPT who has used several models of ETDs over the past 40 or so years.

------------------------------
Patrick Draine RPT
Billerica MA
(978) 663-9690

Original Message:
Sent: 01-10-2024 11:54
From: Paul McCloud
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

As you know, years ago (I wasn't there), at a convention there was a "tune-off" comparing two identical pianos, one tuned by Jim Coleman Sr. (I believe) and Virgil Smith.  Jim was using the new Accutuner at the time, Virgil was tuning the other one by ear.  When the final vote was tallied, it was split down the middle.  We could do the same thing, if we could make the same set-up. 

The way I like to compare aural vs ETD tuning is like this.  Imagine you're drawing a graph.  Plot all the points on the graph, then draw a curve connecting the points.  Some points are not going to lie exactly on the curve, but you draw the curve as closely as possible.  Still these outlier points are there.  Tuning by ear is like plotting points, and by ETD it's drawing the curve. 

Back in the early '80's, when the Accutuner first came out, there were no app-based ETD's.  The Accutuner mimics the aural tuning technique, in that it compares one partial at a time to a generated target.  It works very well, and I used the Accutuner since I started in 1988.  Unisons done by ear of course.  The new app-based ETD's were a revolution in the tuning process because they began using computer algorithms which are able to measure many overtones at the same time, and use them all in the calculation.  The algorithms used, mostly, are called FFT's.  These allow the ETD programmer to create a user interface which makes a visual indication of where the pitch is, and where it ought to be. The result is that a much better accuracy of pitch calculation can be made which takes into account all of the available partial frequencies.  The ability to adjust octave width by octaves, or by 12ths, 19ths, or other choices, and interval spacing, can be made with accuracy within tenths of a cent.  Both aural methods and computer assisted tuning can produce excellent results.  But the level of accuracy in ETD tuning is, in my opinion, more than is possible by ear.  Like comparing something made with a CNC machine compared to making it with hand tools. 

Having said that, knowing how to check and verify the results of your machine tuning is necessary because of errors in the measurement process (using a mic vs a sensor), false beats, mismatched strings, resonances, etc.  You still have to verify and make judgments by ear, so it's not 100% fool proof on every string or unison.  If you're pleased with your aural method, makes your day more interesting and satisfying, who can argue with that?  For the record, I'm not in favor of eliminating the aural part of the RPT test. 

The following is my personal experience as a long time ETD user.  Since I started using Pianoscope, I've been able to achieve a level of accuracy better than anything I had done or used before, to the point that I can tune unisons entirely string by string with no beats.  That is not recommended by any ETD maker, of course.  All say to do unisons by ear.  The difference is in using the latest FFT's, a user interface that clearly shows the movement of the string, and a freeze function that reads the string frequency during a finite duration of time after the attack.  I wish all of the ETD's had that feature, as it is not possible to estimate exactly how much time has elapsed since the attack, and the frequency changes as time passes.  If you measure each string separately during the same time frame, you are able to tune more accurately and consistenly.  This freeze time is also adjustable.  Note that measurement is more accurate over a longer period of time, and  there is no system of measurement that can take a "snapshot" of a frequency at an instant of time.  It has to be measured over a finite period.  Tuning with Pianoscope and the sensor takes me a little longer than before because I can see the errors.  That last little effort is necessary to get as close as possible to the target within .1 cent.  Once you go down this road, you'll begin to hear unisons that are more than .2 cents off, and you'll be able to correct them without wasting time.  Like a small black spot on a white sheet, you'll hear the difference if they are off.  Please note this is my personal experience, and I'm not on anyone's payroll, nor was I given the app or the sensor.  I was involved in the evolution of the sensor with Steve Norsworthy as a beta tester, and a beta tester for PIanoscope.  I've used it on grands and uprights, the latter with some limitations of placement.  Feel free to contact me about this.

------------------------------
Paul McCloud, RPT
Accutone Piano Service
www.AccutonePianoService.com
pavadasa@gmail.com

Original Message:
Sent: 01-10-2024 08:23
From: Norman Brickman
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Steven, I have read some of the posts on Pianoscope and PianoSens by you, Frank, and others – commendable state-of-the-art development work, in my opinion, in a relatively short time. I tune aurally, but your work has given the visual tuner yet another good tool to use. The PianoSens does seem (to me) to add extra effort and time to perform a tuning, but it still is an interesting tool.

I have a couple comments/suggestions for you and for others who might be following the threads on Pianoscope and PianoSens.

First, I think we could really use some "single-blind" types of tests, if I am using the term correctly, with a goal of objectively comparing different approaches to tuning a piano. (Excuse me if this has already been done.) You are probably used to this type of testing from your professional and academic work. Get some objective folks to tune the same (or near-identical) pianos using both aural tuning and visual tuning, and for the visual tunings using different ETDs – and for Pianoscope, both with/without PianoSens. Maybe a piano store would volunteer their pianos after-hours, or a university music department. The results would all be judged aurally, of course, and "blindly" – by other tuner or pianist volunteers. Besides "seeing" which tuning approach is most desirable, I would be very interested for the visual tunings if the accuracy of the ETDs make a difference: 0.1 cents, 0.05 cents. 0.4 cents, 1 cent, etc.

Second, for those reading this who might be at a career point of considering using aural tuning versus visual tuning, I would like to put in a plug for aural tuning. I know that I am biased, but I have the experience (!) and I find the aural approach both interesting and enjoyable, and very accurate. Every interval you use inherently incorporates the inharmonicity of the instrument. (And with your tests you can hear all your mistakes in real time!) Dependent upon the aural tuning approach that you use (see my Web site for some charts on my approach) there can be no need to count beats, and at least for the piano industry Equal Temperament standard (12 Tone Equal Temperament based on the octave) the incorporated physics and mathematics of the coincident partials (the "beats") are simple to understand. And unisons are tuned to the limits of each physical unison based on their inherent physical characteristics, or limits, within that piano.

Regards, Norman

------------------------------
Norman Brickman
Potomac Piano Service
Potomac, Maryland
potomacpiano@verizon.net
https://potomacpiano.com
(301) 983.9321

Original Message:
Sent: 01-07-2024 00:54
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

I recommend you take your mic and move it to at least 10 different spots on a concert grand piano all over the soundboard, akin to the paper by Fazioli in 2017 and their contact mic experiments. Every spot is noticeably different. 

I started my music school training as a teenager by becoming a recording engineer and I put myself through music school that way. Years later I went from being a music professor to getting my advanced degrees in engineering. Of course I now have a fundamental understanding of the situation.

Without the physics training, a recording engineer will find out the hard way about small mic position changes. Now, this is so well documented in the literature, of course. Using the same mic for your ETD, and doing lots of positional changes, listen to the sound subjectively as though you are professionally recording the piano, not just using the tuning app. If the recording sounds subjectively 'good' it is probably in an ideal spot. It is 'hit and miss'. My experience with the technical analysis that I present in my classes is that small position changes will affect the tuning by 1 cent or more, worst case.

The ETD makers quietly acknowledge this problem. They don't want to expose it because it undermines their salesmanship of the app.

This problem led me to invent the PianoSens device. It is not just a 'guitar like pickup.' As an EE, I solved many problems doing this design.

I place the sensor < 1/8th string length to pick up all the partials > 8 partials, and making small movements of several centimeters in this 'region' and it has literally no discernible variance, which is loically to be expected. You can see small amplitude differences, of course, but not much. Tuning variances are now about 0.1 cents, not 1 cent. 

Steven Norsworthy

Professional Engineer, Professional Musician

RF2BITS.com

PianoSens.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101
------------------------------

Fenton,

Always nice to hear you weigh in on any subject. I mostly crossed over (after 45 years) to the dark side about 5 years ago when I woke up with a massive arthritis blowup in my left wrist with 4 institutional tunings scheduled for that day. I could not even play an octave. I had a good ETD app in my toolkit that I hardly used because I just did not like using my eyes with my ears. Needless to say, the ETD saved the day and after the 4th tuning I had gotten used to using my eyes. I will still tune a nice grand by ear from time to time. ETD's do take some of the fun out of tuning but I have also learned some things using an ETD.

I generally don't think my EDT tunings are any better or worse that my aural tunings. I'm still tuning about 300+ tunings a year and I will say that using well sampled stored tuning files certainly reduces the fatigue for me.

Hope you're still doing an occasional gig. I'm a little off topic but have been enjoying this thread. I'm all for technology advances.

Paul, thanks for the update on the aural versus visual "tune-off" – sounds like from the 80's or early 90's. I think we need a new tune-off due to people like me thinking that precise ETD accuracy numbers given out, like 0.1 cents, are not significant. I think for all intents and purposes we might just as well assume zero ETD error, since there will still be plenty of challenges to keep the tuner busy, like pin twist, bending pins, bearing friction points, plate shift from tuning adjacent notes, string stretch, tight or jumpy pins, physical unison imperfections, etc.

With a new tune-off I suspect that qualified visual tunings using latest-generation ETD's versus qualified aural tunings will still come out as equally desirable. Both approaches will encounter the same problem areas such as the scale of a particular piano and the various tuning challenges I mentioned that tax a tuner. No magic bullets in my opinion.

If Pianoscope and PianoSens folks think their product produces superior results, it would be great if they would sponsor the new tune-off. Regards, Norman

Patrick, FYI (and consistent with Paul's comment), I would think that administering the PTG tuning exam for RPT's has gotten tougher lately. As I mentioned to Jason Kanter in his recent post here on Tuning Modules, the PTG Education Hub along with Jason in his post now seem to be tolerant of (a) perfect fourths, and/or (b) perfect fifths, and/or (c) perfect twelfths, along with the usual (d) perfect octaves. The existence of any of the first 3 cases means the tuning candidate is not tuning in the industry standard (12 TET based on the octave -- Equal Temperament) and will *not* have perfect octaves. That has to give more of a challenge to the test administrators! Regards, Norman.

------------------------------
Norman Brickman
Potomac Piano Service
Potomac, Maryland
potomacpiano@verizon.net
https://potomacpiano.com
(301) 983.9321

Original Message:
Sent: 01-10-2024 13:56
From: Patrick Draine
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

One would hope Pianoscope and PianoSens would submit their software and hardware to PTG'sExaminations and Test Standards Committee for evaluation. If Pianoscope were to be used in testing process that would of course be necessary. Several ETDs have testing modules built in. I'd guess the folks on the committee would be quite interested in trying out the hardware.

The "gold standard" would of course continue to be a "Super Tuning" prepared by three Certified Tuning Examiners. I believe the bench mark requires 3 RPTs, one of whom is a CTE, but 3 CTEs would be ideal for evaluation.

Just my 2 cents from an RPT who has used several models of ETDs over the past 40 or so years.

------------------------------
Patrick Draine RPT
Billerica MA
(978) 663-9690

Original Message:
Sent: 01-10-2024 11:54
From: Paul McCloud
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

As you know, years ago (I wasn't there), at a convention there was a "tune-off" comparing two identical pianos, one tuned by Jim Coleman Sr. (I believe) and Virgil Smith.  Jim was using the new Accutuner at the time, Virgil was tuning the other one by ear.  When the final vote was tallied, it was split down the middle.  We could do the same thing, if we could make the same set-up. 

The way I like to compare aural vs ETD tuning is like this.  Imagine you're drawing a graph.  Plot all the points on the graph, then draw a curve connecting the points.  Some points are not going to lie exactly on the curve, but you draw the curve as closely as possible.  Still these outlier points are there.  Tuning by ear is like plotting points, and by ETD it's drawing the curve. 

Back in the early '80's, when the Accutuner first came out, there were no app-based ETD's.  The Accutuner mimics the aural tuning technique, in that it compares one partial at a time to a generated target.  It works very well, and I used the Accutuner since I started in 1988.  Unisons done by ear of course.  The new app-based ETD's were a revolution in the tuning process because they began using computer algorithms which are able to measure many overtones at the same time, and use them all in the calculation.  The algorithms used, mostly, are called FFT's.  These allow the ETD programmer to create a user interface which makes a visual indication of where the pitch is, and where it ought to be. The result is that a much better accuracy of pitch calculation can be made which takes into account all of the available partial frequencies.  The ability to adjust octave width by octaves, or by 12ths, 19ths, or other choices, and interval spacing, can be made with accuracy within tenths of a cent.  Both aural methods and computer assisted tuning can produce excellent results.  But the level of accuracy in ETD tuning is, in my opinion, more than is possible by ear.  Like comparing something made with a CNC machine compared to making it with hand tools. 

Having said that, knowing how to check and verify the results of your machine tuning is necessary because of errors in the measurement process (using a mic vs a sensor), false beats, mismatched strings, resonances, etc.  You still have to verify and make judgments by ear, so it's not 100% fool proof on every string or unison.  If you're pleased with your aural method, makes your day more interesting and satisfying, who can argue with that?  For the record, I'm not in favor of eliminating the aural part of the RPT test. 

The following is my personal experience as a long time ETD user.  Since I started using Pianoscope, I've been able to achieve a level of accuracy better than anything I had done or used before, to the point that I can tune unisons entirely string by string with no beats.  That is not recommended by any ETD maker, of course.  All say to do unisons by ear.  The difference is in using the latest FFT's, a user interface that clearly shows the movement of the string, and a freeze function that reads the string frequency during a finite duration of time after the attack.  I wish all of the ETD's had that feature, as it is not possible to estimate exactly how much time has elapsed since the attack, and the frequency changes as time passes.  If you measure each string separately during the same time frame, you are able to tune more accurately and consistenly.  This freeze time is also adjustable.  Note that measurement is more accurate over a longer period of time, and  there is no system of measurement that can take a "snapshot" of a frequency at an instant of time.  It has to be measured over a finite period.  Tuning with Pianoscope and the sensor takes me a little longer than before because I can see the errors.  That last little effort is necessary to get as close as possible to the target within .1 cent.  Once you go down this road, you'll begin to hear unisons that are more than .2 cents off, and you'll be able to correct them without wasting time.  Like a small black spot on a white sheet, you'll hear the difference if they are off.  Please note this is my personal experience, and I'm not on anyone's payroll, nor was I given the app or the sensor.  I was involved in the evolution of the sensor with Steve Norsworthy as a beta tester, and a beta tester for PIanoscope.  I've used it on grands and uprights, the latter with some limitations of placement.  Feel free to contact me about this.

------------------------------
Paul McCloud, RPT
Accutone Piano Service
www.AccutonePianoService.com
pavadasa@gmail.com

Original Message:
Sent: 01-10-2024 08:23
From: Norman Brickman
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Steven, I have read some of the posts on Pianoscope and PianoSens by you, Frank, and others – commendable state-of-the-art development work, in my opinion, in a relatively short time. I tune aurally, but your work has given the visual tuner yet another good tool to use. The PianoSens does seem (to me) to add extra effort and time to perform a tuning, but it still is an interesting tool.

I have a couple comments/suggestions for you and for others who might be following the threads on Pianoscope and PianoSens.

First, I think we could really use some "single-blind" types of tests, if I am using the term correctly, with a goal of objectively comparing different approaches to tuning a piano. (Excuse me if this has already been done.) You are probably used to this type of testing from your professional and academic work. Get some objective folks to tune the same (or near-identical) pianos using both aural tuning and visual tuning, and for the visual tunings using different ETDs – and for Pianoscope, both with/without PianoSens. Maybe a piano store would volunteer their pianos after-hours, or a university music department. The results would all be judged aurally, of course, and "blindly" – by other tuner or pianist volunteers. Besides "seeing" which tuning approach is most desirable, I would be very interested for the visual tunings if the accuracy of the ETDs make a difference: 0.1 cents, 0.05 cents. 0.4 cents, 1 cent, etc.

Second, for those reading this who might be at a career point of considering using aural tuning versus visual tuning, I would like to put in a plug for aural tuning. I know that I am biased, but I have the experience (!) and I find the aural approach both interesting and enjoyable, and very accurate. Every interval you use inherently incorporates the inharmonicity of the instrument. (And with your tests you can hear all your mistakes in real time!) Dependent upon the aural tuning approach that you use (see my Web site for some charts on my approach) there can be no need to count beats, and at least for the piano industry Equal Temperament standard (12 Tone Equal Temperament based on the octave) the incorporated physics and mathematics of the coincident partials (the "beats") are simple to understand. And unisons are tuned to the limits of each physical unison based on their inherent physical characteristics, or limits, within that piano.

Regards, Norman

------------------------------
Norman Brickman
Potomac Piano Service
Potomac, Maryland
potomacpiano@verizon.net
https://potomacpiano.com
(301) 983.9321

Original Message:
Sent: 01-07-2024 00:54
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

I recommend you take your mic and move it to at least 10 different spots on a concert grand piano all over the soundboard, akin to the paper by Fazioli in 2017 and their contact mic experiments. Every spot is noticeably different. 

I started my music school training as a teenager by becoming a recording engineer and I put myself through music school that way. Years later I went from being a music professor to getting my advanced degrees in engineering. Of course I now have a fundamental understanding of the situation.

Without the physics training, a recording engineer will find out the hard way about small mic position changes. Now, this is so well documented in the literature, of course. Using the same mic for your ETD, and doing lots of positional changes, listen to the sound subjectively as though you are professionally recording the piano, not just using the tuning app. If the recording sounds subjectively 'good' it is probably in an ideal spot. It is 'hit and miss'. My experience with the technical analysis that I present in my classes is that small position changes will affect the tuning by 1 cent or more, worst case.

The ETD makers quietly acknowledge this problem. They don't want to expose it because it undermines their salesmanship of the app.

This problem led me to invent the PianoSens device. It is not just a 'guitar like pickup.' As an EE, I solved many problems doing this design.

I place the sensor < 1/8th string length to pick up all the partials > 8 partials, and making small movements of several centimeters in this 'region' and it has literally no discernible variance, which is loically to be expected. You can see small amplitude differences, of course, but not much. Tuning variances are now about 0.1 cents, not 1 cent. 

Steven Norsworthy

Professional Engineer, Professional Musician

RF2BITS.com

PianoSens.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101
------------------------------

Fenton,

Always nice to hear you weigh in on any subject. I mostly crossed over (after 45 years) to the dark side about 5 years ago when I woke up with a massive arthritis blowup in my left wrist with 4 institutional tunings scheduled for that day. I could not even play an octave. I had a good ETD app in my toolkit that I hardly used because I just did not like using my eyes with my ears. Needless to say, the ETD saved the day and after the 4th tuning I had gotten used to using my eyes. I will still tune a nice grand by ear from time to time. ETD's do take some of the fun out of tuning but I have also learned some things using an ETD.

I generally don't think my EDT tunings are any better or worse that my aural tunings. I'm still tuning about 300+ tunings a year and I will say that using well sampled stored tuning files certainly reduces the fatigue for me.

Hope you're still doing an occasional gig. I'm a little off topic but have been enjoying this thread. I'm all for technology advances.

Paul, thanks for the update on the aural versus visual "tune-off" – sounds like from the 80's or early 90's. I think we need a new tune-off due to people like me thinking that precise ETD accuracy numbers given out, like 0.1 cents, are not significant. I think for all intents and purposes we might just as well assume zero ETD error, since there will still be plenty of challenges to keep the tuner busy, like pin twist, bending pins, bearing friction points, plate shift from tuning adjacent notes, string stretch, tight or jumpy pins, physical unison imperfections, etc.

With a new tune-off I suspect that qualified visual tunings using latest-generation ETD's versus qualified aural tunings will still come out as equally desirable. Both approaches will encounter the same problem areas such as the scale of a particular piano and the various tuning challenges I mentioned that tax a tuner. No magic bullets in my opinion.

If Pianoscope and PianoSens folks think their product produces superior results, it would be great if they would sponsor the new tune-off. Regards, Norman

Patrick, FYI (and consistent with Paul's comment), I would think that administering the PTG tuning exam for RPT's has gotten tougher lately. As I mentioned to Jason Kanter in his recent post here on Tuning Modules, the PTG Education Hub along with Jason in his post now seem to be tolerant of (a) perfect fourths, and/or (b) perfect fifths, and/or (c) perfect twelfths, along with the usual (d) perfect octaves. The existence of any of the first 3 cases means the tuning candidate is not tuning in the industry standard (12 TET based on the octave -- Equal Temperament) and will *not* have perfect octaves. That has to give more of a challenge to the test administrators! Regards, Norman.

------------------------------
Norman Brickman
Potomac Piano Service
Potomac, Maryland
potomacpiano@verizon.net
https://potomacpiano.com
(301) 983.9321

Original Message:
Sent: 01-10-2024 13:56
From: Patrick Draine
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

One would hope Pianoscope and PianoSens would submit their software and hardware to PTG'sExaminations and Test Standards Committee for evaluation. If Pianoscope were to be used in testing process that would of course be necessary. Several ETDs have testing modules built in. I'd guess the folks on the committee would be quite interested in trying out the hardware.

The "gold standard" would of course continue to be a "Super Tuning" prepared by three Certified Tuning Examiners. I believe the bench mark requires 3 RPTs, one of whom is a CTE, but 3 CTEs would be ideal for evaluation.

Just my 2 cents from an RPT who has used several models of ETDs over the past 40 or so years.

------------------------------
Patrick Draine RPT
Billerica MA
(978) 663-9690

Original Message:
Sent: 01-10-2024 11:54
From: Paul McCloud
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

As you know, years ago (I wasn't there), at a convention there was a "tune-off" comparing two identical pianos, one tuned by Jim Coleman Sr. (I believe) and Virgil Smith.  Jim was using the new Accutuner at the time, Virgil was tuning the other one by ear.  When the final vote was tallied, it was split down the middle.  We could do the same thing, if we could make the same set-up. 

The way I like to compare aural vs ETD tuning is like this.  Imagine you're drawing a graph.  Plot all the points on the graph, then draw a curve connecting the points.  Some points are not going to lie exactly on the curve, but you draw the curve as closely as possible.  Still these outlier points are there.  Tuning by ear is like plotting points, and by ETD it's drawing the curve. 

Back in the early '80's, when the Accutuner first came out, there were no app-based ETD's.  The Accutuner mimics the aural tuning technique, in that it compares one partial at a time to a generated target.  It works very well, and I used the Accutuner since I started in 1988.  Unisons done by ear of course.  The new app-based ETD's were a revolution in the tuning process because they began using computer algorithms which are able to measure many overtones at the same time, and use them all in the calculation.  The algorithms used, mostly, are called FFT's.  These allow the ETD programmer to create a user interface which makes a visual indication of where the pitch is, and where it ought to be. The result is that a much better accuracy of pitch calculation can be made which takes into account all of the available partial frequencies.  The ability to adjust octave width by octaves, or by 12ths, 19ths, or other choices, and interval spacing, can be made with accuracy within tenths of a cent.  Both aural methods and computer assisted tuning can produce excellent results.  But the level of accuracy in ETD tuning is, in my opinion, more than is possible by ear.  Like comparing something made with a CNC machine compared to making it with hand tools. 

Having said that, knowing how to check and verify the results of your machine tuning is necessary because of errors in the measurement process (using a mic vs a sensor), false beats, mismatched strings, resonances, etc.  You still have to verify and make judgments by ear, so it's not 100% fool proof on every string or unison.  If you're pleased with your aural method, makes your day more interesting and satisfying, who can argue with that?  For the record, I'm not in favor of eliminating the aural part of the RPT test. 

The following is my personal experience as a long time ETD user.  Since I started using Pianoscope, I've been able to achieve a level of accuracy better than anything I had done or used before, to the point that I can tune unisons entirely string by string with no beats.  That is not recommended by any ETD maker, of course.  All say to do unisons by ear.  The difference is in using the latest FFT's, a user interface that clearly shows the movement of the string, and a freeze function that reads the string frequency during a finite duration of time after the attack.  I wish all of the ETD's had that feature, as it is not possible to estimate exactly how much time has elapsed since the attack, and the frequency changes as time passes.  If you measure each string separately during the same time frame, you are able to tune more accurately and consistenly.  This freeze time is also adjustable.  Note that measurement is more accurate over a longer period of time, and  there is no system of measurement that can take a "snapshot" of a frequency at an instant of time.  It has to be measured over a finite period.  Tuning with Pianoscope and the sensor takes me a little longer than before because I can see the errors.  That last little effort is necessary to get as close as possible to the target within .1 cent.  Once you go down this road, you'll begin to hear unisons that are more than .2 cents off, and you'll be able to correct them without wasting time.  Like a small black spot on a white sheet, you'll hear the difference if they are off.  Please note this is my personal experience, and I'm not on anyone's payroll, nor was I given the app or the sensor.  I was involved in the evolution of the sensor with Steve Norsworthy as a beta tester, and a beta tester for PIanoscope.  I've used it on grands and uprights, the latter with some limitations of placement.  Feel free to contact me about this.

------------------------------
Paul McCloud, RPT
Accutone Piano Service
www.AccutonePianoService.com
pavadasa@gmail.com

Original Message:
Sent: 01-10-2024 08:23
From: Norman Brickman
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Steven, I have read some of the posts on Pianoscope and PianoSens by you, Frank, and others – commendable state-of-the-art development work, in my opinion, in a relatively short time. I tune aurally, but your work has given the visual tuner yet another good tool to use. The PianoSens does seem (to me) to add extra effort and time to perform a tuning, but it still is an interesting tool.

I have a couple comments/suggestions for you and for others who might be following the threads on Pianoscope and PianoSens.

First, I think we could really use some "single-blind" types of tests, if I am using the term correctly, with a goal of objectively comparing different approaches to tuning a piano. (Excuse me if this has already been done.) You are probably used to this type of testing from your professional and academic work. Get some objective folks to tune the same (or near-identical) pianos using both aural tuning and visual tuning, and for the visual tunings using different ETDs – and for Pianoscope, both with/without PianoSens. Maybe a piano store would volunteer their pianos after-hours, or a university music department. The results would all be judged aurally, of course, and "blindly" – by other tuner or pianist volunteers. Besides "seeing" which tuning approach is most desirable, I would be very interested for the visual tunings if the accuracy of the ETDs make a difference: 0.1 cents, 0.05 cents. 0.4 cents, 1 cent, etc.

Second, for those reading this who might be at a career point of considering using aural tuning versus visual tuning, I would like to put in a plug for aural tuning. I know that I am biased, but I have the experience (!) and I find the aural approach both interesting and enjoyable, and very accurate. Every interval you use inherently incorporates the inharmonicity of the instrument. (And with your tests you can hear all your mistakes in real time!) Dependent upon the aural tuning approach that you use (see my Web site for some charts on my approach) there can be no need to count beats, and at least for the piano industry Equal Temperament standard (12 Tone Equal Temperament based on the octave) the incorporated physics and mathematics of the coincident partials (the "beats") are simple to understand. And unisons are tuned to the limits of each physical unison based on their inherent physical characteristics, or limits, within that piano.

Regards, Norman

------------------------------
Norman Brickman
Potomac Piano Service
Potomac, Maryland
potomacpiano@verizon.net
https://potomacpiano.com
(301) 983.9321

Original Message:
Sent: 01-07-2024 00:54
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

I recommend you take your mic and move it to at least 10 different spots on a concert grand piano all over the soundboard, akin to the paper by Fazioli in 2017 and their contact mic experiments. Every spot is noticeably different. 

I started my music school training as a teenager by becoming a recording engineer and I put myself through music school that way. Years later I went from being a music professor to getting my advanced degrees in engineering. Of course I now have a fundamental understanding of the situation.

Without the physics training, a recording engineer will find out the hard way about small mic position changes. Now, this is so well documented in the literature, of course. Using the same mic for your ETD, and doing lots of positional changes, listen to the sound subjectively as though you are professionally recording the piano, not just using the tuning app. If the recording sounds subjectively 'good' it is probably in an ideal spot. It is 'hit and miss'. My experience with the technical analysis that I present in my classes is that small position changes will affect the tuning by 1 cent or more, worst case.

The ETD makers quietly acknowledge this problem. They don't want to expose it because it undermines their salesmanship of the app.

This problem led me to invent the PianoSens device. It is not just a 'guitar like pickup.' As an EE, I solved many problems doing this design.

I place the sensor < 1/8th string length to pick up all the partials > 8 partials, and making small movements of several centimeters in this 'region' and it has literally no discernible variance, which is loically to be expected. You can see small amplitude differences, of course, but not much. Tuning variances are now about 0.1 cents, not 1 cent. 

Steven Norsworthy

Professional Engineer, Professional Musician

RF2BITS.com

PianoSens.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101
------------------------------

I recommend you take your mic and move it to at least 10 different spots on a concert grand piano all over the soundboard, akin to the paper by Fazioli in 2017 and their contact mic experiments. Every spot is noticeably different. 

I started my music school training as a teenager by becoming a recording engineer and I put myself through music school that way. Years later I went from being a music professor to getting my advanced degrees in engineering. Of course I now have a fundamental understanding of the situation.

Without the physics training, a recording engineer will find out the hard way about small mic position changes. Now, this is so well documented in the literature, of course. Using the same mic for your ETD, and doing lots of positional changes, listen to the sound subjectively as though you are professionally recording the piano, not just using the tuning app. If the recording sounds subjectively 'good' it is probably in an ideal spot. It is 'hit and miss'. My experience with the technical analysis that I present in my classes is that small position changes will affect the tuning by 1 cent or more, worst case.

The ETD makers quietly acknowledge this problem. They don't want to expose it because it undermines their salesmanship of the app.

This problem led me to invent the PianoSens device. It is not just a 'guitar like pickup.' As an EE, I solved many problems doing this design.

I place the sensor < 1/8th string length to pick up all the partials > 8 partials, and making small movements of several centimeters in this 'region' and it has literally no discernible variance, which is loically to be expected. You can see small amplitude differences, of course, but not much. Tuning variances are now about 0.1 cents, not 1 cent. 

Steven Norsworthy

Professional Engineer, Professional Musician

RF2BITS.com

PianoSens.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101
------------------------------

Steve et al,

I struggle to do my best tuning on every piano I service, spinets and concert grands.  I do use an ETD (iRCT) but I actually enjoy occasionally leaving it off and tuning by ear. 

What I have realized (or admitted) is that on my finest tuning, whether by ear or device, and even on the best of pianos (OK, I have never tuned a Fazioli) the piano is completely out of tune!  What I mean is that there are beats in every octave, there are harmonics that will never be in tune, there are inevitable false beats, at least somewhere and every third, fourth, fifth and sixth beat with the temperament.  Then there is the string inharmonicity adding to the cacophany.

Your suggestion that we quanticize and rate different tunings runs into the problem that tuning itself is problematic and to some degree subject to personal opinion and preference.  That tuning that you are (rightly) proud of might sound offensive to a particular musician.  Remember that there is a practice among highly regarded "concert tuners" to slightly de-tune unisons to brighten or alter the overall sound.  How would your objective testing rate a tuning by one of these touted techs where the device might show a lower score against another tuner who tunes "pure"?

On the other hand, I highly agree that objective testing is something that our technology lacks.  One of the issues that arises is the variability among instruments themselves.  How many times have you compared two similar instruments and found one better than the other?  I did an experiment with voicing where I applied one technique to even numbered hammers and another technique to the others.  What was surprising was that among the hammers with either treatment there was enough variability to challenge the test itself and I had to base my conclusion on a broad consensus of all of the hammers with each treatment (the treatment was easily evened out in the end, no hammers were harmed in this test).

To properly do this experiment we might need to conduct it in a factory with a great many pianos of very similar scale and treatments, otherwise we might base our conclusion on factors unrelated to the actual tuning.  Another possible scenario might be a large institution with many recent and identical instruments.

Don't stop experimenting!

I recommend you take your mic and move it to at least 10 different spots on a concert grand piano all over the soundboard, akin to the paper by Fazioli in 2017 and their contact mic experiments. Every spot is noticeably different. 

I started my music school training as a teenager by becoming a recording engineer and I put myself through music school that way. Years later I went from being a music professor to getting my advanced degrees in engineering. Of course I now have a fundamental understanding of the situation.

Without the physics training, a recording engineer will find out the hard way about small mic position changes. Now, this is so well documented in the literature, of course. Using the same mic for your ETD, and doing lots of positional changes, listen to the sound subjectively as though you are professionally recording the piano, not just using the tuning app. If the recording sounds subjectively 'good' it is probably in an ideal spot. It is 'hit and miss'. My experience with the technical analysis that I present in my classes is that small position changes will affect the tuning by 1 cent or more, worst case.

The ETD makers quietly acknowledge this problem. They don't want to expose it because it undermines their salesmanship of the app.

This problem led me to invent the PianoSens device. It is not just a 'guitar like pickup.' As an EE, I solved many problems doing this design.

I place the sensor < 1/8th string length to pick up all the partials > 8 partials, and making small movements of several centimeters in this 'region' and it has literally no discernible variance, which is loically to be expected. You can see small amplitude differences, of course, but not much. Tuning variances are now about 0.1 cents, not 1 cent. 

Steven Norsworthy

Professional Engineer, Professional Musician

RF2BITS.com

PianoSens.com

Steve et al,

I struggle to do my best tuning on every piano I service, spinets and concert grands.  I do use an ETD (iRCT) but I actually enjoy occasionally leaving it off and tuning by ear. 

What I have realized (or admitted) is that on my finest tuning, whether by ear or device, and even on the best of pianos (OK, I have never tuned a Fazioli) the piano is completely out of tune!  What I mean is that there are beats in every octave, there are harmonics that will never be in tune, there are inevitable false beats, at least somewhere and every third, fourth, fifth and sixth beat with the temperament.  Then there is the string inharmonicity adding to the cacophany.

Your suggestion that we quanticize and rate different tunings runs into the problem that tuning itself is problematic and to some degree subject to personal opinion and preference.  That tuning that you are (rightly) proud of might sound offensive to a particular musician.  Remember that there is a practice among highly regarded "concert tuners" to slightly de-tune unisons to brighten or alter the overall sound.  How would your objective testing rate a tuning by one of these touted techs where the device might show a lower score against another tuner who tunes "pure"?

On the other hand, I highly agree that objective testing is something that our technology lacks.  One of the issues that arises is the variability among instruments themselves.  How many times have you compared two similar instruments and found one better than the other?  I did an experiment with voicing where I applied one technique to even numbered hammers and another technique to the others.  What was surprising was that among the hammers with either treatment there was enough variability to challenge the test itself and I had to base my conclusion on a broad consensus of all of the hammers with each treatment (the treatment was easily evened out in the end, no hammers were harmed in this test).

To properly do this experiment we might need to conduct it in a factory with a great many pianos of very similar scale and treatments, otherwise we might base our conclusion on factors unrelated to the actual tuning.  Another possible scenario might be a large institution with many recent and identical instruments.

Don't stop experimenting, but in the end, can our customers hear it?

------------------------------
Blaine Hebert RPT
Duarte CA
(626) 390-0512

Original Message:
Sent: 01-07-2024 00:54
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

I recommend you take your mic and move it to at least 10 different spots on a concert grand piano all over the soundboard, akin to the paper by Fazioli in 2017 and their contact mic experiments. Every spot is noticeably different. 

I started my music school training as a teenager by becoming a recording engineer and I put myself through music school that way. Years later I went from being a music professor to getting my advanced degrees in engineering. Of course I now have a fundamental understanding of the situation.

Without the physics training, a recording engineer will find out the hard way about small mic position changes. Now, this is so well documented in the literature, of course. Using the same mic for your ETD, and doing lots of positional changes, listen to the sound subjectively as though you are professionally recording the piano, not just using the tuning app. If the recording sounds subjectively 'good' it is probably in an ideal spot. It is 'hit and miss'. My experience with the technical analysis that I present in my classes is that small position changes will affect the tuning by 1 cent or more, worst case.

The ETD makers quietly acknowledge this problem. They don't want to expose it because it undermines their salesmanship of the app.

This problem led me to invent the PianoSens device. It is not just a 'guitar like pickup.' As an EE, I solved many problems doing this design.

I place the sensor < 1/8th string length to pick up all the partials > 8 partials, and making small movements of several centimeters in this 'region' and it has literally no discernible variance, which is loically to be expected. You can see small amplitude differences, of course, but not much. Tuning variances are now about 0.1 cents, not 1 cent. 

Steven Norsworthy

Professional Engineer, Professional Musician

RF2BITS.com

PianoSens.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101
------------------------------

About a decade ago an experimental program "Entropy Piano Tuner" was shared with the public. <http://piano-tuner.org>

One difficulty with operating this program involved microphones used for the full sampling of the piano.

It might be of interest to run this program using PianoSens to provide the sampling input. It might be able to provide a "Zero point" for objective tuning analysis-not a claim for the best, most beautiful or most musical, but just a "most equal" tuning compromise as an objective starting point.

Steve et al,

I struggle to do my best tuning on every piano I service, spinets and concert grands.  I do use an ETD (iRCT) but I actually enjoy occasionally leaving it off and tuning by ear. 

What I have realized (or admitted) is that on my finest tuning, whether by ear or device, and even on the best of pianos (OK, I have never tuned a Fazioli) the piano is completely out of tune!  What I mean is that there are beats in every octave, there are harmonics that will never be in tune, there are inevitable false beats, at least somewhere and every third, fourth, fifth and sixth beat with the temperament.  Then there is the string inharmonicity adding to the cacophany.

Your suggestion that we quanticize and rate different tunings runs into the problem that tuning itself is problematic and to some degree subject to personal opinion and preference.  That tuning that you are (rightly) proud of might sound offensive to a particular musician.  Remember that there is a practice among highly regarded "concert tuners" to slightly de-tune unisons to brighten or alter the overall sound.  How would your objective testing rate a tuning by one of these touted techs where the device might show a lower score against another tuner who tunes "pure"?

On the other hand, I highly agree that objective testing is something that our technology lacks.  One of the issues that arises is the variability among instruments themselves.  How many times have you compared two similar instruments and found one better than the other?  I did an experiment with voicing where I applied one technique to even numbered hammers and another technique to the others.  What was surprising was that among the hammers with either treatment there was enough variability to challenge the test itself and I had to base my conclusion on a broad consensus of all of the hammers with each treatment (the treatment was easily evened out in the end, no hammers were harmed in this test).

To properly do this experiment we might need to conduct it in a factory with a great many pianos of very similar scale and treatments, otherwise we might base our conclusion on factors unrelated to the actual tuning.  Another possible scenario might be a large institution with many recent and identical instruments.

Don't stop experimenting, but in the end, can our customers hear it?

------------------------------
Blaine Hebert RPT
Duarte CA
(626) 390-0512

Original Message:
Sent: 01-07-2024 00:54
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

I recommend you take your mic and move it to at least 10 different spots on a concert grand piano all over the soundboard, akin to the paper by Fazioli in 2017 and their contact mic experiments. Every spot is noticeably different. 

I started my music school training as a teenager by becoming a recording engineer and I put myself through music school that way. Years later I went from being a music professor to getting my advanced degrees in engineering. Of course I now have a fundamental understanding of the situation.

Without the physics training, a recording engineer will find out the hard way about small mic position changes. Now, this is so well documented in the literature, of course. Using the same mic for your ETD, and doing lots of positional changes, listen to the sound subjectively as though you are professionally recording the piano, not just using the tuning app. If the recording sounds subjectively 'good' it is probably in an ideal spot. It is 'hit and miss'. My experience with the technical analysis that I present in my classes is that small position changes will affect the tuning by 1 cent or more, worst case.

The ETD makers quietly acknowledge this problem. They don't want to expose it because it undermines their salesmanship of the app.

This problem led me to invent the PianoSens device. It is not just a 'guitar like pickup.' As an EE, I solved many problems doing this design.

I place the sensor < 1/8th string length to pick up all the partials > 8 partials, and making small movements of several centimeters in this 'region' and it has literally no discernible variance, which is loically to be expected. You can see small amplitude differences, of course, but not much. Tuning variances are now about 0.1 cents, not 1 cent. 

Steven Norsworthy

Professional Engineer, Professional Musician

RF2BITS.com

PianoSens.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101
------------------------------

If this is all 'subjectivity' and 'art' and you are having 'fun' with this, then of course I have no problem. I really need to be 'all things to all tuners.' However if you want to have a true laboratory standard that removes all the 'opinion' and 'subjectivity', then I believe you will not be able to achieve this more objective way of eliminating all the opinions out there, and that is what I am trying to achieve. 

Best,

Prof. Steve

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101

Original Message:
Sent: 01-11-2024 07:36
From: Ed Sutton
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

About a decade ago an experimental program "Entropy Piano Tuner" was shared with the public. <http://piano-tuner.org>

One difficulty with operating this program involved microphones used for the full sampling of the piano.

It might be of interest to run this program using PianoSens to provide the sampling input. It might be able to provide a "Zero point" for objective tuning analysis-not a claim for the best, most beautiful or most musical, but just a "most equal" tuning compromise as an objective starting point.

------------------------------
Ed Sutton
ed440@me.com
(980) 254-7413

Original Message:
Sent: 01-11-2024 01:28
From: Blaine Hebert
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Steve et al,

I struggle to do my best tuning on every piano I service, spinets and concert grands.  I do use an ETD (iRCT) but I actually enjoy occasionally leaving it off and tuning by ear. 

What I have realized (or admitted) is that on my finest tuning, whether by ear or device, and even on the best of pianos (OK, I have never tuned a Fazioli) the piano is completely out of tune!  What I mean is that there are beats in every octave, there are harmonics that will never be in tune, there are inevitable false beats, at least somewhere and every third, fourth, fifth and sixth beat with the temperament.  Then there is the string inharmonicity adding to the cacophany.

Your suggestion that we quanticize and rate different tunings runs into the problem that tuning itself is problematic and to some degree subject to personal opinion and preference.  That tuning that you are (rightly) proud of might sound offensive to a particular musician.  Remember that there is a practice among highly regarded "concert tuners" to slightly de-tune unisons to brighten or alter the overall sound.  How would your objective testing rate a tuning by one of these touted techs where the device might show a lower score against another tuner who tunes "pure"?

On the other hand, I highly agree that objective testing is something that our technology lacks.  One of the issues that arises is the variability among instruments themselves.  How many times have you compared two similar instruments and found one better than the other?  I did an experiment with voicing where I applied one technique to even numbered hammers and another technique to the others.  What was surprising was that among the hammers with either treatment there was enough variability to challenge the test itself and I had to base my conclusion on a broad consensus of all of the hammers with each treatment (the treatment was easily evened out in the end, no hammers were harmed in this test).

To properly do this experiment we might need to conduct it in a factory with a great many pianos of very similar scale and treatments, otherwise we might base our conclusion on factors unrelated to the actual tuning.  Another possible scenario might be a large institution with many recent and identical instruments.

Don't stop experimenting, but in the end, can our customers hear it?

------------------------------
Blaine Hebert RPT
Duarte CA
(626) 390-0512

Original Message:
Sent: 01-07-2024 00:54
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

I recommend you take your mic and move it to at least 10 different spots on a concert grand piano all over the soundboard, akin to the paper by Fazioli in 2017 and their contact mic experiments. Every spot is noticeably different. 

I started my music school training as a teenager by becoming a recording engineer and I put myself through music school that way. Years later I went from being a music professor to getting my advanced degrees in engineering. Of course I now have a fundamental understanding of the situation.

Without the physics training, a recording engineer will find out the hard way about small mic position changes. Now, this is so well documented in the literature, of course. Using the same mic for your ETD, and doing lots of positional changes, listen to the sound subjectively as though you are professionally recording the piano, not just using the tuning app. If the recording sounds subjectively 'good' it is probably in an ideal spot. It is 'hit and miss'. My experience with the technical analysis that I present in my classes is that small position changes will affect the tuning by 1 cent or more, worst case.

The ETD makers quietly acknowledge this problem. They don't want to expose it because it undermines their salesmanship of the app.

This problem led me to invent the PianoSens device. It is not just a 'guitar like pickup.' As an EE, I solved many problems doing this design.

I place the sensor < 1/8th string length to pick up all the partials > 8 partials, and making small movements of several centimeters in this 'region' and it has literally no discernible variance, which is loically to be expected. You can see small amplitude differences, of course, but not much. Tuning variances are now about 0.1 cents, not 1 cent. 

Steven Norsworthy

Professional Engineer, Professional Musician

RF2BITS.com

PianoSens.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101
------------------------------

So here is my latest example. What do you think? It takes 2 mins to watch. Thanks! Prof. Steve

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101

Original Message:
Sent: 01-11-2024 20:10
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

If this is all 'subjectivity' and 'art' and you are having 'fun' with this, then of course I have no problem. I really need to be 'all things to all tuners.' However if you want to have a true laboratory standard that removes all the 'opinion' and 'subjectivity', then I believe you will not be able to achieve this more objective way of eliminating all the opinions out there, and that is what I am trying to achieve. 

Best,

Prof. Steve

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101

Original Message:
Sent: 01-11-2024 07:36
From: Ed Sutton
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

About a decade ago an experimental program "Entropy Piano Tuner" was shared with the public. <http://piano-tuner.org>

One difficulty with operating this program involved microphones used for the full sampling of the piano.

It might be of interest to run this program using PianoSens to provide the sampling input. It might be able to provide a "Zero point" for objective tuning analysis-not a claim for the best, most beautiful or most musical, but just a "most equal" tuning compromise as an objective starting point.

------------------------------
Ed Sutton
ed440@me.com
(980) 254-7413

Original Message:
Sent: 01-11-2024 01:28
From: Blaine Hebert
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Steve et al,

I struggle to do my best tuning on every piano I service, spinets and concert grands.  I do use an ETD (iRCT) but I actually enjoy occasionally leaving it off and tuning by ear. 

What I have realized (or admitted) is that on my finest tuning, whether by ear or device, and even on the best of pianos (OK, I have never tuned a Fazioli) the piano is completely out of tune!  What I mean is that there are beats in every octave, there are harmonics that will never be in tune, there are inevitable false beats, at least somewhere and every third, fourth, fifth and sixth beat with the temperament.  Then there is the string inharmonicity adding to the cacophany.

Your suggestion that we quanticize and rate different tunings runs into the problem that tuning itself is problematic and to some degree subject to personal opinion and preference.  That tuning that you are (rightly) proud of might sound offensive to a particular musician.  Remember that there is a practice among highly regarded "concert tuners" to slightly de-tune unisons to brighten or alter the overall sound.  How would your objective testing rate a tuning by one of these touted techs where the device might show a lower score against another tuner who tunes "pure"?

On the other hand, I highly agree that objective testing is something that our technology lacks.  One of the issues that arises is the variability among instruments themselves.  How many times have you compared two similar instruments and found one better than the other?  I did an experiment with voicing where I applied one technique to even numbered hammers and another technique to the others.  What was surprising was that among the hammers with either treatment there was enough variability to challenge the test itself and I had to base my conclusion on a broad consensus of all of the hammers with each treatment (the treatment was easily evened out in the end, no hammers were harmed in this test).

To properly do this experiment we might need to conduct it in a factory with a great many pianos of very similar scale and treatments, otherwise we might base our conclusion on factors unrelated to the actual tuning.  Another possible scenario might be a large institution with many recent and identical instruments.

Don't stop experimenting, but in the end, can our customers hear it?

------------------------------
Blaine Hebert RPT
Duarte CA
(626) 390-0512

Original Message:
Sent: 01-07-2024 00:54
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

I recommend you take your mic and move it to at least 10 different spots on a concert grand piano all over the soundboard, akin to the paper by Fazioli in 2017 and their contact mic experiments. Every spot is noticeably different. 

I started my music school training as a teenager by becoming a recording engineer and I put myself through music school that way. Years later I went from being a music professor to getting my advanced degrees in engineering. Of course I now have a fundamental understanding of the situation.

Without the physics training, a recording engineer will find out the hard way about small mic position changes. Now, this is so well documented in the literature, of course. Using the same mic for your ETD, and doing lots of positional changes, listen to the sound subjectively as though you are professionally recording the piano, not just using the tuning app. If the recording sounds subjectively 'good' it is probably in an ideal spot. It is 'hit and miss'. My experience with the technical analysis that I present in my classes is that small position changes will affect the tuning by 1 cent or more, worst case.

The ETD makers quietly acknowledge this problem. They don't want to expose it because it undermines their salesmanship of the app.

This problem led me to invent the PianoSens device. It is not just a 'guitar like pickup.' As an EE, I solved many problems doing this design.

I place the sensor < 1/8th string length to pick up all the partials > 8 partials, and making small movements of several centimeters in this 'region' and it has literally no discernible variance, which is loically to be expected. You can see small amplitude differences, of course, but not much. Tuning variances are now about 0.1 cents, not 1 cent. 

Steven Norsworthy

Professional Engineer, Professional Musician

RF2BITS.com

PianoSens.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101
------------------------------

If this is all 'subjectivity' and 'art' and you are having 'fun' with this, then of course I have no problem. I really need to be 'all things to all tuners.' However if you want to have a true laboratory standard that removes all the 'opinion' and 'subjectivity', then I believe you will not be able to achieve this more objective way of eliminating all the opinions out there, and that is what I am trying to achieve. 

Best,

Prof. Steve

About a decade ago an experimental program "Entropy Piano Tuner" was shared with the public. <http://piano-tuner.org>

One difficulty with operating this program involved microphones used for the full sampling of the piano.

It might be of interest to run this program using PianoSens to provide the sampling input. It might be able to provide a "Zero point" for objective tuning analysis-not a claim for the best, most beautiful or most musical, but just a "most equal" tuning compromise as an objective starting point.

Steve et al,

I struggle to do my best tuning on every piano I service, spinets and concert grands.  I do use an ETD (iRCT) but I actually enjoy occasionally leaving it off and tuning by ear. 

What I have realized (or admitted) is that on my finest tuning, whether by ear or device, and even on the best of pianos (OK, I have never tuned a Fazioli) the piano is completely out of tune!  What I mean is that there are beats in every octave, there are harmonics that will never be in tune, there are inevitable false beats, at least somewhere and every third, fourth, fifth and sixth beat with the temperament.  Then there is the string inharmonicity adding to the cacophany.

Your suggestion that we quanticize and rate different tunings runs into the problem that tuning itself is problematic and to some degree subject to personal opinion and preference.  That tuning that you are (rightly) proud of might sound offensive to a particular musician.  Remember that there is a practice among highly regarded "concert tuners" to slightly de-tune unisons to brighten or alter the overall sound.  How would your objective testing rate a tuning by one of these touted techs where the device might show a lower score against another tuner who tunes "pure"?

On the other hand, I highly agree that objective testing is something that our technology lacks.  One of the issues that arises is the variability among instruments themselves.  How many times have you compared two similar instruments and found one better than the other?  I did an experiment with voicing where I applied one technique to even numbered hammers and another technique to the others.  What was surprising was that among the hammers with either treatment there was enough variability to challenge the test itself and I had to base my conclusion on a broad consensus of all of the hammers with each treatment (the treatment was easily evened out in the end, no hammers were harmed in this test).

To properly do this experiment we might need to conduct it in a factory with a great many pianos of very similar scale and treatments, otherwise we might base our conclusion on factors unrelated to the actual tuning.  Another possible scenario might be a large institution with many recent and identical instruments.

Don't stop experimenting, but in the end, can our customers hear it?

------------------------------
Blaine Hebert RPT
Duarte CA
(626) 390-0512

Original Message:
Sent: 01-07-2024 00:54
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

I recommend you take your mic and move it to at least 10 different spots on a concert grand piano all over the soundboard, akin to the paper by Fazioli in 2017 and their contact mic experiments. Every spot is noticeably different. 

I started my music school training as a teenager by becoming a recording engineer and I put myself through music school that way. Years later I went from being a music professor to getting my advanced degrees in engineering. Of course I now have a fundamental understanding of the situation.

Without the physics training, a recording engineer will find out the hard way about small mic position changes. Now, this is so well documented in the literature, of course. Using the same mic for your ETD, and doing lots of positional changes, listen to the sound subjectively as though you are professionally recording the piano, not just using the tuning app. If the recording sounds subjectively 'good' it is probably in an ideal spot. It is 'hit and miss'. My experience with the technical analysis that I present in my classes is that small position changes will affect the tuning by 1 cent or more, worst case.

The ETD makers quietly acknowledge this problem. They don't want to expose it because it undermines their salesmanship of the app.

This problem led me to invent the PianoSens device. It is not just a 'guitar like pickup.' As an EE, I solved many problems doing this design.

I place the sensor < 1/8th string length to pick up all the partials > 8 partials, and making small movements of several centimeters in this 'region' and it has literally no discernible variance, which is loically to be expected. You can see small amplitude differences, of course, but not much. Tuning variances are now about 0.1 cents, not 1 cent. 

Steven Norsworthy

Professional Engineer, Professional Musician

RF2BITS.com

PianoSens.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101
------------------------------

It is not clear from your reply whether you are aware of the mathematical premises of the Entropy tuning program.

Your reply does not seem to indicate that you understood that I was attempting to offer something that might assist your efforts. 

If this is all 'subjectivity' and 'art' and you are having 'fun' with this, then of course I have no problem. I really need to be 'all things to all tuners.' However if you want to have a true laboratory standard that removes all the 'opinion' and 'subjectivity', then I believe you will not be able to achieve this more objective way of eliminating all the opinions out there, and that is what I am trying to achieve. 

Best,

Prof. Steve

About a decade ago an experimental program "Entropy Piano Tuner" was shared with the public. <http://piano-tuner.org>

One difficulty with operating this program involved microphones used for the full sampling of the piano.

It might be of interest to run this program using PianoSens to provide the sampling input. It might be able to provide a "Zero point" for objective tuning analysis-not a claim for the best, most beautiful or most musical, but just a "most equal" tuning compromise as an objective starting point.

Steve et al,

I struggle to do my best tuning on every piano I service, spinets and concert grands.  I do use an ETD (iRCT) but I actually enjoy occasionally leaving it off and tuning by ear. 

What I have realized (or admitted) is that on my finest tuning, whether by ear or device, and even on the best of pianos (OK, I have never tuned a Fazioli) the piano is completely out of tune!  What I mean is that there are beats in every octave, there are harmonics that will never be in tune, there are inevitable false beats, at least somewhere and every third, fourth, fifth and sixth beat with the temperament.  Then there is the string inharmonicity adding to the cacophany.

Your suggestion that we quanticize and rate different tunings runs into the problem that tuning itself is problematic and to some degree subject to personal opinion and preference.  That tuning that you are (rightly) proud of might sound offensive to a particular musician.  Remember that there is a practice among highly regarded "concert tuners" to slightly de-tune unisons to brighten or alter the overall sound.  How would your objective testing rate a tuning by one of these touted techs where the device might show a lower score against another tuner who tunes "pure"?

On the other hand, I highly agree that objective testing is something that our technology lacks.  One of the issues that arises is the variability among instruments themselves.  How many times have you compared two similar instruments and found one better than the other?  I did an experiment with voicing where I applied one technique to even numbered hammers and another technique to the others.  What was surprising was that among the hammers with either treatment there was enough variability to challenge the test itself and I had to base my conclusion on a broad consensus of all of the hammers with each treatment (the treatment was easily evened out in the end, no hammers were harmed in this test).

To properly do this experiment we might need to conduct it in a factory with a great many pianos of very similar scale and treatments, otherwise we might base our conclusion on factors unrelated to the actual tuning.  Another possible scenario might be a large institution with many recent and identical instruments.

Don't stop experimenting, but in the end, can our customers hear it?

------------------------------
Blaine Hebert RPT
Duarte CA
(626) 390-0512

Original Message:
Sent: 01-07-2024 00:54
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

I recommend you take your mic and move it to at least 10 different spots on a concert grand piano all over the soundboard, akin to the paper by Fazioli in 2017 and their contact mic experiments. Every spot is noticeably different. 

I started my music school training as a teenager by becoming a recording engineer and I put myself through music school that way. Years later I went from being a music professor to getting my advanced degrees in engineering. Of course I now have a fundamental understanding of the situation.

Without the physics training, a recording engineer will find out the hard way about small mic position changes. Now, this is so well documented in the literature, of course. Using the same mic for your ETD, and doing lots of positional changes, listen to the sound subjectively as though you are professionally recording the piano, not just using the tuning app. If the recording sounds subjectively 'good' it is probably in an ideal spot. It is 'hit and miss'. My experience with the technical analysis that I present in my classes is that small position changes will affect the tuning by 1 cent or more, worst case.

The ETD makers quietly acknowledge this problem. They don't want to expose it because it undermines their salesmanship of the app.

This problem led me to invent the PianoSens device. It is not just a 'guitar like pickup.' As an EE, I solved many problems doing this design.

I place the sensor < 1/8th string length to pick up all the partials > 8 partials, and making small movements of several centimeters in this 'region' and it has literally no discernible variance, which is loically to be expected. You can see small amplitude differences, of course, but not much. Tuning variances are now about 0.1 cents, not 1 cent. 

Steven Norsworthy

Professional Engineer, Professional Musician

RF2BITS.com

PianoSens.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101
------------------------------

Ed: I found the idea interesting especially this.

        "This is like pressing all keys of the piano simultaneously and computing the disorder of the resulting sound."

Most all ETDs reference each note individually to a remote fine standard while by ear each note is referenced directly to other notes sounding simultaneously in the mix. 

It is not clear from your reply whether you are aware of the mathematical premises of the Entropy tuning program.

Your reply does not seem to indicate that you understood that I was attempting to offer something that might assist your efforts. 

If this is all 'subjectivity' and 'art' and you are having 'fun' with this, then of course I have no problem. I really need to be 'all things to all tuners.' However if you want to have a true laboratory standard that removes all the 'opinion' and 'subjectivity', then I believe you will not be able to achieve this more objective way of eliminating all the opinions out there, and that is what I am trying to achieve. 

Best,

Prof. Steve

About a decade ago an experimental program "Entropy Piano Tuner" was shared with the public. <http://piano-tuner.org>

One difficulty with operating this program involved microphones used for the full sampling of the piano.

It might be of interest to run this program using PianoSens to provide the sampling input. It might be able to provide a "Zero point" for objective tuning analysis-not a claim for the best, most beautiful or most musical, but just a "most equal" tuning compromise as an objective starting point.

Steve et al,

I struggle to do my best tuning on every piano I service, spinets and concert grands.  I do use an ETD (iRCT) but I actually enjoy occasionally leaving it off and tuning by ear. 

What I have realized (or admitted) is that on my finest tuning, whether by ear or device, and even on the best of pianos (OK, I have never tuned a Fazioli) the piano is completely out of tune!  What I mean is that there are beats in every octave, there are harmonics that will never be in tune, there are inevitable false beats, at least somewhere and every third, fourth, fifth and sixth beat with the temperament.  Then there is the string inharmonicity adding to the cacophany.

Your suggestion that we quanticize and rate different tunings runs into the problem that tuning itself is problematic and to some degree subject to personal opinion and preference.  That tuning that you are (rightly) proud of might sound offensive to a particular musician.  Remember that there is a practice among highly regarded "concert tuners" to slightly de-tune unisons to brighten or alter the overall sound.  How would your objective testing rate a tuning by one of these touted techs where the device might show a lower score against another tuner who tunes "pure"?

On the other hand, I highly agree that objective testing is something that our technology lacks.  One of the issues that arises is the variability among instruments themselves.  How many times have you compared two similar instruments and found one better than the other?  I did an experiment with voicing where I applied one technique to even numbered hammers and another technique to the others.  What was surprising was that among the hammers with either treatment there was enough variability to challenge the test itself and I had to base my conclusion on a broad consensus of all of the hammers with each treatment (the treatment was easily evened out in the end, no hammers were harmed in this test).

To properly do this experiment we might need to conduct it in a factory with a great many pianos of very similar scale and treatments, otherwise we might base our conclusion on factors unrelated to the actual tuning.  Another possible scenario might be a large institution with many recent and identical instruments.

Don't stop experimenting, but in the end, can our customers hear it?

------------------------------
Blaine Hebert RPT
Duarte CA
(626) 390-0512

Original Message:
Sent: 01-07-2024 00:54
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

I recommend you take your mic and move it to at least 10 different spots on a concert grand piano all over the soundboard, akin to the paper by Fazioli in 2017 and their contact mic experiments. Every spot is noticeably different. 

I started my music school training as a teenager by becoming a recording engineer and I put myself through music school that way. Years later I went from being a music professor to getting my advanced degrees in engineering. Of course I now have a fundamental understanding of the situation.

Without the physics training, a recording engineer will find out the hard way about small mic position changes. Now, this is so well documented in the literature, of course. Using the same mic for your ETD, and doing lots of positional changes, listen to the sound subjectively as though you are professionally recording the piano, not just using the tuning app. If the recording sounds subjectively 'good' it is probably in an ideal spot. It is 'hit and miss'. My experience with the technical analysis that I present in my classes is that small position changes will affect the tuning by 1 cent or more, worst case.

The ETD makers quietly acknowledge this problem. They don't want to expose it because it undermines their salesmanship of the app.

This problem led me to invent the PianoSens device. It is not just a 'guitar like pickup.' As an EE, I solved many problems doing this design.

I place the sensor < 1/8th string length to pick up all the partials > 8 partials, and making small movements of several centimeters in this 'region' and it has literally no discernible variance, which is loically to be expected. You can see small amplitude differences, of course, but not much. Tuning variances are now about 0.1 cents, not 1 cent. 

Steven Norsworthy

Professional Engineer, Professional Musician

RF2BITS.com

PianoSens.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101
------------------------------

As I recall, the program used a repeating, self-correcting formula to attempt to discover the tuning which would result in the least possible amount of total  dissonance (dissonance here meaning the tempering of all coincident partials in the piano). The result was very similar to a railsback curve.

After sampling all the notes of the piano, it did this by (digitally) making a slight change in the frequencies of one string and then asking (calculating) whether this made the total dissonance of the piano greater or smaller. It continued making these adjustments until it could no longer find a change that would reduce the total dissonance, and that was the "final" tuning.

Ed: I found the idea interesting especially this.

        "This is like pressing all keys of the piano simultaneously and computing the disorder of the resulting sound."

Most all ETDs reference each note individually to a remote fine standard while by ear each note is referenced directly to other notes sounding simultaneously in the mix. 

It is not clear from your reply whether you are aware of the mathematical premises of the Entropy tuning program.

Your reply does not seem to indicate that you understood that I was attempting to offer something that might assist your efforts. 

If this is all 'subjectivity' and 'art' and you are having 'fun' with this, then of course I have no problem. I really need to be 'all things to all tuners.' However if you want to have a true laboratory standard that removes all the 'opinion' and 'subjectivity', then I believe you will not be able to achieve this more objective way of eliminating all the opinions out there, and that is what I am trying to achieve. 

Best,

Prof. Steve

About a decade ago an experimental program "Entropy Piano Tuner" was shared with the public. <http://piano-tuner.org>

One difficulty with operating this program involved microphones used for the full sampling of the piano.

It might be of interest to run this program using PianoSens to provide the sampling input. It might be able to provide a "Zero point" for objective tuning analysis-not a claim for the best, most beautiful or most musical, but just a "most equal" tuning compromise as an objective starting point.

Steve et al,

I struggle to do my best tuning on every piano I service, spinets and concert grands.  I do use an ETD (iRCT) but I actually enjoy occasionally leaving it off and tuning by ear. 

What I have realized (or admitted) is that on my finest tuning, whether by ear or device, and even on the best of pianos (OK, I have never tuned a Fazioli) the piano is completely out of tune!  What I mean is that there are beats in every octave, there are harmonics that will never be in tune, there are inevitable false beats, at least somewhere and every third, fourth, fifth and sixth beat with the temperament.  Then there is the string inharmonicity adding to the cacophany.

Your suggestion that we quanticize and rate different tunings runs into the problem that tuning itself is problematic and to some degree subject to personal opinion and preference.  That tuning that you are (rightly) proud of might sound offensive to a particular musician.  Remember that there is a practice among highly regarded "concert tuners" to slightly de-tune unisons to brighten or alter the overall sound.  How would your objective testing rate a tuning by one of these touted techs where the device might show a lower score against another tuner who tunes "pure"?

On the other hand, I highly agree that objective testing is something that our technology lacks.  One of the issues that arises is the variability among instruments themselves.  How many times have you compared two similar instruments and found one better than the other?  I did an experiment with voicing where I applied one technique to even numbered hammers and another technique to the others.  What was surprising was that among the hammers with either treatment there was enough variability to challenge the test itself and I had to base my conclusion on a broad consensus of all of the hammers with each treatment (the treatment was easily evened out in the end, no hammers were harmed in this test).

To properly do this experiment we might need to conduct it in a factory with a great many pianos of very similar scale and treatments, otherwise we might base our conclusion on factors unrelated to the actual tuning.  Another possible scenario might be a large institution with many recent and identical instruments.

Don't stop experimenting, but in the end, can our customers hear it?

------------------------------
Blaine Hebert RPT
Duarte CA
(626) 390-0512

Original Message:
Sent: 01-07-2024 00:54
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

I recommend you take your mic and move it to at least 10 different spots on a concert grand piano all over the soundboard, akin to the paper by Fazioli in 2017 and their contact mic experiments. Every spot is noticeably different. 

I started my music school training as a teenager by becoming a recording engineer and I put myself through music school that way. Years later I went from being a music professor to getting my advanced degrees in engineering. Of course I now have a fundamental understanding of the situation.

Without the physics training, a recording engineer will find out the hard way about small mic position changes. Now, this is so well documented in the literature, of course. Using the same mic for your ETD, and doing lots of positional changes, listen to the sound subjectively as though you are professionally recording the piano, not just using the tuning app. If the recording sounds subjectively 'good' it is probably in an ideal spot. It is 'hit and miss'. My experience with the technical analysis that I present in my classes is that small position changes will affect the tuning by 1 cent or more, worst case.

The ETD makers quietly acknowledge this problem. They don't want to expose it because it undermines their salesmanship of the app.

This problem led me to invent the PianoSens device. It is not just a 'guitar like pickup.' As an EE, I solved many problems doing this design.

I place the sensor < 1/8th string length to pick up all the partials > 8 partials, and making small movements of several centimeters in this 'region' and it has literally no discernible variance, which is loically to be expected. You can see small amplitude differences, of course, but not much. Tuning variances are now about 0.1 cents, not 1 cent. 

Steven Norsworthy

Professional Engineer, Professional Musician

RF2BITS.com

PianoSens.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101
------------------------------

Steve et al,

I struggle to do my best tuning on every piano I service, spinets and concert grands.  I do use an ETD (iRCT) but I actually enjoy occasionally leaving it off and tuning by ear. 

What I have realized (or admitted) is that on my finest tuning, whether by ear or device, and even on the best of pianos (OK, I have never tuned a Fazioli) the piano is completely out of tune!  What I mean is that there are beats in every octave, there are harmonics that will never be in tune, there are inevitable false beats, at least somewhere and every third, fourth, fifth and sixth beat with the temperament.  Then there is the string inharmonicity adding to the cacophany.

Your suggestion that we quanticize and rate different tunings runs into the problem that tuning itself is problematic and to some degree subject to personal opinion and preference.  That tuning that you are (rightly) proud of might sound offensive to a particular musician.  Remember that there is a practice among highly regarded "concert tuners" to slightly de-tune unisons to brighten or alter the overall sound.  How would your objective testing rate a tuning by one of these touted techs where the device might show a lower score against another tuner who tunes "pure"?

On the other hand, I highly agree that objective testing is something that our technology lacks.  One of the issues that arises is the variability among instruments themselves.  How many times have you compared two similar instruments and found one better than the other?  I did an experiment with voicing where I applied one technique to even numbered hammers and another technique to the others.  What was surprising was that among the hammers with either treatment there was enough variability to challenge the test itself and I had to base my conclusion on a broad consensus of all of the hammers with each treatment (the treatment was easily evened out in the end, no hammers were harmed in this test).

To properly do this experiment we might need to conduct it in a factory with a great many pianos of very similar scale and treatments, otherwise we might base our conclusion on factors unrelated to the actual tuning.  Another possible scenario might be a large institution with many recent and identical instruments.

Don't stop experimenting, but in the end, can our customers hear it?

------------------------------
Blaine Hebert RPT
Duarte CA
(626) 390-0512
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 01-07-2024 00:54
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

I recommend you take your mic and move it to at least 10 different spots on a concert grand piano all over the soundboard, akin to the paper by Fazioli in 2017 and their contact mic experiments. Every spot is noticeably different. 

I started my music school training as a teenager by becoming a recording engineer and I put myself through music school that way. Years later I went from being a music professor to getting my advanced degrees in engineering. Of course I now have a fundamental understanding of the situation.

Without the physics training, a recording engineer will find out the hard way about small mic position changes. Now, this is so well documented in the literature, of course. Using the same mic for your ETD, and doing lots of positional changes, listen to the sound subjectively as though you are professionally recording the piano, not just using the tuning app. If the recording sounds subjectively 'good' it is probably in an ideal spot. It is 'hit and miss'. My experience with the technical analysis that I present in my classes is that small position changes will affect the tuning by 1 cent or more, worst case.

The ETD makers quietly acknowledge this problem. They don't want to expose it because it undermines their salesmanship of the app.

This problem led me to invent the PianoSens device. It is not just a 'guitar like pickup.' As an EE, I solved many problems doing this design.

I place the sensor < 1/8th string length to pick up all the partials > 8 partials, and making small movements of several centimeters in this 'region' and it has literally no discernible variance, which is loically to be expected. You can see small amplitude differences, of course, but not much. Tuning variances are now about 0.1 cents, not 1 cent. 

Steven Norsworthy

Professional Engineer, Professional Musician

RF2BITS.com

PianoSens.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101
------------------------------

Steve et al,

I struggle to do my best tuning on every piano I service, spinets and concert grands.  I do use an ETD (iRCT) but I actually enjoy occasionally leaving it off and tuning by ear. 

What I have realized (or admitted) is that on my finest tuning, whether by ear or device, and even on the best of pianos (OK, I have never tuned a Fazioli) the piano is completely out of tune!  What I mean is that there are beats in every octave, there are harmonics that will never be in tune, there are inevitable false beats, at least somewhere and every third, fourth, fifth and sixth beat with the temperament.  Then there is the string inharmonicity adding to the cacophany.

Your suggestion that we quanticize and rate different tunings runs into the problem that tuning itself is problematic and to some degree subject to personal opinion and preference.  That tuning that you are (rightly) proud of might sound offensive to a particular musician.  Remember that there is a practice among highly regarded "concert tuners" to slightly de-tune unisons to brighten or alter the overall sound.  How would your objective testing rate a tuning by one of these touted techs where the device might show a lower score against another tuner who tunes "pure"?

On the other hand, I highly agree that objective testing is something that our technology lacks.  One of the issues that arises is the variability among instruments themselves.  How many times have you compared two similar instruments and found one better than the other?  I did an experiment with voicing where I applied one technique to even numbered hammers and another technique to the others.  What was surprising was that among the hammers with either treatment there was enough variability to challenge the test itself and I had to base my conclusion on a broad consensus of all of the hammers with each treatment (the treatment was easily evened out in the end, no hammers were harmed in this test).

To properly do this experiment we might need to conduct it in a factory with a great many pianos of very similar scale and treatments, otherwise we might base our conclusion on factors unrelated to the actual tuning.  Another possible scenario might be a large institution with many recent and identical instruments.

Don't stop experimenting, but in the end, can our customers hear it?

------------------------------
Blaine Hebert RPT
Duarte CA
(626) 390-0512

Original Message:
Sent: 01-07-2024 00:54
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

I recommend you take your mic and move it to at least 10 different spots on a concert grand piano all over the soundboard, akin to the paper by Fazioli in 2017 and their contact mic experiments. Every spot is noticeably different. 

I started my music school training as a teenager by becoming a recording engineer and I put myself through music school that way. Years later I went from being a music professor to getting my advanced degrees in engineering. Of course I now have a fundamental understanding of the situation.

Without the physics training, a recording engineer will find out the hard way about small mic position changes. Now, this is so well documented in the literature, of course. Using the same mic for your ETD, and doing lots of positional changes, listen to the sound subjectively as though you are professionally recording the piano, not just using the tuning app. If the recording sounds subjectively 'good' it is probably in an ideal spot. It is 'hit and miss'. My experience with the technical analysis that I present in my classes is that small position changes will affect the tuning by 1 cent or more, worst case.

The ETD makers quietly acknowledge this problem. They don't want to expose it because it undermines their salesmanship of the app.

This problem led me to invent the PianoSens device. It is not just a 'guitar like pickup.' As an EE, I solved many problems doing this design.

I place the sensor < 1/8th string length to pick up all the partials > 8 partials, and making small movements of several centimeters in this 'region' and it has literally no discernible variance, which is loically to be expected. You can see small amplitude differences, of course, but not much. Tuning variances are now about 0.1 cents, not 1 cent. 

Steven Norsworthy

Professional Engineer, Professional Musician

RF2BITS.com

PianoSens.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101
------------------------------

Just wanted to add in some observations pertaining to this whole discussion.

ONE
Steven, on the Low Frequency Spectra: PianoSens vs Microphone video, the microphone's FFT sample (the right-side graphic) contains a third partial sub-octave.  Other than in additive synthesis (an organ's 5 1/3 sub-third drawbar) I haven't knowingly encountered a situation where this occurs naturally, whether by room mode/resonance or standing wave.  To me that subharmonic reads about 94Hz, which doesn't align with HVAC or electronic interference.  But it does appear to read at exactly half of the third partial's frequency (looks like 185Hz) so I'm very curious if you can replicate that.  Alternatively, Is one (or more) of your room's dimensions 12 feet, perhaps?
Whatever it is, this characteristic might help reinforce your argument for eliminating the sound pressure transfer function from the ETD's measurements.

TWO

Blaine, on another thread you posted about testing the PIXEL Lavalier microphone.  While the product states it is omnidirectional on both Amazon and the product webpage, the pictures of it show a cardioid design.  The description also totes an embedded noise filter and "cancellation chip" to "weaken side noise and pick up every word you say."  More than one mic element is needed for DSP cancellation, and there's no way that thing actually has active processing.  SO it's a cardioid mic.  The cardioid pickup pattern is highly subject to the proximity effect, which means a significant over-emphasis of low frequency response when close to a sound source - that is likely why it didn't work well for you.

Omnidirectional mics are not subject to the proximity effect. While tablets do, or at least used to, sport a single omnidirectional mic, they now come with multiple microphones and lots of DSP cancellation.  I will presume that all tablet ETD's specifically turn off those DSP functions and source a single mic.  My 2016 iPad Air 2 apparently has 2 microphones, while the new iPad Pro has 5 mic inputs.

When my ETD (or rather, iPad microphone) has trouble, I usually pop in my MicW i436 measurement (thus omni) microphone.  It's not world class, but it has a reasonably flat response, protrudes from the body of the tablet to give acoustic space, and there's a noticeable difference with how my ETD performs when it is having trouble.  It's a little pricey for just an experiment though.  You might try again with the Dayton measurement mic: iMM-6S if you still have an audio jack, iMM-6C if you have USB-C.  parts-express.com is the place to get it. ($20 and $40 respectively).

THREE

On that same other thread, I think, Paul McCloud mentions nodes and anti-nodes in conjunction with the location of the microphone causing reading issues.  These room modes are the #1 cause of "bad" ETD readings, save for signal to noise ratio (vacuum cleaner usually trumps room mode).  So this is a real concern… ish.  I have often experienced the "note reads flat, move microphone, note reads sharp" phenomenon.  For me, this is most always remedied by moving the microphone.  It happens far less frequently with my measurement mic.  However, I do have to notice it to fix it - usually the spinner is behaving strangely, so I'm pretty sure I catch it.  I suppose you wouldn't have that worry with PianoSens, however...

Coming back to two-dimensions, I have to wonder if PianoSens is subject to string nodes and anti-nodes read errors, in the same way that room modes effect microphone readings.  I took a class at the last convention that (if I remember correctly) postulated that our understanding of nodes and string harmonics having static positions may be slightly wrong.  If this is true, then PianoSens is probably safe from the read errorr.  If not, then how does string position effect what part of the sound PianoSens measures? Perhaps it has a wide longitudinal pickup resolution to mitigate string nodes?

Side thought: if it has a very narrow resolution, we might be able to use PianoSens to create a measured cross section of a vibrating string (albeit that decay would make the measurement difficult to execute).  CAT scan of a vibrating string anyone?

------------------------------
Robin Whitehouse
Greenbelt, MD
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 01-12-2024 02:27
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Listen to my post of a few mins ago…. on Pianotech

I think that answers things… do you hear beats? How much?

Demo of a PianoSens tuned Fazioli F308 using 8ths, 12ths, 16ths


Original Message:
Sent: 1/11/2024 1:28:00 AM
From: Blaine Hebert
Subject: RE: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Steve et al,

I struggle to do my best tuning on every piano I service, spinets and concert grands.  I do use an ETD (iRCT) but I actually enjoy occasionally leaving it off and tuning by ear. 

What I have realized (or admitted) is that on my finest tuning, whether by ear or device, and even on the best of pianos (OK, I have never tuned a Fazioli) the piano is completely out of tune!  What I mean is that there are beats in every octave, there are harmonics that will never be in tune, there are inevitable false beats, at least somewhere and every third, fourth, fifth and sixth beat with the temperament.  Then there is the string inharmonicity adding to the cacophany.

Your suggestion that we quanticize and rate different tunings runs into the problem that tuning itself is problematic and to some degree subject to personal opinion and preference.  That tuning that you are (rightly) proud of might sound offensive to a particular musician.  Remember that there is a practice among highly regarded "concert tuners" to slightly de-tune unisons to brighten or alter the overall sound.  How would your objective testing rate a tuning by one of these touted techs where the device might show a lower score against another tuner who tunes "pure"?

On the other hand, I highly agree that objective testing is something that our technology lacks.  One of the issues that arises is the variability among instruments themselves.  How many times have you compared two similar instruments and found one better than the other?  I did an experiment with voicing where I applied one technique to even numbered hammers and another technique to the others.  What was surprising was that among the hammers with either treatment there was enough variability to challenge the test itself and I had to base my conclusion on a broad consensus of all of the hammers with each treatment (the treatment was easily evened out in the end, no hammers were harmed in this test).

To properly do this experiment we might need to conduct it in a factory with a great many pianos of very similar scale and treatments, otherwise we might base our conclusion on factors unrelated to the actual tuning.  Another possible scenario might be a large institution with many recent and identical instruments.

Don't stop experimenting, but in the end, can our customers hear it?

------------------------------
Blaine Hebert RPT
Duarte CA
(626) 390-0512

Original Message:
Sent: 01-07-2024 00:54
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

I recommend you take your mic and move it to at least 10 different spots on a concert grand piano all over the soundboard, akin to the paper by Fazioli in 2017 and their contact mic experiments. Every spot is noticeably different. 

I started my music school training as a teenager by becoming a recording engineer and I put myself through music school that way. Years later I went from being a music professor to getting my advanced degrees in engineering. Of course I now have a fundamental understanding of the situation.

Without the physics training, a recording engineer will find out the hard way about small mic position changes. Now, this is so well documented in the literature, of course. Using the same mic for your ETD, and doing lots of positional changes, listen to the sound subjectively as though you are professionally recording the piano, not just using the tuning app. If the recording sounds subjectively 'good' it is probably in an ideal spot. It is 'hit and miss'. My experience with the technical analysis that I present in my classes is that small position changes will affect the tuning by 1 cent or more, worst case.

The ETD makers quietly acknowledge this problem. They don't want to expose it because it undermines their salesmanship of the app.

This problem led me to invent the PianoSens device. It is not just a 'guitar like pickup.' As an EE, I solved many problems doing this design.

I place the sensor < 1/8th string length to pick up all the partials > 8 partials, and making small movements of several centimeters in this 'region' and it has literally no discernible variance, which is loically to be expected. You can see small amplitude differences, of course, but not much. Tuning variances are now about 0.1 cents, not 1 cent. 

Steven Norsworthy

Professional Engineer, Professional Musician

RF2BITS.com

PianoSens.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101
------------------------------

I could write a thesis on this subject. It's very time-consuming. The sensor is able to pick up at least 12 partials without the first half wave crossover. It's extremely invariant. I don't care how many mics you use and how high quality they are or how expensive they are or what their patterns are, I've been through it for months and months. The Mic is not the answer. Regardless of the room.


Original Message:
Sent: 1/13/2024 12:14:00 AM
From: Robin Whitehouse
Subject: RE: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Just wanted to add in some observations pertaining to this whole discussion.

ONE
Steven, on the Low Frequency Spectra: PianoSens vs Microphone video, the microphone's FFT sample (the right-side graphic) contains a third partial sub-octave.  Other than in additive synthesis (an organ's 5 1/3 sub-third drawbar) I haven't knowingly encountered a situation where this occurs naturally, whether by room mode/resonance or standing wave.  To me that subharmonic reads about 94Hz, which doesn't align with HVAC or electronic interference.  But it does appear to read at exactly half of the third partial's frequency (looks like 185Hz) so I'm very curious if you can replicate that.  Alternatively, Is one (or more) of your room's dimensions 12 feet, perhaps?
Whatever it is, this characteristic might help reinforce your argument for eliminating the sound pressure transfer function from the ETD's measurements.

TWO

Blaine, on another thread you posted about testing the PIXEL Lavalier microphone.  While the product states it is omnidirectional on both Amazon and the product webpage, the pictures of it show a cardioid design.  The description also totes an embedded noise filter and "cancellation chip" to "weaken side noise and pick up every word you say."  More than one mic element is needed for DSP cancellation, and there's no way that thing actually has active processing.  SO it's a cardioid mic.  The cardioid pickup pattern is highly subject to the proximity effect, which means a significant over-emphasis of low frequency response when close to a sound source - that is likely why it didn't work well for you.

Omnidirectional mics are not subject to the proximity effect. While tablets do, or at least used to, sport a single omnidirectional mic, they now come with multiple microphones and lots of DSP cancellation.  I will presume that all tablet ETD's specifically turn off those DSP functions and source a single mic.  My 2016 iPad Air 2 apparently has 2 microphones, while the new iPad Pro has 5 mic inputs.

When my ETD (or rather, iPad microphone) has trouble, I usually pop in my MicW i436 measurement (thus omni) microphone.  It's not world class, but it has a reasonably flat response, protrudes from the body of the tablet to give acoustic space, and there's a noticeable difference with how my ETD performs when it is having trouble.  It's a little pricey for just an experiment though.  You might try again with the Dayton measurement mic: iMM-6S if you still have an audio jack, iMM-6C if you have USB-C.  parts-express.com is the place to get it. ($20 and $40 respectively).

THREE

On that same other thread, I think, Paul McCloud mentions nodes and anti-nodes in conjunction with the location of the microphone causing reading issues.  These room modes are the #1 cause of "bad" ETD readings, save for signal to noise ratio (vacuum cleaner usually trumps room mode).  So this is a real concern… ish.  I have often experienced the "note reads flat, move microphone, note reads sharp" phenomenon.  For me, this is most always remedied by moving the microphone.  It happens far less frequently with my measurement mic.  However, I do have to notice it to fix it - usually the spinner is behaving strangely, so I'm pretty sure I catch it.  I suppose you wouldn't have that worry with PianoSens, however...

Coming back to two-dimensions, I have to wonder if PianoSens is subject to string nodes and anti-nodes read errors, in the same way that room modes effect microphone readings.  I took a class at the last convention that (if I remember correctly) postulated that our understanding of nodes and string harmonics having static positions may be slightly wrong.  If this is true, then PianoSens is probably safe from the read errorr.  If not, then how does string position effect what part of the sound PianoSens measures? Perhaps it has a wide longitudinal pickup resolution to mitigate string nodes?

Side thought: if it has a very narrow resolution, we might be able to use PianoSens to create a measured cross section of a vibrating string (albeit that decay would make the measurement difficult to execute).  CAT scan of a vibrating string anyone?

------------------------------
Robin Whitehouse
Greenbelt, MD

Original Message:
Sent: 01-12-2024 02:27
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Listen to my post of a few mins ago…. on Pianotech

I think that answers things… do you hear beats? How much?

Demo of a PianoSens tuned Fazioli F308 using 8ths, 12ths, 16ths


Original Message:
Sent: 1/11/2024 1:28:00 AM
From: Blaine Hebert
Subject: RE: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Steve et al,

I struggle to do my best tuning on every piano I service, spinets and concert grands.  I do use an ETD (iRCT) but I actually enjoy occasionally leaving it off and tuning by ear. 

What I have realized (or admitted) is that on my finest tuning, whether by ear or device, and even on the best of pianos (OK, I have never tuned a Fazioli) the piano is completely out of tune!  What I mean is that there are beats in every octave, there are harmonics that will never be in tune, there are inevitable false beats, at least somewhere and every third, fourth, fifth and sixth beat with the temperament.  Then there is the string inharmonicity adding to the cacophany.

Your suggestion that we quanticize and rate different tunings runs into the problem that tuning itself is problematic and to some degree subject to personal opinion and preference.  That tuning that you are (rightly) proud of might sound offensive to a particular musician.  Remember that there is a practice among highly regarded "concert tuners" to slightly de-tune unisons to brighten or alter the overall sound.  How would your objective testing rate a tuning by one of these touted techs where the device might show a lower score against another tuner who tunes "pure"?

On the other hand, I highly agree that objective testing is something that our technology lacks.  One of the issues that arises is the variability among instruments themselves.  How many times have you compared two similar instruments and found one better than the other?  I did an experiment with voicing where I applied one technique to even numbered hammers and another technique to the others.  What was surprising was that among the hammers with either treatment there was enough variability to challenge the test itself and I had to base my conclusion on a broad consensus of all of the hammers with each treatment (the treatment was easily evened out in the end, no hammers were harmed in this test).

To properly do this experiment we might need to conduct it in a factory with a great many pianos of very similar scale and treatments, otherwise we might base our conclusion on factors unrelated to the actual tuning.  Another possible scenario might be a large institution with many recent and identical instruments.

Don't stop experimenting, but in the end, can our customers hear it?

------------------------------
Blaine Hebert RPT
Duarte CA
(626) 390-0512

Original Message:
Sent: 01-07-2024 00:54
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

I recommend you take your mic and move it to at least 10 different spots on a concert grand piano all over the soundboard, akin to the paper by Fazioli in 2017 and their contact mic experiments. Every spot is noticeably different. 

I started my music school training as a teenager by becoming a recording engineer and I put myself through music school that way. Years later I went from being a music professor to getting my advanced degrees in engineering. Of course I now have a fundamental understanding of the situation.

Without the physics training, a recording engineer will find out the hard way about small mic position changes. Now, this is so well documented in the literature, of course. Using the same mic for your ETD, and doing lots of positional changes, listen to the sound subjectively as though you are professionally recording the piano, not just using the tuning app. If the recording sounds subjectively 'good' it is probably in an ideal spot. It is 'hit and miss'. My experience with the technical analysis that I present in my classes is that small position changes will affect the tuning by 1 cent or more, worst case.

The ETD makers quietly acknowledge this problem. They don't want to expose it because it undermines their salesmanship of the app.

This problem led me to invent the PianoSens device. It is not just a 'guitar like pickup.' As an EE, I solved many problems doing this design.

I place the sensor < 1/8th string length to pick up all the partials > 8 partials, and making small movements of several centimeters in this 'region' and it has literally no discernible variance, which is loically to be expected. You can see small amplitude differences, of course, but not much. Tuning variances are now about 0.1 cents, not 1 cent. 

Steven Norsworthy

Professional Engineer, Professional Musician

RF2BITS.com

PianoSens.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101
------------------------------

I'm enjoying this thread a lot. First of all because I find it interesting that the argument of achieving a tuning that is considerably less than a cent close to "perfect" is a) possible and b) desirable. Especially since once achieved it would immediately start to drift. A warm breath can sometimes be enough to cause a measurable change. So, a couple of questions.

1: Is achieving a so called perfect tuning a real world everyday goal or is it simply a proof that it can be done? What qualifies as a the best tuning can vary considerably from piano to piano, situation to situation, customer to customer, tech to tech and ETD/pickup to ETD/pickup.

2: Since PianoSens is plugging in to a mic input on the EDT, it has to deliver some kind of audio related waveform to the device it's plugged in to. Given that PianoSens is visually determining what the vibrations of a given string are, am I correct that it is then synthesizing the audio waveform that is being delivered to the EDT? Is it filtering out otherwise unavoidable string noise and delivering only that which is needed for the job? And, given that electronics can exhibit frequency variations based on temperature, how accurate are the synthesized waveforms being delivered to the ETD? Or, for that matter, how accurately is the ETD expected to perform in order to provide the results you are claiming?

3: On pianos less than Fazioli, how does PianoSens deal with false beating strings?

4: This one just out of curiosity; If the output of PianoSens were to be played through an amplifier and speaker, would it sound like a piano note or simply the required five or six narrow band synthesized waveforms all sounding together to represent just the centered range of frequencies needed for the ETD to do it's job?

And lastly, an observation. Having once been a recording engineer, (back in the analog days), I agree that mic placement in a piano is a neat trick. If you are recording rock or pop tunes you probably want to get in very tight and close the hammers. If you are doing jazz you want to back off a bit. If you are doing classical you want to step back from the piano quite a bit as the real sound of the piano doesn't start to blend until several feet away from the instrument. Since it's been suggested here that mic placement, in tuning, can sometimes cause a note to be incorrectly calculated by the ETD and tuned sometimes a bit sharp or flat, how do we decide which mic position is correct? Can seasoned techs hear the slight differences that our ETD may be displaying, and therefore know that what it is showing us as correct may actually be wrong? Simply moving the mic and seeing the tuning change doesn't tell us which position is the correct one. 

I see a real advantage to PianoSens when having to tune in a noisy environment, but I'm left with the question of how close does a tuning need to be to be better than good enough?

I could write a thesis on this subject. It's very time-consuming. The sensor is able to pick up at least 12 partials without the first half wave crossover. It's extremely invariant. I don't care how many mics you use and how high quality they are or how expensive they are or what their patterns are, I've been through it for months and months. The Mic is not the answer. Regardless of the room.


Original Message:
Sent: 1/13/2024 12:14:00 AM
From: Robin Whitehouse
Subject: RE: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Just wanted to add in some observations pertaining to this whole discussion.

ONE
Steven, on the Low Frequency Spectra: PianoSens vs Microphone video, the microphone's FFT sample (the right-side graphic) contains a third partial sub-octave.  Other than in additive synthesis (an organ's 5 1/3 sub-third drawbar) I haven't knowingly encountered a situation where this occurs naturally, whether by room mode/resonance or standing wave.  To me that subharmonic reads about 94Hz, which doesn't align with HVAC or electronic interference.  But it does appear to read at exactly half of the third partial's frequency (looks like 185Hz) so I'm very curious if you can replicate that.  Alternatively, Is one (or more) of your room's dimensions 12 feet, perhaps?
Whatever it is, this characteristic might help reinforce your argument for eliminating the sound pressure transfer function from the ETD's measurements.

TWO

Blaine, on another thread you posted about testing the PIXEL Lavalier microphone.  While the product states it is omnidirectional on both Amazon and the product webpage, the pictures of it show a cardioid design.  The description also totes an embedded noise filter and "cancellation chip" to "weaken side noise and pick up every word you say."  More than one mic element is needed for DSP cancellation, and there's no way that thing actually has active processing.  SO it's a cardioid mic.  The cardioid pickup pattern is highly subject to the proximity effect, which means a significant over-emphasis of low frequency response when close to a sound source - that is likely why it didn't work well for you.

Omnidirectional mics are not subject to the proximity effect. While tablets do, or at least used to, sport a single omnidirectional mic, they now come with multiple microphones and lots of DSP cancellation.  I will presume that all tablet ETD's specifically turn off those DSP functions and source a single mic.  My 2016 iPad Air 2 apparently has 2 microphones, while the new iPad Pro has 5 mic inputs.

When my ETD (or rather, iPad microphone) has trouble, I usually pop in my MicW i436 measurement (thus omni) microphone.  It's not world class, but it has a reasonably flat response, protrudes from the body of the tablet to give acoustic space, and there's a noticeable difference with how my ETD performs when it is having trouble.  It's a little pricey for just an experiment though.  You might try again with the Dayton measurement mic: iMM-6S if you still have an audio jack, iMM-6C if you have USB-C.  parts-express.com is the place to get it. ($20 and $40 respectively).

THREE

On that same other thread, I think, Paul McCloud mentions nodes and anti-nodes in conjunction with the location of the microphone causing reading issues.  These room modes are the #1 cause of "bad" ETD readings, save for signal to noise ratio (vacuum cleaner usually trumps room mode).  So this is a real concern… ish.  I have often experienced the "note reads flat, move microphone, note reads sharp" phenomenon.  For me, this is most always remedied by moving the microphone.  It happens far less frequently with my measurement mic.  However, I do have to notice it to fix it - usually the spinner is behaving strangely, so I'm pretty sure I catch it.  I suppose you wouldn't have that worry with PianoSens, however...

Coming back to two-dimensions, I have to wonder if PianoSens is subject to string nodes and anti-nodes read errors, in the same way that room modes effect microphone readings.  I took a class at the last convention that (if I remember correctly) postulated that our understanding of nodes and string harmonics having static positions may be slightly wrong.  If this is true, then PianoSens is probably safe from the read errorr.  If not, then how does string position effect what part of the sound PianoSens measures? Perhaps it has a wide longitudinal pickup resolution to mitigate string nodes?

Side thought: if it has a very narrow resolution, we might be able to use PianoSens to create a measured cross section of a vibrating string (albeit that decay would make the measurement difficult to execute).  CAT scan of a vibrating string anyone?

------------------------------
Robin Whitehouse
Greenbelt, MD

Original Message:
Sent: 01-12-2024 02:27
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Listen to my post of a few mins ago…. on Pianotech

I think that answers things… do you hear beats? How much?

Demo of a PianoSens tuned Fazioli F308 using 8ths, 12ths, 16ths


Original Message:
Sent: 1/11/2024 1:28:00 AM
From: Blaine Hebert
Subject: RE: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Steve et al,

I struggle to do my best tuning on every piano I service, spinets and concert grands.  I do use an ETD (iRCT) but I actually enjoy occasionally leaving it off and tuning by ear. 

What I have realized (or admitted) is that on my finest tuning, whether by ear or device, and even on the best of pianos (OK, I have never tuned a Fazioli) the piano is completely out of tune!  What I mean is that there are beats in every octave, there are harmonics that will never be in tune, there are inevitable false beats, at least somewhere and every third, fourth, fifth and sixth beat with the temperament.  Then there is the string inharmonicity adding to the cacophany.

Your suggestion that we quanticize and rate different tunings runs into the problem that tuning itself is problematic and to some degree subject to personal opinion and preference.  That tuning that you are (rightly) proud of might sound offensive to a particular musician.  Remember that there is a practice among highly regarded "concert tuners" to slightly de-tune unisons to brighten or alter the overall sound.  How would your objective testing rate a tuning by one of these touted techs where the device might show a lower score against another tuner who tunes "pure"?

On the other hand, I highly agree that objective testing is something that our technology lacks.  One of the issues that arises is the variability among instruments themselves.  How many times have you compared two similar instruments and found one better than the other?  I did an experiment with voicing where I applied one technique to even numbered hammers and another technique to the others.  What was surprising was that among the hammers with either treatment there was enough variability to challenge the test itself and I had to base my conclusion on a broad consensus of all of the hammers with each treatment (the treatment was easily evened out in the end, no hammers were harmed in this test).

To properly do this experiment we might need to conduct it in a factory with a great many pianos of very similar scale and treatments, otherwise we might base our conclusion on factors unrelated to the actual tuning.  Another possible scenario might be a large institution with many recent and identical instruments.

Don't stop experimenting, but in the end, can our customers hear it?

------------------------------
Blaine Hebert RPT
Duarte CA
(626) 390-0512

Original Message:
Sent: 01-07-2024 00:54
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

I recommend you take your mic and move it to at least 10 different spots on a concert grand piano all over the soundboard, akin to the paper by Fazioli in 2017 and their contact mic experiments. Every spot is noticeably different. 

I started my music school training as a teenager by becoming a recording engineer and I put myself through music school that way. Years later I went from being a music professor to getting my advanced degrees in engineering. Of course I now have a fundamental understanding of the situation.

Without the physics training, a recording engineer will find out the hard way about small mic position changes. Now, this is so well documented in the literature, of course. Using the same mic for your ETD, and doing lots of positional changes, listen to the sound subjectively as though you are professionally recording the piano, not just using the tuning app. If the recording sounds subjectively 'good' it is probably in an ideal spot. It is 'hit and miss'. My experience with the technical analysis that I present in my classes is that small position changes will affect the tuning by 1 cent or more, worst case.

The ETD makers quietly acknowledge this problem. They don't want to expose it because it undermines their salesmanship of the app.

This problem led me to invent the PianoSens device. It is not just a 'guitar like pickup.' As an EE, I solved many problems doing this design.

I place the sensor < 1/8th string length to pick up all the partials > 8 partials, and making small movements of several centimeters in this 'region' and it has literally no discernible variance, which is loically to be expected. You can see small amplitude differences, of course, but not much. Tuning variances are now about 0.1 cents, not 1 cent. 

Steven Norsworthy

Professional Engineer, Professional Musician

RF2BITS.com

PianoSens.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101
------------------------------

I could write a thesis on this subject. It's very time-consuming. The sensor is able to pick up at least 12 partials without the first half wave crossover. It's extremely invariant. I don't care how many mics you use and how high quality they are or how expensive they are or what their patterns are, I've been through it for months and months. The Mic is not the answer. Regardless of the room.


Original Message:
Sent: 1/13/2024 12:14:00 AM
From: Robin Whitehouse
Subject: RE: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Just wanted to add in some observations pertaining to this whole discussion.

ONE
Steven, on the Low Frequency Spectra: PianoSens vs Microphone video, the microphone's FFT sample (the right-side graphic) contains a third partial sub-octave.  Other than in additive synthesis (an organ's 5 1/3 sub-third drawbar) I haven't knowingly encountered a situation where this occurs naturally, whether by room mode/resonance or standing wave.  To me that subharmonic reads about 94Hz, which doesn't align with HVAC or electronic interference.  But it does appear to read at exactly half of the third partial's frequency (looks like 185Hz) so I'm very curious if you can replicate that.  Alternatively, Is one (or more) of your room's dimensions 12 feet, perhaps?
Whatever it is, this characteristic might help reinforce your argument for eliminating the sound pressure transfer function from the ETD's measurements.

TWO

Blaine, on another thread you posted about testing the PIXEL Lavalier microphone.  While the product states it is omnidirectional on both Amazon and the product webpage, the pictures of it show a cardioid design.  The description also totes an embedded noise filter and "cancellation chip" to "weaken side noise and pick up every word you say."  More than one mic element is needed for DSP cancellation, and there's no way that thing actually has active processing.  SO it's a cardioid mic.  The cardioid pickup pattern is highly subject to the proximity effect, which means a significant over-emphasis of low frequency response when close to a sound source - that is likely why it didn't work well for you.

Omnidirectional mics are not subject to the proximity effect. While tablets do, or at least used to, sport a single omnidirectional mic, they now come with multiple microphones and lots of DSP cancellation.  I will presume that all tablet ETD's specifically turn off those DSP functions and source a single mic.  My 2016 iPad Air 2 apparently has 2 microphones, while the new iPad Pro has 5 mic inputs.

When my ETD (or rather, iPad microphone) has trouble, I usually pop in my MicW i436 measurement (thus omni) microphone.  It's not world class, but it has a reasonably flat response, protrudes from the body of the tablet to give acoustic space, and there's a noticeable difference with how my ETD performs when it is having trouble.  It's a little pricey for just an experiment though.  You might try again with the Dayton measurement mic: iMM-6S if you still have an audio jack, iMM-6C if you have USB-C.  parts-express.com is the place to get it. ($20 and $40 respectively).

THREE

On that same other thread, I think, Paul McCloud mentions nodes and anti-nodes in conjunction with the location of the microphone causing reading issues.  These room modes are the #1 cause of "bad" ETD readings, save for signal to noise ratio (vacuum cleaner usually trumps room mode).  So this is a real concern… ish.  I have often experienced the "note reads flat, move microphone, note reads sharp" phenomenon.  For me, this is most always remedied by moving the microphone.  It happens far less frequently with my measurement mic.  However, I do have to notice it to fix it - usually the spinner is behaving strangely, so I'm pretty sure I catch it.  I suppose you wouldn't have that worry with PianoSens, however...

Coming back to two-dimensions, I have to wonder if PianoSens is subject to string nodes and anti-nodes read errors, in the same way that room modes effect microphone readings.  I took a class at the last convention that (if I remember correctly) postulated that our understanding of nodes and string harmonics having static positions may be slightly wrong.  If this is true, then PianoSens is probably safe from the read errorr.  If not, then how does string position effect what part of the sound PianoSens measures? Perhaps it has a wide longitudinal pickup resolution to mitigate string nodes?

Side thought: if it has a very narrow resolution, we might be able to use PianoSens to create a measured cross section of a vibrating string (albeit that decay would make the measurement difficult to execute).  CAT scan of a vibrating string anyone?

------------------------------
Robin Whitehouse
Greenbelt, MD

Original Message:
Sent: 01-12-2024 02:27
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Listen to my post of a few mins ago…. on Pianotech

I think that answers things… do you hear beats? How much?

Demo of a PianoSens tuned Fazioli F308 using 8ths, 12ths, 16ths


Original Message:
Sent: 1/11/2024 1:28:00 AM
From: Blaine Hebert
Subject: RE: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Steve et al,

I struggle to do my best tuning on every piano I service, spinets and concert grands.  I do use an ETD (iRCT) but I actually enjoy occasionally leaving it off and tuning by ear. 

What I have realized (or admitted) is that on my finest tuning, whether by ear or device, and even on the best of pianos (OK, I have never tuned a Fazioli) the piano is completely out of tune!  What I mean is that there are beats in every octave, there are harmonics that will never be in tune, there are inevitable false beats, at least somewhere and every third, fourth, fifth and sixth beat with the temperament.  Then there is the string inharmonicity adding to the cacophany.

Your suggestion that we quanticize and rate different tunings runs into the problem that tuning itself is problematic and to some degree subject to personal opinion and preference.  That tuning that you are (rightly) proud of might sound offensive to a particular musician.  Remember that there is a practice among highly regarded "concert tuners" to slightly de-tune unisons to brighten or alter the overall sound.  How would your objective testing rate a tuning by one of these touted techs where the device might show a lower score against another tuner who tunes "pure"?

On the other hand, I highly agree that objective testing is something that our technology lacks.  One of the issues that arises is the variability among instruments themselves.  How many times have you compared two similar instruments and found one better than the other?  I did an experiment with voicing where I applied one technique to even numbered hammers and another technique to the others.  What was surprising was that among the hammers with either treatment there was enough variability to challenge the test itself and I had to base my conclusion on a broad consensus of all of the hammers with each treatment (the treatment was easily evened out in the end, no hammers were harmed in this test).

To properly do this experiment we might need to conduct it in a factory with a great many pianos of very similar scale and treatments, otherwise we might base our conclusion on factors unrelated to the actual tuning.  Another possible scenario might be a large institution with many recent and identical instruments.

Don't stop experimenting, but in the end, can our customers hear it?

------------------------------
Blaine Hebert RPT
Duarte CA
(626) 390-0512

Original Message:
Sent: 01-07-2024 00:54
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

I recommend you take your mic and move it to at least 10 different spots on a concert grand piano all over the soundboard, akin to the paper by Fazioli in 2017 and their contact mic experiments. Every spot is noticeably different. 

I started my music school training as a teenager by becoming a recording engineer and I put myself through music school that way. Years later I went from being a music professor to getting my advanced degrees in engineering. Of course I now have a fundamental understanding of the situation.

Without the physics training, a recording engineer will find out the hard way about small mic position changes. Now, this is so well documented in the literature, of course. Using the same mic for your ETD, and doing lots of positional changes, listen to the sound subjectively as though you are professionally recording the piano, not just using the tuning app. If the recording sounds subjectively 'good' it is probably in an ideal spot. It is 'hit and miss'. My experience with the technical analysis that I present in my classes is that small position changes will affect the tuning by 1 cent or more, worst case.

The ETD makers quietly acknowledge this problem. They don't want to expose it because it undermines their salesmanship of the app.

This problem led me to invent the PianoSens device. It is not just a 'guitar like pickup.' As an EE, I solved many problems doing this design.

I place the sensor < 1/8th string length to pick up all the partials > 8 partials, and making small movements of several centimeters in this 'region' and it has literally no discernible variance, which is loically to be expected. You can see small amplitude differences, of course, but not much. Tuning variances are now about 0.1 cents, not 1 cent. 

Steven Norsworthy

Professional Engineer, Professional Musician

RF2BITS.com

PianoSens.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101
------------------------------

Alright Professor,
Now I'm annoyed, and will see myself out. Apparently we're all too pedestrian to understand this unprecedented transformation in piano tuning you've bestowed upon us.

Since you've been an audio engineer, you'll be familiar with the phrase, "you can't polish a turd".  Well, the piano is a turd of distortions, and we've already enjoyed 200 years of polishing technique exploration.  Can Matlab be used to display the detriment of enjoyment to all the players I've tuned for, with the -0.650 cents deviant average tuning I've been delivering? "Bloody subjectivity," that you criticized in a different thread, is the final destination of all piano tuning.

I think we can accept that the data you are presenting is demonstrable, and that this system could very well be useful for some tuners in some circumstances. But your marketing approach has a little room for improvement.

Lots of us are nerds who like to explore how things work – as you should resonate with, being an inventor. You've presented a different technology and we're curious about it, and also in ways beyond your intentions, which should be exciting for you.  But you refuse to engage with us, and rather, profess with your many credentials and data points that we are performing inferior work and require your product.

Since we're not able to have a discussion, maybe it's time to stop spamming the whole tech list, and confine this revolution to one thread.

------------------------------
Robin Whitehouse
Greenbelt, MD

Original Message:
Sent: 01-13-2024 00:25
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

I could write a thesis on this subject. It's very time-consuming. The sensor is able to pick up at least 12 partials without the first half wave crossover. It's extremely invariant. I don't care how many mics you use and how high quality they are or how expensive they are or what their patterns are, I've been through it for months and months. The Mic is not the answer. Regardless of the room.


Original Message:
Sent: 1/13/2024 12:14:00 AM
From: Robin Whitehouse
Subject: RE: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Just wanted to add in some observations pertaining to this whole discussion.

ONE
Steven, on the Low Frequency Spectra: PianoSens vs Microphone video, the microphone's FFT sample (the right-side graphic) contains a third partial sub-octave.  Other than in additive synthesis (an organ's 5 1/3 sub-third drawbar) I haven't knowingly encountered a situation where this occurs naturally, whether by room mode/resonance or standing wave.  To me that subharmonic reads about 94Hz, which doesn't align with HVAC or electronic interference.  But it does appear to read at exactly half of the third partial's frequency (looks like 185Hz) so I'm very curious if you can replicate that.  Alternatively, Is one (or more) of your room's dimensions 12 feet, perhaps?
Whatever it is, this characteristic might help reinforce your argument for eliminating the sound pressure transfer function from the ETD's measurements.

TWO

Blaine, on another thread you posted about testing the PIXEL Lavalier microphone.  While the product states it is omnidirectional on both Amazon and the product webpage, the pictures of it show a cardioid design.  The description also totes an embedded noise filter and "cancellation chip" to "weaken side noise and pick up every word you say."  More than one mic element is needed for DSP cancellation, and there's no way that thing actually has active processing.  SO it's a cardioid mic.  The cardioid pickup pattern is highly subject to the proximity effect, which means a significant over-emphasis of low frequency response when close to a sound source - that is likely why it didn't work well for you.

Omnidirectional mics are not subject to the proximity effect. While tablets do, or at least used to, sport a single omnidirectional mic, they now come with multiple microphones and lots of DSP cancellation.  I will presume that all tablet ETD's specifically turn off those DSP functions and source a single mic.  My 2016 iPad Air 2 apparently has 2 microphones, while the new iPad Pro has 5 mic inputs.

When my ETD (or rather, iPad microphone) has trouble, I usually pop in my MicW i436 measurement (thus omni) microphone.  It's not world class, but it has a reasonably flat response, protrudes from the body of the tablet to give acoustic space, and there's a noticeable difference with how my ETD performs when it is having trouble.  It's a little pricey for just an experiment though.  You might try again with the Dayton measurement mic: iMM-6S if you still have an audio jack, iMM-6C if you have USB-C.  parts-express.com is the place to get it. ($20 and $40 respectively).

THREE

On that same other thread, I think, Paul McCloud mentions nodes and anti-nodes in conjunction with the location of the microphone causing reading issues.  These room modes are the #1 cause of "bad" ETD readings, save for signal to noise ratio (vacuum cleaner usually trumps room mode).  So this is a real concern… ish.  I have often experienced the "note reads flat, move microphone, note reads sharp" phenomenon.  For me, this is most always remedied by moving the microphone.  It happens far less frequently with my measurement mic.  However, I do have to notice it to fix it - usually the spinner is behaving strangely, so I'm pretty sure I catch it.  I suppose you wouldn't have that worry with PianoSens, however...

Coming back to two-dimensions, I have to wonder if PianoSens is subject to string nodes and anti-nodes read errors, in the same way that room modes effect microphone readings.  I took a class at the last convention that (if I remember correctly) postulated that our understanding of nodes and string harmonics having static positions may be slightly wrong.  If this is true, then PianoSens is probably safe from the read errorr.  If not, then how does string position effect what part of the sound PianoSens measures? Perhaps it has a wide longitudinal pickup resolution to mitigate string nodes?

Side thought: if it has a very narrow resolution, we might be able to use PianoSens to create a measured cross section of a vibrating string (albeit that decay would make the measurement difficult to execute).  CAT scan of a vibrating string anyone?

------------------------------
Robin Whitehouse
Greenbelt, MD

Original Message:
Sent: 01-12-2024 02:27
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Listen to my post of a few mins ago…. on Pianotech

I think that answers things… do you hear beats? How much?

Demo of a PianoSens tuned Fazioli F308 using 8ths, 12ths, 16ths


Original Message:
Sent: 1/11/2024 1:28:00 AM
From: Blaine Hebert
Subject: RE: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Steve et al,

I struggle to do my best tuning on every piano I service, spinets and concert grands.  I do use an ETD (iRCT) but I actually enjoy occasionally leaving it off and tuning by ear. 

What I have realized (or admitted) is that on my finest tuning, whether by ear or device, and even on the best of pianos (OK, I have never tuned a Fazioli) the piano is completely out of tune!  What I mean is that there are beats in every octave, there are harmonics that will never be in tune, there are inevitable false beats, at least somewhere and every third, fourth, fifth and sixth beat with the temperament.  Then there is the string inharmonicity adding to the cacophany.

Your suggestion that we quanticize and rate different tunings runs into the problem that tuning itself is problematic and to some degree subject to personal opinion and preference.  That tuning that you are (rightly) proud of might sound offensive to a particular musician.  Remember that there is a practice among highly regarded "concert tuners" to slightly de-tune unisons to brighten or alter the overall sound.  How would your objective testing rate a tuning by one of these touted techs where the device might show a lower score against another tuner who tunes "pure"?

On the other hand, I highly agree that objective testing is something that our technology lacks.  One of the issues that arises is the variability among instruments themselves.  How many times have you compared two similar instruments and found one better than the other?  I did an experiment with voicing where I applied one technique to even numbered hammers and another technique to the others.  What was surprising was that among the hammers with either treatment there was enough variability to challenge the test itself and I had to base my conclusion on a broad consensus of all of the hammers with each treatment (the treatment was easily evened out in the end, no hammers were harmed in this test).

To properly do this experiment we might need to conduct it in a factory with a great many pianos of very similar scale and treatments, otherwise we might base our conclusion on factors unrelated to the actual tuning.  Another possible scenario might be a large institution with many recent and identical instruments.

Don't stop experimenting, but in the end, can our customers hear it?

------------------------------
Blaine Hebert RPT
Duarte CA
(626) 390-0512

Original Message:
Sent: 01-07-2024 00:54
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

I recommend you take your mic and move it to at least 10 different spots on a concert grand piano all over the soundboard, akin to the paper by Fazioli in 2017 and their contact mic experiments. Every spot is noticeably different. 

I started my music school training as a teenager by becoming a recording engineer and I put myself through music school that way. Years later I went from being a music professor to getting my advanced degrees in engineering. Of course I now have a fundamental understanding of the situation.

Without the physics training, a recording engineer will find out the hard way about small mic position changes. Now, this is so well documented in the literature, of course. Using the same mic for your ETD, and doing lots of positional changes, listen to the sound subjectively as though you are professionally recording the piano, not just using the tuning app. If the recording sounds subjectively 'good' it is probably in an ideal spot. It is 'hit and miss'. My experience with the technical analysis that I present in my classes is that small position changes will affect the tuning by 1 cent or more, worst case.

The ETD makers quietly acknowledge this problem. They don't want to expose it because it undermines their salesmanship of the app.

This problem led me to invent the PianoSens device. It is not just a 'guitar like pickup.' As an EE, I solved many problems doing this design.

I place the sensor < 1/8th string length to pick up all the partials > 8 partials, and making small movements of several centimeters in this 'region' and it has literally no discernible variance, which is loically to be expected. You can see small amplitude differences, of course, but not much. Tuning variances are now about 0.1 cents, not 1 cent. 

Steven Norsworthy

Professional Engineer, Professional Musician

RF2BITS.com

PianoSens.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101
------------------------------

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

------------------------------
Blaine Hebert RPT
Duarte CA
(626) 390-0512
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 01-13-2024 11:23
From: Robin Whitehouse
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Alright Professor,
Now I'm annoyed, and will see myself out. Apparently we're all too pedestrian to understand this unprecedented transformation in piano tuning you've bestowed upon us.

Since you've been an audio engineer, you'll be familiar with the phrase, "you can't polish a turd".  Well, the piano is a turd of distortions, and we've already enjoyed 200 years of polishing technique exploration.  Can Matlab be used to display the detriment of enjoyment to all the players I've tuned for, with the -0.650 cents deviant average tuning I've been delivering? "Bloody subjectivity," that you criticized in a different thread, is the final destination of all piano tuning.

I think we can accept that the data you are presenting is demonstrable, and that this system could very well be useful for some tuners in some circumstances. But your marketing approach has a little room for improvement.

Lots of us are nerds who like to explore how things work – as you should resonate with, being an inventor. You've presented a different technology and we're curious about it, and also in ways beyond your intentions, which should be exciting for you.  But you refuse to engage with us, and rather, profess with your many credentials and data points that we are performing inferior work and require your product.

Since we're not able to have a discussion, maybe it's time to stop spamming the whole tech list, and confine this revolution to one thread.

------------------------------
Robin Whitehouse
Greenbelt, MD

Original Message:
Sent: 01-13-2024 00:25
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

I could write a thesis on this subject. It's very time-consuming. The sensor is able to pick up at least 12 partials without the first half wave crossover. It's extremely invariant. I don't care how many mics you use and how high quality they are or how expensive they are or what their patterns are, I've been through it for months and months. The Mic is not the answer. Regardless of the room.


Original Message:
Sent: 1/13/2024 12:14:00 AM
From: Robin Whitehouse
Subject: RE: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Just wanted to add in some observations pertaining to this whole discussion.

ONE
Steven, on the Low Frequency Spectra: PianoSens vs Microphone video, the microphone's FFT sample (the right-side graphic) contains a third partial sub-octave.  Other than in additive synthesis (an organ's 5 1/3 sub-third drawbar) I haven't knowingly encountered a situation where this occurs naturally, whether by room mode/resonance or standing wave.  To me that subharmonic reads about 94Hz, which doesn't align with HVAC or electronic interference.  But it does appear to read at exactly half of the third partial's frequency (looks like 185Hz) so I'm very curious if you can replicate that.  Alternatively, Is one (or more) of your room's dimensions 12 feet, perhaps?
Whatever it is, this characteristic might help reinforce your argument for eliminating the sound pressure transfer function from the ETD's measurements.

TWO

Blaine, on another thread you posted about testing the PIXEL Lavalier microphone.  While the product states it is omnidirectional on both Amazon and the product webpage, the pictures of it show a cardioid design.  The description also totes an embedded noise filter and "cancellation chip" to "weaken side noise and pick up every word you say."  More than one mic element is needed for DSP cancellation, and there's no way that thing actually has active processing.  SO it's a cardioid mic.  The cardioid pickup pattern is highly subject to the proximity effect, which means a significant over-emphasis of low frequency response when close to a sound source - that is likely why it didn't work well for you.

Omnidirectional mics are not subject to the proximity effect. While tablets do, or at least used to, sport a single omnidirectional mic, they now come with multiple microphones and lots of DSP cancellation.  I will presume that all tablet ETD's specifically turn off those DSP functions and source a single mic.  My 2016 iPad Air 2 apparently has 2 microphones, while the new iPad Pro has 5 mic inputs.

When my ETD (or rather, iPad microphone) has trouble, I usually pop in my MicW i436 measurement (thus omni) microphone.  It's not world class, but it has a reasonably flat response, protrudes from the body of the tablet to give acoustic space, and there's a noticeable difference with how my ETD performs when it is having trouble.  It's a little pricey for just an experiment though.  You might try again with the Dayton measurement mic: iMM-6S if you still have an audio jack, iMM-6C if you have USB-C.  parts-express.com is the place to get it. ($20 and $40 respectively).

THREE

On that same other thread, I think, Paul McCloud mentions nodes and anti-nodes in conjunction with the location of the microphone causing reading issues.  These room modes are the #1 cause of "bad" ETD readings, save for signal to noise ratio (vacuum cleaner usually trumps room mode).  So this is a real concern… ish.  I have often experienced the "note reads flat, move microphone, note reads sharp" phenomenon.  For me, this is most always remedied by moving the microphone.  It happens far less frequently with my measurement mic.  However, I do have to notice it to fix it - usually the spinner is behaving strangely, so I'm pretty sure I catch it.  I suppose you wouldn't have that worry with PianoSens, however...

Coming back to two-dimensions, I have to wonder if PianoSens is subject to string nodes and anti-nodes read errors, in the same way that room modes effect microphone readings.  I took a class at the last convention that (if I remember correctly) postulated that our understanding of nodes and string harmonics having static positions may be slightly wrong.  If this is true, then PianoSens is probably safe from the read errorr.  If not, then how does string position effect what part of the sound PianoSens measures? Perhaps it has a wide longitudinal pickup resolution to mitigate string nodes?

Side thought: if it has a very narrow resolution, we might be able to use PianoSens to create a measured cross section of a vibrating string (albeit that decay would make the measurement difficult to execute).  CAT scan of a vibrating string anyone?

------------------------------
Robin Whitehouse
Greenbelt, MD

Original Message:
Sent: 01-12-2024 02:27
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Listen to my post of a few mins ago…. on Pianotech

I think that answers things… do you hear beats? How much?

Demo of a PianoSens tuned Fazioli F308 using 8ths, 12ths, 16ths


Original Message:
Sent: 1/11/2024 1:28:00 AM
From: Blaine Hebert
Subject: RE: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Steve et al,

I struggle to do my best tuning on every piano I service, spinets and concert grands.  I do use an ETD (iRCT) but I actually enjoy occasionally leaving it off and tuning by ear. 

What I have realized (or admitted) is that on my finest tuning, whether by ear or device, and even on the best of pianos (OK, I have never tuned a Fazioli) the piano is completely out of tune!  What I mean is that there are beats in every octave, there are harmonics that will never be in tune, there are inevitable false beats, at least somewhere and every third, fourth, fifth and sixth beat with the temperament.  Then there is the string inharmonicity adding to the cacophany.

Your suggestion that we quanticize and rate different tunings runs into the problem that tuning itself is problematic and to some degree subject to personal opinion and preference.  That tuning that you are (rightly) proud of might sound offensive to a particular musician.  Remember that there is a practice among highly regarded "concert tuners" to slightly de-tune unisons to brighten or alter the overall sound.  How would your objective testing rate a tuning by one of these touted techs where the device might show a lower score against another tuner who tunes "pure"?

On the other hand, I highly agree that objective testing is something that our technology lacks.  One of the issues that arises is the variability among instruments themselves.  How many times have you compared two similar instruments and found one better than the other?  I did an experiment with voicing where I applied one technique to even numbered hammers and another technique to the others.  What was surprising was that among the hammers with either treatment there was enough variability to challenge the test itself and I had to base my conclusion on a broad consensus of all of the hammers with each treatment (the treatment was easily evened out in the end, no hammers were harmed in this test).

To properly do this experiment we might need to conduct it in a factory with a great many pianos of very similar scale and treatments, otherwise we might base our conclusion on factors unrelated to the actual tuning.  Another possible scenario might be a large institution with many recent and identical instruments.

Don't stop experimenting, but in the end, can our customers hear it?

------------------------------
Blaine Hebert RPT
Duarte CA
(626) 390-0512

Original Message:
Sent: 01-07-2024 00:54
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

I recommend you take your mic and move it to at least 10 different spots on a concert grand piano all over the soundboard, akin to the paper by Fazioli in 2017 and their contact mic experiments. Every spot is noticeably different. 

I started my music school training as a teenager by becoming a recording engineer and I put myself through music school that way. Years later I went from being a music professor to getting my advanced degrees in engineering. Of course I now have a fundamental understanding of the situation.

Without the physics training, a recording engineer will find out the hard way about small mic position changes. Now, this is so well documented in the literature, of course. Using the same mic for your ETD, and doing lots of positional changes, listen to the sound subjectively as though you are professionally recording the piano, not just using the tuning app. If the recording sounds subjectively 'good' it is probably in an ideal spot. It is 'hit and miss'. My experience with the technical analysis that I present in my classes is that small position changes will affect the tuning by 1 cent or more, worst case.

The ETD makers quietly acknowledge this problem. They don't want to expose it because it undermines their salesmanship of the app.

This problem led me to invent the PianoSens device. It is not just a 'guitar like pickup.' As an EE, I solved many problems doing this design.

I place the sensor < 1/8th string length to pick up all the partials > 8 partials, and making small movements of several centimeters in this 'region' and it has literally no discernible variance, which is loically to be expected. You can see small amplitude differences, of course, but not much. Tuning variances are now about 0.1 cents, not 1 cent. 

Steven Norsworthy

Professional Engineer, Professional Musician

RF2BITS.com

PianoSens.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101
------------------------------

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

------------------------------
Blaine Hebert RPT
Duarte CA
(626) 390-0512
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 01-13-2024 11:23
From: Robin Whitehouse
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Alright Professor,
Now I'm annoyed, and will see myself out. Apparently we're all too pedestrian to understand this unprecedented transformation in piano tuning you've bestowed upon us.

Since you've been an audio engineer, you'll be familiar with the phrase, "you can't polish a turd".  Well, the piano is a turd of distortions, and we've already enjoyed 200 years of polishing technique exploration.  Can Matlab be used to display the detriment of enjoyment to all the players I've tuned for, with the -0.650 cents deviant average tuning I've been delivering? "Bloody subjectivity," that you criticized in a different thread, is the final destination of all piano tuning.

I think we can accept that the data you are presenting is demonstrable, and that this system could very well be useful for some tuners in some circumstances. But your marketing approach has a little room for improvement.

Lots of us are nerds who like to explore how things work – as you should resonate with, being an inventor. You've presented a different technology and we're curious about it, and also in ways beyond your intentions, which should be exciting for you.  But you refuse to engage with us, and rather, profess with your many credentials and data points that we are performing inferior work and require your product.

Since we're not able to have a discussion, maybe it's time to stop spamming the whole tech list, and confine this revolution to one thread.

------------------------------
Robin Whitehouse
Greenbelt, MD

Original Message:
Sent: 01-13-2024 00:25
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

I could write a thesis on this subject. It's very time-consuming. The sensor is able to pick up at least 12 partials without the first half wave crossover. It's extremely invariant. I don't care how many mics you use and how high quality they are or how expensive they are or what their patterns are, I've been through it for months and months. The Mic is not the answer. Regardless of the room.


Original Message:
Sent: 1/13/2024 12:14:00 AM
From: Robin Whitehouse
Subject: RE: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Just wanted to add in some observations pertaining to this whole discussion.

ONE
Steven, on the Low Frequency Spectra: PianoSens vs Microphone video, the microphone's FFT sample (the right-side graphic) contains a third partial sub-octave.  Other than in additive synthesis (an organ's 5 1/3 sub-third drawbar) I haven't knowingly encountered a situation where this occurs naturally, whether by room mode/resonance or standing wave.  To me that subharmonic reads about 94Hz, which doesn't align with HVAC or electronic interference.  But it does appear to read at exactly half of the third partial's frequency (looks like 185Hz) so I'm very curious if you can replicate that.  Alternatively, Is one (or more) of your room's dimensions 12 feet, perhaps?
Whatever it is, this characteristic might help reinforce your argument for eliminating the sound pressure transfer function from the ETD's measurements.

TWO

Blaine, on another thread you posted about testing the PIXEL Lavalier microphone.  While the product states it is omnidirectional on both Amazon and the product webpage, the pictures of it show a cardioid design.  The description also totes an embedded noise filter and "cancellation chip" to "weaken side noise and pick up every word you say."  More than one mic element is needed for DSP cancellation, and there's no way that thing actually has active processing.  SO it's a cardioid mic.  The cardioid pickup pattern is highly subject to the proximity effect, which means a significant over-emphasis of low frequency response when close to a sound source - that is likely why it didn't work well for you.

Omnidirectional mics are not subject to the proximity effect. While tablets do, or at least used to, sport a single omnidirectional mic, they now come with multiple microphones and lots of DSP cancellation.  I will presume that all tablet ETD's specifically turn off those DSP functions and source a single mic.  My 2016 iPad Air 2 apparently has 2 microphones, while the new iPad Pro has 5 mic inputs.

When my ETD (or rather, iPad microphone) has trouble, I usually pop in my MicW i436 measurement (thus omni) microphone.  It's not world class, but it has a reasonably flat response, protrudes from the body of the tablet to give acoustic space, and there's a noticeable difference with how my ETD performs when it is having trouble.  It's a little pricey for just an experiment though.  You might try again with the Dayton measurement mic: iMM-6S if you still have an audio jack, iMM-6C if you have USB-C.  parts-express.com is the place to get it. ($20 and $40 respectively).

THREE

On that same other thread, I think, Paul McCloud mentions nodes and anti-nodes in conjunction with the location of the microphone causing reading issues.  These room modes are the #1 cause of "bad" ETD readings, save for signal to noise ratio (vacuum cleaner usually trumps room mode).  So this is a real concern… ish.  I have often experienced the "note reads flat, move microphone, note reads sharp" phenomenon.  For me, this is most always remedied by moving the microphone.  It happens far less frequently with my measurement mic.  However, I do have to notice it to fix it - usually the spinner is behaving strangely, so I'm pretty sure I catch it.  I suppose you wouldn't have that worry with PianoSens, however...

Coming back to two-dimensions, I have to wonder if PianoSens is subject to string nodes and anti-nodes read errors, in the same way that room modes effect microphone readings.  I took a class at the last convention that (if I remember correctly) postulated that our understanding of nodes and string harmonics having static positions may be slightly wrong.  If this is true, then PianoSens is probably safe from the read errorr.  If not, then how does string position effect what part of the sound PianoSens measures? Perhaps it has a wide longitudinal pickup resolution to mitigate string nodes?

Side thought: if it has a very narrow resolution, we might be able to use PianoSens to create a measured cross section of a vibrating string (albeit that decay would make the measurement difficult to execute).  CAT scan of a vibrating string anyone?

------------------------------
Robin Whitehouse
Greenbelt, MD

Original Message:
Sent: 01-12-2024 02:27
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Listen to my post of a few mins ago…. on Pianotech

I think that answers things… do you hear beats? How much?

Demo of a PianoSens tuned Fazioli F308 using 8ths, 12ths, 16ths


Original Message:
Sent: 1/11/2024 1:28:00 AM
From: Blaine Hebert
Subject: RE: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Steve et al,

I struggle to do my best tuning on every piano I service, spinets and concert grands.  I do use an ETD (iRCT) but I actually enjoy occasionally leaving it off and tuning by ear. 

What I have realized (or admitted) is that on my finest tuning, whether by ear or device, and even on the best of pianos (OK, I have never tuned a Fazioli) the piano is completely out of tune!  What I mean is that there are beats in every octave, there are harmonics that will never be in tune, there are inevitable false beats, at least somewhere and every third, fourth, fifth and sixth beat with the temperament.  Then there is the string inharmonicity adding to the cacophany.

Your suggestion that we quanticize and rate different tunings runs into the problem that tuning itself is problematic and to some degree subject to personal opinion and preference.  That tuning that you are (rightly) proud of might sound offensive to a particular musician.  Remember that there is a practice among highly regarded "concert tuners" to slightly de-tune unisons to brighten or alter the overall sound.  How would your objective testing rate a tuning by one of these touted techs where the device might show a lower score against another tuner who tunes "pure"?

On the other hand, I highly agree that objective testing is something that our technology lacks.  One of the issues that arises is the variability among instruments themselves.  How many times have you compared two similar instruments and found one better than the other?  I did an experiment with voicing where I applied one technique to even numbered hammers and another technique to the others.  What was surprising was that among the hammers with either treatment there was enough variability to challenge the test itself and I had to base my conclusion on a broad consensus of all of the hammers with each treatment (the treatment was easily evened out in the end, no hammers were harmed in this test).

To properly do this experiment we might need to conduct it in a factory with a great many pianos of very similar scale and treatments, otherwise we might base our conclusion on factors unrelated to the actual tuning.  Another possible scenario might be a large institution with many recent and identical instruments.

Don't stop experimenting, but in the end, can our customers hear it?

------------------------------
Blaine Hebert RPT
Duarte CA
(626) 390-0512

Original Message:
Sent: 01-07-2024 00:54
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

I recommend you take your mic and move it to at least 10 different spots on a concert grand piano all over the soundboard, akin to the paper by Fazioli in 2017 and their contact mic experiments. Every spot is noticeably different. 

I started my music school training as a teenager by becoming a recording engineer and I put myself through music school that way. Years later I went from being a music professor to getting my advanced degrees in engineering. Of course I now have a fundamental understanding of the situation.

Without the physics training, a recording engineer will find out the hard way about small mic position changes. Now, this is so well documented in the literature, of course. Using the same mic for your ETD, and doing lots of positional changes, listen to the sound subjectively as though you are professionally recording the piano, not just using the tuning app. If the recording sounds subjectively 'good' it is probably in an ideal spot. It is 'hit and miss'. My experience with the technical analysis that I present in my classes is that small position changes will affect the tuning by 1 cent or more, worst case.

The ETD makers quietly acknowledge this problem. They don't want to expose it because it undermines their salesmanship of the app.

This problem led me to invent the PianoSens device. It is not just a 'guitar like pickup.' As an EE, I solved many problems doing this design.

I place the sensor < 1/8th string length to pick up all the partials > 8 partials, and making small movements of several centimeters in this 'region' and it has literally no discernible variance, which is loically to be expected. You can see small amplitude differences, of course, but not much. Tuning variances are now about 0.1 cents, not 1 cent. 

Steven Norsworthy

Professional Engineer, Professional Musician

RF2BITS.com

PianoSens.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101
------------------------------

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

------------------------------
Blaine Hebert RPT
Duarte CA
(626) 390-0512
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 01-13-2024 11:23
From: Robin Whitehouse
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Alright Professor,
Now I'm annoyed, and will see myself out. Apparently we're all too pedestrian to understand this unprecedented transformation in piano tuning you've bestowed upon us.

Since you've been an audio engineer, you'll be familiar with the phrase, "you can't polish a turd".  Well, the piano is a turd of distortions, and we've already enjoyed 200 years of polishing technique exploration.  Can Matlab be used to display the detriment of enjoyment to all the players I've tuned for, with the -0.650 cents deviant average tuning I've been delivering? "Bloody subjectivity," that you criticized in a different thread, is the final destination of all piano tuning.

I think we can accept that the data you are presenting is demonstrable, and that this system could very well be useful for some tuners in some circumstances. But your marketing approach has a little room for improvement.

Lots of us are nerds who like to explore how things work – as you should resonate with, being an inventor. You've presented a different technology and we're curious about it, and also in ways beyond your intentions, which should be exciting for you.  But you refuse to engage with us, and rather, profess with your many credentials and data points that we are performing inferior work and require your product.

Since we're not able to have a discussion, maybe it's time to stop spamming the whole tech list, and confine this revolution to one thread.

------------------------------
Robin Whitehouse
Greenbelt, MD

Original Message:
Sent: 01-13-2024 00:25
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

I could write a thesis on this subject. It's very time-consuming. The sensor is able to pick up at least 12 partials without the first half wave crossover. It's extremely invariant. I don't care how many mics you use and how high quality they are or how expensive they are or what their patterns are, I've been through it for months and months. The Mic is not the answer. Regardless of the room.


Original Message:
Sent: 1/13/2024 12:14:00 AM
From: Robin Whitehouse
Subject: RE: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Just wanted to add in some observations pertaining to this whole discussion.

ONE
Steven, on the Low Frequency Spectra: PianoSens vs Microphone video, the microphone's FFT sample (the right-side graphic) contains a third partial sub-octave.  Other than in additive synthesis (an organ's 5 1/3 sub-third drawbar) I haven't knowingly encountered a situation where this occurs naturally, whether by room mode/resonance or standing wave.  To me that subharmonic reads about 94Hz, which doesn't align with HVAC or electronic interference.  But it does appear to read at exactly half of the third partial's frequency (looks like 185Hz) so I'm very curious if you can replicate that.  Alternatively, Is one (or more) of your room's dimensions 12 feet, perhaps?
Whatever it is, this characteristic might help reinforce your argument for eliminating the sound pressure transfer function from the ETD's measurements.

TWO

Blaine, on another thread you posted about testing the PIXEL Lavalier microphone.  While the product states it is omnidirectional on both Amazon and the product webpage, the pictures of it show a cardioid design.  The description also totes an embedded noise filter and "cancellation chip" to "weaken side noise and pick up every word you say."  More than one mic element is needed for DSP cancellation, and there's no way that thing actually has active processing.  SO it's a cardioid mic.  The cardioid pickup pattern is highly subject to the proximity effect, which means a significant over-emphasis of low frequency response when close to a sound source - that is likely why it didn't work well for you.

Omnidirectional mics are not subject to the proximity effect. While tablets do, or at least used to, sport a single omnidirectional mic, they now come with multiple microphones and lots of DSP cancellation.  I will presume that all tablet ETD's specifically turn off those DSP functions and source a single mic.  My 2016 iPad Air 2 apparently has 2 microphones, while the new iPad Pro has 5 mic inputs.

When my ETD (or rather, iPad microphone) has trouble, I usually pop in my MicW i436 measurement (thus omni) microphone.  It's not world class, but it has a reasonably flat response, protrudes from the body of the tablet to give acoustic space, and there's a noticeable difference with how my ETD performs when it is having trouble.  It's a little pricey for just an experiment though.  You might try again with the Dayton measurement mic: iMM-6S if you still have an audio jack, iMM-6C if you have USB-C.  parts-express.com is the place to get it. ($20 and $40 respectively).

THREE

On that same other thread, I think, Paul McCloud mentions nodes and anti-nodes in conjunction with the location of the microphone causing reading issues.  These room modes are the #1 cause of "bad" ETD readings, save for signal to noise ratio (vacuum cleaner usually trumps room mode).  So this is a real concern… ish.  I have often experienced the "note reads flat, move microphone, note reads sharp" phenomenon.  For me, this is most always remedied by moving the microphone.  It happens far less frequently with my measurement mic.  However, I do have to notice it to fix it - usually the spinner is behaving strangely, so I'm pretty sure I catch it.  I suppose you wouldn't have that worry with PianoSens, however...

Coming back to two-dimensions, I have to wonder if PianoSens is subject to string nodes and anti-nodes read errors, in the same way that room modes effect microphone readings.  I took a class at the last convention that (if I remember correctly) postulated that our understanding of nodes and string harmonics having static positions may be slightly wrong.  If this is true, then PianoSens is probably safe from the read errorr.  If not, then how does string position effect what part of the sound PianoSens measures? Perhaps it has a wide longitudinal pickup resolution to mitigate string nodes?

Side thought: if it has a very narrow resolution, we might be able to use PianoSens to create a measured cross section of a vibrating string (albeit that decay would make the measurement difficult to execute).  CAT scan of a vibrating string anyone?

------------------------------
Robin Whitehouse
Greenbelt, MD

Original Message:
Sent: 01-12-2024 02:27
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Listen to my post of a few mins ago…. on Pianotech

I think that answers things… do you hear beats? How much?

Demo of a PianoSens tuned Fazioli F308 using 8ths, 12ths, 16ths


Original Message:
Sent: 1/11/2024 1:28:00 AM
From: Blaine Hebert
Subject: RE: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Steve et al,

I struggle to do my best tuning on every piano I service, spinets and concert grands.  I do use an ETD (iRCT) but I actually enjoy occasionally leaving it off and tuning by ear. 

What I have realized (or admitted) is that on my finest tuning, whether by ear or device, and even on the best of pianos (OK, I have never tuned a Fazioli) the piano is completely out of tune!  What I mean is that there are beats in every octave, there are harmonics that will never be in tune, there are inevitable false beats, at least somewhere and every third, fourth, fifth and sixth beat with the temperament.  Then there is the string inharmonicity adding to the cacophany.

Your suggestion that we quanticize and rate different tunings runs into the problem that tuning itself is problematic and to some degree subject to personal opinion and preference.  That tuning that you are (rightly) proud of might sound offensive to a particular musician.  Remember that there is a practice among highly regarded "concert tuners" to slightly de-tune unisons to brighten or alter the overall sound.  How would your objective testing rate a tuning by one of these touted techs where the device might show a lower score against another tuner who tunes "pure"?

On the other hand, I highly agree that objective testing is something that our technology lacks.  One of the issues that arises is the variability among instruments themselves.  How many times have you compared two similar instruments and found one better than the other?  I did an experiment with voicing where I applied one technique to even numbered hammers and another technique to the others.  What was surprising was that among the hammers with either treatment there was enough variability to challenge the test itself and I had to base my conclusion on a broad consensus of all of the hammers with each treatment (the treatment was easily evened out in the end, no hammers were harmed in this test).

To properly do this experiment we might need to conduct it in a factory with a great many pianos of very similar scale and treatments, otherwise we might base our conclusion on factors unrelated to the actual tuning.  Another possible scenario might be a large institution with many recent and identical instruments.

Don't stop experimenting, but in the end, can our customers hear it?

------------------------------
Blaine Hebert RPT
Duarte CA
(626) 390-0512

Original Message:
Sent: 01-07-2024 00:54
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

I recommend you take your mic and move it to at least 10 different spots on a concert grand piano all over the soundboard, akin to the paper by Fazioli in 2017 and their contact mic experiments. Every spot is noticeably different. 

I started my music school training as a teenager by becoming a recording engineer and I put myself through music school that way. Years later I went from being a music professor to getting my advanced degrees in engineering. Of course I now have a fundamental understanding of the situation.

Without the physics training, a recording engineer will find out the hard way about small mic position changes. Now, this is so well documented in the literature, of course. Using the same mic for your ETD, and doing lots of positional changes, listen to the sound subjectively as though you are professionally recording the piano, not just using the tuning app. If the recording sounds subjectively 'good' it is probably in an ideal spot. It is 'hit and miss'. My experience with the technical analysis that I present in my classes is that small position changes will affect the tuning by 1 cent or more, worst case.

The ETD makers quietly acknowledge this problem. They don't want to expose it because it undermines their salesmanship of the app.

This problem led me to invent the PianoSens device. It is not just a 'guitar like pickup.' As an EE, I solved many problems doing this design.

I place the sensor < 1/8th string length to pick up all the partials > 8 partials, and making small movements of several centimeters in this 'region' and it has literally no discernible variance, which is loically to be expected. You can see small amplitude differences, of course, but not much. Tuning variances are now about 0.1 cents, not 1 cent. 

Steven Norsworthy

Professional Engineer, Professional Musician

RF2BITS.com

PianoSens.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101
------------------------------

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

------------------------------
Blaine Hebert RPT
Duarte CA
(626) 390-0512

Original Message:
Sent: 01-13-2024 11:23
From: Robin Whitehouse
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Alright Professor,
Now I'm annoyed, and will see myself out. Apparently we're all too pedestrian to understand this unprecedented transformation in piano tuning you've bestowed upon us.

Since you've been an audio engineer, you'll be familiar with the phrase, "you can't polish a turd".  Well, the piano is a turd of distortions, and we've already enjoyed 200 years of polishing technique exploration.  Can Matlab be used to display the detriment of enjoyment to all the players I've tuned for, with the -0.650 cents deviant average tuning I've been delivering? "Bloody subjectivity," that you criticized in a different thread, is the final destination of all piano tuning.

I think we can accept that the data you are presenting is demonstrable, and that this system could very well be useful for some tuners in some circumstances. But your marketing approach has a little room for improvement.

Lots of us are nerds who like to explore how things work – as you should resonate with, being an inventor. You've presented a different technology and we're curious about it, and also in ways beyond your intentions, which should be exciting for you.  But you refuse to engage with us, and rather, profess with your many credentials and data points that we are performing inferior work and require your product.

Since we're not able to have a discussion, maybe it's time to stop spamming the whole tech list, and confine this revolution to one thread.

------------------------------
Robin Whitehouse
Greenbelt, MD

Original Message:
Sent: 01-13-2024 00:25
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

I could write a thesis on this subject. It's very time-consuming. The sensor is able to pick up at least 12 partials without the first half wave crossover. It's extremely invariant. I don't care how many mics you use and how high quality they are or how expensive they are or what their patterns are, I've been through it for months and months. The Mic is not the answer. Regardless of the room.


Original Message:
Sent: 1/13/2024 12:14:00 AM
From: Robin Whitehouse
Subject: RE: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Just wanted to add in some observations pertaining to this whole discussion.

ONE
Steven, on the Low Frequency Spectra: PianoSens vs Microphone video, the microphone's FFT sample (the right-side graphic) contains a third partial sub-octave.  Other than in additive synthesis (an organ's 5 1/3 sub-third drawbar) I haven't knowingly encountered a situation where this occurs naturally, whether by room mode/resonance or standing wave.  To me that subharmonic reads about 94Hz, which doesn't align with HVAC or electronic interference.  But it does appear to read at exactly half of the third partial's frequency (looks like 185Hz) so I'm very curious if you can replicate that.  Alternatively, Is one (or more) of your room's dimensions 12 feet, perhaps?
Whatever it is, this characteristic might help reinforce your argument for eliminating the sound pressure transfer function from the ETD's measurements.

TWO

Blaine, on another thread you posted about testing the PIXEL Lavalier microphone.  While the product states it is omnidirectional on both Amazon and the product webpage, the pictures of it show a cardioid design.  The description also totes an embedded noise filter and "cancellation chip" to "weaken side noise and pick up every word you say."  More than one mic element is needed for DSP cancellation, and there's no way that thing actually has active processing.  SO it's a cardioid mic.  The cardioid pickup pattern is highly subject to the proximity effect, which means a significant over-emphasis of low frequency response when close to a sound source - that is likely why it didn't work well for you.

Omnidirectional mics are not subject to the proximity effect. While tablets do, or at least used to, sport a single omnidirectional mic, they now come with multiple microphones and lots of DSP cancellation.  I will presume that all tablet ETD's specifically turn off those DSP functions and source a single mic.  My 2016 iPad Air 2 apparently has 2 microphones, while the new iPad Pro has 5 mic inputs.

When my ETD (or rather, iPad microphone) has trouble, I usually pop in my MicW i436 measurement (thus omni) microphone.  It's not world class, but it has a reasonably flat response, protrudes from the body of the tablet to give acoustic space, and there's a noticeable difference with how my ETD performs when it is having trouble.  It's a little pricey for just an experiment though.  You might try again with the Dayton measurement mic: iMM-6S if you still have an audio jack, iMM-6C if you have USB-C.  parts-express.com is the place to get it. ($20 and $40 respectively).

THREE

On that same other thread, I think, Paul McCloud mentions nodes and anti-nodes in conjunction with the location of the microphone causing reading issues.  These room modes are the #1 cause of "bad" ETD readings, save for signal to noise ratio (vacuum cleaner usually trumps room mode).  So this is a real concern… ish.  I have often experienced the "note reads flat, move microphone, note reads sharp" phenomenon.  For me, this is most always remedied by moving the microphone.  It happens far less frequently with my measurement mic.  However, I do have to notice it to fix it - usually the spinner is behaving strangely, so I'm pretty sure I catch it.  I suppose you wouldn't have that worry with PianoSens, however...

Coming back to two-dimensions, I have to wonder if PianoSens is subject to string nodes and anti-nodes read errors, in the same way that room modes effect microphone readings.  I took a class at the last convention that (if I remember correctly) postulated that our understanding of nodes and string harmonics having static positions may be slightly wrong.  If this is true, then PianoSens is probably safe from the read errorr.  If not, then how does string position effect what part of the sound PianoSens measures? Perhaps it has a wide longitudinal pickup resolution to mitigate string nodes?

Side thought: if it has a very narrow resolution, we might be able to use PianoSens to create a measured cross section of a vibrating string (albeit that decay would make the measurement difficult to execute).  CAT scan of a vibrating string anyone?

------------------------------
Robin Whitehouse
Greenbelt, MD

Original Message:
Sent: 01-12-2024 02:27
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Listen to my post of a few mins ago…. on Pianotech

I think that answers things… do you hear beats? How much?

Demo of a PianoSens tuned Fazioli F308 using 8ths, 12ths, 16ths


Original Message:
Sent: 1/11/2024 1:28:00 AM
From: Blaine Hebert
Subject: RE: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Steve et al,

I struggle to do my best tuning on every piano I service, spinets and concert grands.  I do use an ETD (iRCT) but I actually enjoy occasionally leaving it off and tuning by ear. 

What I have realized (or admitted) is that on my finest tuning, whether by ear or device, and even on the best of pianos (OK, I have never tuned a Fazioli) the piano is completely out of tune!  What I mean is that there are beats in every octave, there are harmonics that will never be in tune, there are inevitable false beats, at least somewhere and every third, fourth, fifth and sixth beat with the temperament.  Then there is the string inharmonicity adding to the cacophany.

Your suggestion that we quanticize and rate different tunings runs into the problem that tuning itself is problematic and to some degree subject to personal opinion and preference.  That tuning that you are (rightly) proud of might sound offensive to a particular musician.  Remember that there is a practice among highly regarded "concert tuners" to slightly de-tune unisons to brighten or alter the overall sound.  How would your objective testing rate a tuning by one of these touted techs where the device might show a lower score against another tuner who tunes "pure"?

On the other hand, I highly agree that objective testing is something that our technology lacks.  One of the issues that arises is the variability among instruments themselves.  How many times have you compared two similar instruments and found one better than the other?  I did an experiment with voicing where I applied one technique to even numbered hammers and another technique to the others.  What was surprising was that among the hammers with either treatment there was enough variability to challenge the test itself and I had to base my conclusion on a broad consensus of all of the hammers with each treatment (the treatment was easily evened out in the end, no hammers were harmed in this test).

To properly do this experiment we might need to conduct it in a factory with a great many pianos of very similar scale and treatments, otherwise we might base our conclusion on factors unrelated to the actual tuning.  Another possible scenario might be a large institution with many recent and identical instruments.

Don't stop experimenting, but in the end, can our customers hear it?

------------------------------
Blaine Hebert RPT
Duarte CA
(626) 390-0512

Original Message:
Sent: 01-07-2024 00:54
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

I recommend you take your mic and move it to at least 10 different spots on a concert grand piano all over the soundboard, akin to the paper by Fazioli in 2017 and their contact mic experiments. Every spot is noticeably different. 

I started my music school training as a teenager by becoming a recording engineer and I put myself through music school that way. Years later I went from being a music professor to getting my advanced degrees in engineering. Of course I now have a fundamental understanding of the situation.

Without the physics training, a recording engineer will find out the hard way about small mic position changes. Now, this is so well documented in the literature, of course. Using the same mic for your ETD, and doing lots of positional changes, listen to the sound subjectively as though you are professionally recording the piano, not just using the tuning app. If the recording sounds subjectively 'good' it is probably in an ideal spot. It is 'hit and miss'. My experience with the technical analysis that I present in my classes is that small position changes will affect the tuning by 1 cent or more, worst case.

The ETD makers quietly acknowledge this problem. They don't want to expose it because it undermines their salesmanship of the app.

This problem led me to invent the PianoSens device. It is not just a 'guitar like pickup.' As an EE, I solved many problems doing this design.

I place the sensor < 1/8th string length to pick up all the partials > 8 partials, and making small movements of several centimeters in this 'region' and it has literally no discernible variance, which is loically to be expected. You can see small amplitude differences, of course, but not much. Tuning variances are now about 0.1 cents, not 1 cent. 

Steven Norsworthy

Professional Engineer, Professional Musician

RF2BITS.com

PianoSens.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101
------------------------------

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

------------------------------
Blaine Hebert RPT
Duarte CA
(626) 390-0512

Original Message:
Sent: 01-13-2024 11:23
From: Robin Whitehouse
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Alright Professor,
Now I'm annoyed, and will see myself out. Apparently we're all too pedestrian to understand this unprecedented transformation in piano tuning you've bestowed upon us.

Since you've been an audio engineer, you'll be familiar with the phrase, "you can't polish a turd".  Well, the piano is a turd of distortions, and we've already enjoyed 200 years of polishing technique exploration.  Can Matlab be used to display the detriment of enjoyment to all the players I've tuned for, with the -0.650 cents deviant average tuning I've been delivering? "Bloody subjectivity," that you criticized in a different thread, is the final destination of all piano tuning.

I think we can accept that the data you are presenting is demonstrable, and that this system could very well be useful for some tuners in some circumstances. But your marketing approach has a little room for improvement.

Lots of us are nerds who like to explore how things work – as you should resonate with, being an inventor. You've presented a different technology and we're curious about it, and also in ways beyond your intentions, which should be exciting for you.  But you refuse to engage with us, and rather, profess with your many credentials and data points that we are performing inferior work and require your product.

Since we're not able to have a discussion, maybe it's time to stop spamming the whole tech list, and confine this revolution to one thread.

------------------------------
Robin Whitehouse
Greenbelt, MD

Original Message:
Sent: 01-13-2024 00:25
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

I could write a thesis on this subject. It's very time-consuming. The sensor is able to pick up at least 12 partials without the first half wave crossover. It's extremely invariant. I don't care how many mics you use and how high quality they are or how expensive they are or what their patterns are, I've been through it for months and months. The Mic is not the answer. Regardless of the room.


Original Message:
Sent: 1/13/2024 12:14:00 AM
From: Robin Whitehouse
Subject: RE: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Just wanted to add in some observations pertaining to this whole discussion.

ONE
Steven, on the Low Frequency Spectra: PianoSens vs Microphone video, the microphone's FFT sample (the right-side graphic) contains a third partial sub-octave.  Other than in additive synthesis (an organ's 5 1/3 sub-third drawbar) I haven't knowingly encountered a situation where this occurs naturally, whether by room mode/resonance or standing wave.  To me that subharmonic reads about 94Hz, which doesn't align with HVAC or electronic interference.  But it does appear to read at exactly half of the third partial's frequency (looks like 185Hz) so I'm very curious if you can replicate that.  Alternatively, Is one (or more) of your room's dimensions 12 feet, perhaps?
Whatever it is, this characteristic might help reinforce your argument for eliminating the sound pressure transfer function from the ETD's measurements.

TWO

Blaine, on another thread you posted about testing the PIXEL Lavalier microphone.  While the product states it is omnidirectional on both Amazon and the product webpage, the pictures of it show a cardioid design.  The description also totes an embedded noise filter and "cancellation chip" to "weaken side noise and pick up every word you say."  More than one mic element is needed for DSP cancellation, and there's no way that thing actually has active processing.  SO it's a cardioid mic.  The cardioid pickup pattern is highly subject to the proximity effect, which means a significant over-emphasis of low frequency response when close to a sound source - that is likely why it didn't work well for you.

Omnidirectional mics are not subject to the proximity effect. While tablets do, or at least used to, sport a single omnidirectional mic, they now come with multiple microphones and lots of DSP cancellation.  I will presume that all tablet ETD's specifically turn off those DSP functions and source a single mic.  My 2016 iPad Air 2 apparently has 2 microphones, while the new iPad Pro has 5 mic inputs.

When my ETD (or rather, iPad microphone) has trouble, I usually pop in my MicW i436 measurement (thus omni) microphone.  It's not world class, but it has a reasonably flat response, protrudes from the body of the tablet to give acoustic space, and there's a noticeable difference with how my ETD performs when it is having trouble.  It's a little pricey for just an experiment though.  You might try again with the Dayton measurement mic: iMM-6S if you still have an audio jack, iMM-6C if you have USB-C.  parts-express.com is the place to get it. ($20 and $40 respectively).

THREE

On that same other thread, I think, Paul McCloud mentions nodes and anti-nodes in conjunction with the location of the microphone causing reading issues.  These room modes are the #1 cause of "bad" ETD readings, save for signal to noise ratio (vacuum cleaner usually trumps room mode).  So this is a real concern… ish.  I have often experienced the "note reads flat, move microphone, note reads sharp" phenomenon.  For me, this is most always remedied by moving the microphone.  It happens far less frequently with my measurement mic.  However, I do have to notice it to fix it - usually the spinner is behaving strangely, so I'm pretty sure I catch it.  I suppose you wouldn't have that worry with PianoSens, however...

Coming back to two-dimensions, I have to wonder if PianoSens is subject to string nodes and anti-nodes read errors, in the same way that room modes effect microphone readings.  I took a class at the last convention that (if I remember correctly) postulated that our understanding of nodes and string harmonics having static positions may be slightly wrong.  If this is true, then PianoSens is probably safe from the read errorr.  If not, then how does string position effect what part of the sound PianoSens measures? Perhaps it has a wide longitudinal pickup resolution to mitigate string nodes?

Side thought: if it has a very narrow resolution, we might be able to use PianoSens to create a measured cross section of a vibrating string (albeit that decay would make the measurement difficult to execute).  CAT scan of a vibrating string anyone?

------------------------------
Robin Whitehouse
Greenbelt, MD

Original Message:
Sent: 01-12-2024 02:27
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Listen to my post of a few mins ago…. on Pianotech

I think that answers things… do you hear beats? How much?

Demo of a PianoSens tuned Fazioli F308 using 8ths, 12ths, 16ths


Original Message:
Sent: 1/11/2024 1:28:00 AM
From: Blaine Hebert
Subject: RE: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Steve et al,

I struggle to do my best tuning on every piano I service, spinets and concert grands.  I do use an ETD (iRCT) but I actually enjoy occasionally leaving it off and tuning by ear. 

What I have realized (or admitted) is that on my finest tuning, whether by ear or device, and even on the best of pianos (OK, I have never tuned a Fazioli) the piano is completely out of tune!  What I mean is that there are beats in every octave, there are harmonics that will never be in tune, there are inevitable false beats, at least somewhere and every third, fourth, fifth and sixth beat with the temperament.  Then there is the string inharmonicity adding to the cacophany.

Your suggestion that we quanticize and rate different tunings runs into the problem that tuning itself is problematic and to some degree subject to personal opinion and preference.  That tuning that you are (rightly) proud of might sound offensive to a particular musician.  Remember that there is a practice among highly regarded "concert tuners" to slightly de-tune unisons to brighten or alter the overall sound.  How would your objective testing rate a tuning by one of these touted techs where the device might show a lower score against another tuner who tunes "pure"?

On the other hand, I highly agree that objective testing is something that our technology lacks.  One of the issues that arises is the variability among instruments themselves.  How many times have you compared two similar instruments and found one better than the other?  I did an experiment with voicing where I applied one technique to even numbered hammers and another technique to the others.  What was surprising was that among the hammers with either treatment there was enough variability to challenge the test itself and I had to base my conclusion on a broad consensus of all of the hammers with each treatment (the treatment was easily evened out in the end, no hammers were harmed in this test).

To properly do this experiment we might need to conduct it in a factory with a great many pianos of very similar scale and treatments, otherwise we might base our conclusion on factors unrelated to the actual tuning.  Another possible scenario might be a large institution with many recent and identical instruments.

Don't stop experimenting, but in the end, can our customers hear it?

------------------------------
Blaine Hebert RPT
Duarte CA
(626) 390-0512

Original Message:
Sent: 01-07-2024 00:54
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

I recommend you take your mic and move it to at least 10 different spots on a concert grand piano all over the soundboard, akin to the paper by Fazioli in 2017 and their contact mic experiments. Every spot is noticeably different. 

I started my music school training as a teenager by becoming a recording engineer and I put myself through music school that way. Years later I went from being a music professor to getting my advanced degrees in engineering. Of course I now have a fundamental understanding of the situation.

Without the physics training, a recording engineer will find out the hard way about small mic position changes. Now, this is so well documented in the literature, of course. Using the same mic for your ETD, and doing lots of positional changes, listen to the sound subjectively as though you are professionally recording the piano, not just using the tuning app. If the recording sounds subjectively 'good' it is probably in an ideal spot. It is 'hit and miss'. My experience with the technical analysis that I present in my classes is that small position changes will affect the tuning by 1 cent or more, worst case.

The ETD makers quietly acknowledge this problem. They don't want to expose it because it undermines their salesmanship of the app.

This problem led me to invent the PianoSens device. It is not just a 'guitar like pickup.' As an EE, I solved many problems doing this design.

I place the sensor < 1/8th string length to pick up all the partials > 8 partials, and making small movements of several centimeters in this 'region' and it has literally no discernible variance, which is loically to be expected. You can see small amplitude differences, of course, but not much. Tuning variances are now about 0.1 cents, not 1 cent. 

Steven Norsworthy

Professional Engineer, Professional Musician

RF2BITS.com

PianoSens.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101
------------------------------

Easy does it gang. While there may be promotional flavors within this thread, I have found it educational. Continuing to lean stuff is one of my favorite things about life.

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

------------------------------
Blaine Hebert RPT
Duarte CA
(626) 390-0512

Original Message:
Sent: 01-13-2024 11:23
From: Robin Whitehouse
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Alright Professor,
Now I'm annoyed, and will see myself out. Apparently we're all too pedestrian to understand this unprecedented transformation in piano tuning you've bestowed upon us.

Since you've been an audio engineer, you'll be familiar with the phrase, "you can't polish a turd".  Well, the piano is a turd of distortions, and we've already enjoyed 200 years of polishing technique exploration.  Can Matlab be used to display the detriment of enjoyment to all the players I've tuned for, with the -0.650 cents deviant average tuning I've been delivering? "Bloody subjectivity," that you criticized in a different thread, is the final destination of all piano tuning.

I think we can accept that the data you are presenting is demonstrable, and that this system could very well be useful for some tuners in some circumstances. But your marketing approach has a little room for improvement.

Lots of us are nerds who like to explore how things work – as you should resonate with, being an inventor. You've presented a different technology and we're curious about it, and also in ways beyond your intentions, which should be exciting for you.  But you refuse to engage with us, and rather, profess with your many credentials and data points that we are performing inferior work and require your product.

Since we're not able to have a discussion, maybe it's time to stop spamming the whole tech list, and confine this revolution to one thread.

------------------------------
Robin Whitehouse
Greenbelt, MD

Original Message:
Sent: 01-13-2024 00:25
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

I could write a thesis on this subject. It's very time-consuming. The sensor is able to pick up at least 12 partials without the first half wave crossover. It's extremely invariant. I don't care how many mics you use and how high quality they are or how expensive they are or what their patterns are, I've been through it for months and months. The Mic is not the answer. Regardless of the room.


Original Message:
Sent: 1/13/2024 12:14:00 AM
From: Robin Whitehouse
Subject: RE: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Just wanted to add in some observations pertaining to this whole discussion.

ONE
Steven, on the Low Frequency Spectra: PianoSens vs Microphone video, the microphone's FFT sample (the right-side graphic) contains a third partial sub-octave.  Other than in additive synthesis (an organ's 5 1/3 sub-third drawbar) I haven't knowingly encountered a situation where this occurs naturally, whether by room mode/resonance or standing wave.  To me that subharmonic reads about 94Hz, which doesn't align with HVAC or electronic interference.  But it does appear to read at exactly half of the third partial's frequency (looks like 185Hz) so I'm very curious if you can replicate that.  Alternatively, Is one (or more) of your room's dimensions 12 feet, perhaps?
Whatever it is, this characteristic might help reinforce your argument for eliminating the sound pressure transfer function from the ETD's measurements.

TWO

Blaine, on another thread you posted about testing the PIXEL Lavalier microphone.  While the product states it is omnidirectional on both Amazon and the product webpage, the pictures of it show a cardioid design.  The description also totes an embedded noise filter and "cancellation chip" to "weaken side noise and pick up every word you say."  More than one mic element is needed for DSP cancellation, and there's no way that thing actually has active processing.  SO it's a cardioid mic.  The cardioid pickup pattern is highly subject to the proximity effect, which means a significant over-emphasis of low frequency response when close to a sound source - that is likely why it didn't work well for you.

Omnidirectional mics are not subject to the proximity effect. While tablets do, or at least used to, sport a single omnidirectional mic, they now come with multiple microphones and lots of DSP cancellation.  I will presume that all tablet ETD's specifically turn off those DSP functions and source a single mic.  My 2016 iPad Air 2 apparently has 2 microphones, while the new iPad Pro has 5 mic inputs.

When my ETD (or rather, iPad microphone) has trouble, I usually pop in my MicW i436 measurement (thus omni) microphone.  It's not world class, but it has a reasonably flat response, protrudes from the body of the tablet to give acoustic space, and there's a noticeable difference with how my ETD performs when it is having trouble.  It's a little pricey for just an experiment though.  You might try again with the Dayton measurement mic: iMM-6S if you still have an audio jack, iMM-6C if you have USB-C.  parts-express.com is the place to get it. ($20 and $40 respectively).

THREE

On that same other thread, I think, Paul McCloud mentions nodes and anti-nodes in conjunction with the location of the microphone causing reading issues.  These room modes are the #1 cause of "bad" ETD readings, save for signal to noise ratio (vacuum cleaner usually trumps room mode).  So this is a real concern… ish.  I have often experienced the "note reads flat, move microphone, note reads sharp" phenomenon.  For me, this is most always remedied by moving the microphone.  It happens far less frequently with my measurement mic.  However, I do have to notice it to fix it - usually the spinner is behaving strangely, so I'm pretty sure I catch it.  I suppose you wouldn't have that worry with PianoSens, however...

Coming back to two-dimensions, I have to wonder if PianoSens is subject to string nodes and anti-nodes read errors, in the same way that room modes effect microphone readings.  I took a class at the last convention that (if I remember correctly) postulated that our understanding of nodes and string harmonics having static positions may be slightly wrong.  If this is true, then PianoSens is probably safe from the read errorr.  If not, then how does string position effect what part of the sound PianoSens measures? Perhaps it has a wide longitudinal pickup resolution to mitigate string nodes?

Side thought: if it has a very narrow resolution, we might be able to use PianoSens to create a measured cross section of a vibrating string (albeit that decay would make the measurement difficult to execute).  CAT scan of a vibrating string anyone?

------------------------------
Robin Whitehouse
Greenbelt, MD

Original Message:
Sent: 01-12-2024 02:27
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Listen to my post of a few mins ago…. on Pianotech

I think that answers things… do you hear beats? How much?

Demo of a PianoSens tuned Fazioli F308 using 8ths, 12ths, 16ths


Original Message:
Sent: 1/11/2024 1:28:00 AM
From: Blaine Hebert
Subject: RE: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Steve et al,

I struggle to do my best tuning on every piano I service, spinets and concert grands.  I do use an ETD (iRCT) but I actually enjoy occasionally leaving it off and tuning by ear. 

What I have realized (or admitted) is that on my finest tuning, whether by ear or device, and even on the best of pianos (OK, I have never tuned a Fazioli) the piano is completely out of tune!  What I mean is that there are beats in every octave, there are harmonics that will never be in tune, there are inevitable false beats, at least somewhere and every third, fourth, fifth and sixth beat with the temperament.  Then there is the string inharmonicity adding to the cacophany.

Your suggestion that we quanticize and rate different tunings runs into the problem that tuning itself is problematic and to some degree subject to personal opinion and preference.  That tuning that you are (rightly) proud of might sound offensive to a particular musician.  Remember that there is a practice among highly regarded "concert tuners" to slightly de-tune unisons to brighten or alter the overall sound.  How would your objective testing rate a tuning by one of these touted techs where the device might show a lower score against another tuner who tunes "pure"?

On the other hand, I highly agree that objective testing is something that our technology lacks.  One of the issues that arises is the variability among instruments themselves.  How many times have you compared two similar instruments and found one better than the other?  I did an experiment with voicing where I applied one technique to even numbered hammers and another technique to the others.  What was surprising was that among the hammers with either treatment there was enough variability to challenge the test itself and I had to base my conclusion on a broad consensus of all of the hammers with each treatment (the treatment was easily evened out in the end, no hammers were harmed in this test).

To properly do this experiment we might need to conduct it in a factory with a great many pianos of very similar scale and treatments, otherwise we might base our conclusion on factors unrelated to the actual tuning.  Another possible scenario might be a large institution with many recent and identical instruments.

Don't stop experimenting, but in the end, can our customers hear it?

------------------------------
Blaine Hebert RPT
Duarte CA
(626) 390-0512

Original Message:
Sent: 01-07-2024 00:54
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

I recommend you take your mic and move it to at least 10 different spots on a concert grand piano all over the soundboard, akin to the paper by Fazioli in 2017 and their contact mic experiments. Every spot is noticeably different. 

I started my music school training as a teenager by becoming a recording engineer and I put myself through music school that way. Years later I went from being a music professor to getting my advanced degrees in engineering. Of course I now have a fundamental understanding of the situation.

Without the physics training, a recording engineer will find out the hard way about small mic position changes. Now, this is so well documented in the literature, of course. Using the same mic for your ETD, and doing lots of positional changes, listen to the sound subjectively as though you are professionally recording the piano, not just using the tuning app. If the recording sounds subjectively 'good' it is probably in an ideal spot. It is 'hit and miss'. My experience with the technical analysis that I present in my classes is that small position changes will affect the tuning by 1 cent or more, worst case.

The ETD makers quietly acknowledge this problem. They don't want to expose it because it undermines their salesmanship of the app.

This problem led me to invent the PianoSens device. It is not just a 'guitar like pickup.' As an EE, I solved many problems doing this design.

I place the sensor < 1/8th string length to pick up all the partials > 8 partials, and making small movements of several centimeters in this 'region' and it has literally no discernible variance, which is loically to be expected. You can see small amplitude differences, of course, but not much. Tuning variances are now about 0.1 cents, not 1 cent. 

Steven Norsworthy

Professional Engineer, Professional Musician

RF2BITS.com

PianoSens.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101
------------------------------

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

------------------------------
Blaine Hebert RPT
Duarte CA
(626) 390-0512

Original Message:
Sent: 01-13-2024 11:23
From: Robin Whitehouse
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Alright Professor,
Now I'm annoyed, and will see myself out. Apparently we're all too pedestrian to understand this unprecedented transformation in piano tuning you've bestowed upon us.

Since you've been an audio engineer, you'll be familiar with the phrase, "you can't polish a turd".  Well, the piano is a turd of distortions, and we've already enjoyed 200 years of polishing technique exploration.  Can Matlab be used to display the detriment of enjoyment to all the players I've tuned for, with the -0.650 cents deviant average tuning I've been delivering? "Bloody subjectivity," that you criticized in a different thread, is the final destination of all piano tuning.

I think we can accept that the data you are presenting is demonstrable, and that this system could very well be useful for some tuners in some circumstances. But your marketing approach has a little room for improvement.

Lots of us are nerds who like to explore how things work – as you should resonate with, being an inventor. You've presented a different technology and we're curious about it, and also in ways beyond your intentions, which should be exciting for you.  But you refuse to engage with us, and rather, profess with your many credentials and data points that we are performing inferior work and require your product.

Since we're not able to have a discussion, maybe it's time to stop spamming the whole tech list, and confine this revolution to one thread.

------------------------------
Robin Whitehouse
Greenbelt, MD

Original Message:
Sent: 01-13-2024 00:25
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

I could write a thesis on this subject. It's very time-consuming. The sensor is able to pick up at least 12 partials without the first half wave crossover. It's extremely invariant. I don't care how many mics you use and how high quality they are or how expensive they are or what their patterns are, I've been through it for months and months. The Mic is not the answer. Regardless of the room.


Original Message:
Sent: 1/13/2024 12:14:00 AM
From: Robin Whitehouse
Subject: RE: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Just wanted to add in some observations pertaining to this whole discussion.

ONE
Steven, on the Low Frequency Spectra: PianoSens vs Microphone video, the microphone's FFT sample (the right-side graphic) contains a third partial sub-octave.  Other than in additive synthesis (an organ's 5 1/3 sub-third drawbar) I haven't knowingly encountered a situation where this occurs naturally, whether by room mode/resonance or standing wave.  To me that subharmonic reads about 94Hz, which doesn't align with HVAC or electronic interference.  But it does appear to read at exactly half of the third partial's frequency (looks like 185Hz) so I'm very curious if you can replicate that.  Alternatively, Is one (or more) of your room's dimensions 12 feet, perhaps?
Whatever it is, this characteristic might help reinforce your argument for eliminating the sound pressure transfer function from the ETD's measurements.

TWO

Blaine, on another thread you posted about testing the PIXEL Lavalier microphone.  While the product states it is omnidirectional on both Amazon and the product webpage, the pictures of it show a cardioid design.  The description also totes an embedded noise filter and "cancellation chip" to "weaken side noise and pick up every word you say."  More than one mic element is needed for DSP cancellation, and there's no way that thing actually has active processing.  SO it's a cardioid mic.  The cardioid pickup pattern is highly subject to the proximity effect, which means a significant over-emphasis of low frequency response when close to a sound source - that is likely why it didn't work well for you.

Omnidirectional mics are not subject to the proximity effect. While tablets do, or at least used to, sport a single omnidirectional mic, they now come with multiple microphones and lots of DSP cancellation.  I will presume that all tablet ETD's specifically turn off those DSP functions and source a single mic.  My 2016 iPad Air 2 apparently has 2 microphones, while the new iPad Pro has 5 mic inputs.

When my ETD (or rather, iPad microphone) has trouble, I usually pop in my MicW i436 measurement (thus omni) microphone.  It's not world class, but it has a reasonably flat response, protrudes from the body of the tablet to give acoustic space, and there's a noticeable difference with how my ETD performs when it is having trouble.  It's a little pricey for just an experiment though.  You might try again with the Dayton measurement mic: iMM-6S if you still have an audio jack, iMM-6C if you have USB-C.  parts-express.com is the place to get it. ($20 and $40 respectively).

THREE

On that same other thread, I think, Paul McCloud mentions nodes and anti-nodes in conjunction with the location of the microphone causing reading issues.  These room modes are the #1 cause of "bad" ETD readings, save for signal to noise ratio (vacuum cleaner usually trumps room mode).  So this is a real concern… ish.  I have often experienced the "note reads flat, move microphone, note reads sharp" phenomenon.  For me, this is most always remedied by moving the microphone.  It happens far less frequently with my measurement mic.  However, I do have to notice it to fix it - usually the spinner is behaving strangely, so I'm pretty sure I catch it.  I suppose you wouldn't have that worry with PianoSens, however...

Coming back to two-dimensions, I have to wonder if PianoSens is subject to string nodes and anti-nodes read errors, in the same way that room modes effect microphone readings.  I took a class at the last convention that (if I remember correctly) postulated that our understanding of nodes and string harmonics having static positions may be slightly wrong.  If this is true, then PianoSens is probably safe from the read errorr.  If not, then how does string position effect what part of the sound PianoSens measures? Perhaps it has a wide longitudinal pickup resolution to mitigate string nodes?

Side thought: if it has a very narrow resolution, we might be able to use PianoSens to create a measured cross section of a vibrating string (albeit that decay would make the measurement difficult to execute).  CAT scan of a vibrating string anyone?

------------------------------
Robin Whitehouse
Greenbelt, MD

Original Message:
Sent: 01-12-2024 02:27
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Listen to my post of a few mins ago…. on Pianotech

I think that answers things… do you hear beats? How much?

Demo of a PianoSens tuned Fazioli F308 using 8ths, 12ths, 16ths


Original Message:
Sent: 1/11/2024 1:28:00 AM
From: Blaine Hebert
Subject: RE: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Steve et al,

I struggle to do my best tuning on every piano I service, spinets and concert grands.  I do use an ETD (iRCT) but I actually enjoy occasionally leaving it off and tuning by ear. 

What I have realized (or admitted) is that on my finest tuning, whether by ear or device, and even on the best of pianos (OK, I have never tuned a Fazioli) the piano is completely out of tune!  What I mean is that there are beats in every octave, there are harmonics that will never be in tune, there are inevitable false beats, at least somewhere and every third, fourth, fifth and sixth beat with the temperament.  Then there is the string inharmonicity adding to the cacophany.

Your suggestion that we quanticize and rate different tunings runs into the problem that tuning itself is problematic and to some degree subject to personal opinion and preference.  That tuning that you are (rightly) proud of might sound offensive to a particular musician.  Remember that there is a practice among highly regarded "concert tuners" to slightly de-tune unisons to brighten or alter the overall sound.  How would your objective testing rate a tuning by one of these touted techs where the device might show a lower score against another tuner who tunes "pure"?

On the other hand, I highly agree that objective testing is something that our technology lacks.  One of the issues that arises is the variability among instruments themselves.  How many times have you compared two similar instruments and found one better than the other?  I did an experiment with voicing where I applied one technique to even numbered hammers and another technique to the others.  What was surprising was that among the hammers with either treatment there was enough variability to challenge the test itself and I had to base my conclusion on a broad consensus of all of the hammers with each treatment (the treatment was easily evened out in the end, no hammers were harmed in this test).

To properly do this experiment we might need to conduct it in a factory with a great many pianos of very similar scale and treatments, otherwise we might base our conclusion on factors unrelated to the actual tuning.  Another possible scenario might be a large institution with many recent and identical instruments.

Don't stop experimenting, but in the end, can our customers hear it?

------------------------------
Blaine Hebert RPT
Duarte CA
(626) 390-0512

Original Message:
Sent: 01-07-2024 00:54
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

I recommend you take your mic and move it to at least 10 different spots on a concert grand piano all over the soundboard, akin to the paper by Fazioli in 2017 and their contact mic experiments. Every spot is noticeably different. 

I started my music school training as a teenager by becoming a recording engineer and I put myself through music school that way. Years later I went from being a music professor to getting my advanced degrees in engineering. Of course I now have a fundamental understanding of the situation.

Without the physics training, a recording engineer will find out the hard way about small mic position changes. Now, this is so well documented in the literature, of course. Using the same mic for your ETD, and doing lots of positional changes, listen to the sound subjectively as though you are professionally recording the piano, not just using the tuning app. If the recording sounds subjectively 'good' it is probably in an ideal spot. It is 'hit and miss'. My experience with the technical analysis that I present in my classes is that small position changes will affect the tuning by 1 cent or more, worst case.

The ETD makers quietly acknowledge this problem. They don't want to expose it because it undermines their salesmanship of the app.

This problem led me to invent the PianoSens device. It is not just a 'guitar like pickup.' As an EE, I solved many problems doing this design.

I place the sensor < 1/8th string length to pick up all the partials > 8 partials, and making small movements of several centimeters in this 'region' and it has literally no discernible variance, which is loically to be expected. You can see small amplitude differences, of course, but not much. Tuning variances are now about 0.1 cents, not 1 cent. 

Steven Norsworthy

Professional Engineer, Professional Musician

RF2BITS.com

PianoSens.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101
------------------------------

Hi Steve,

Thank you for all of your hard work.

I would love to know more about the science. Please do not give up on us. 

Would you be interested in teaching an open Zoom course for those on the blog who would like to attend?

I have access to a 1000 person Zoom account that we could use.

Perhaps you could teach us the science and Paul could demonstrate it in practice.

Send me a text if you would like to arrange this.

Thanks again.

------------------------------
Gannon Rhinehart
Santa Fe NM
(505) 692-8385
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 01-13-2024 13:44
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Dear Robin and Blaine, (and perhaps others),

I have presented my full class now to several PTG groups, as I offer the class on zoom or in person. I have only had positive and exciting experiences and gotten much appreciation from the class members. I am sorry if you misconstrued it otherwise.

A truly new technology is 'disruptive'.

If you want your local PTG group to also receive the class, I am eager to accept the invitation.

Kindly and respectfully,

Steve


Original Message:
Sent: 1/13/2024 12:26:00 PM
From: Blaine Hebert
Subject: RE: Mics, sensors, and tuning

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

------------------------------
Blaine Hebert RPT
Duarte CA
(626) 390-0512

Original Message:
Sent: 01-13-2024 11:23
From: Robin Whitehouse
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Alright Professor,
Now I'm annoyed, and will see myself out. Apparently we're all too pedestrian to understand this unprecedented transformation in piano tuning you've bestowed upon us.

Since you've been an audio engineer, you'll be familiar with the phrase, "you can't polish a turd".  Well, the piano is a turd of distortions, and we've already enjoyed 200 years of polishing technique exploration.  Can Matlab be used to display the detriment of enjoyment to all the players I've tuned for, with the -0.650 cents deviant average tuning I've been delivering? "Bloody subjectivity," that you criticized in a different thread, is the final destination of all piano tuning.

I think we can accept that the data you are presenting is demonstrable, and that this system could very well be useful for some tuners in some circumstances. But your marketing approach has a little room for improvement.

Lots of us are nerds who like to explore how things work – as you should resonate with, being an inventor. You've presented a different technology and we're curious about it, and also in ways beyond your intentions, which should be exciting for you.  But you refuse to engage with us, and rather, profess with your many credentials and data points that we are performing inferior work and require your product.

Since we're not able to have a discussion, maybe it's time to stop spamming the whole tech list, and confine this revolution to one thread.

------------------------------
Robin Whitehouse
Greenbelt, MD

Original Message:
Sent: 01-13-2024 00:25
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

I could write a thesis on this subject. It's very time-consuming. The sensor is able to pick up at least 12 partials without the first half wave crossover. It's extremely invariant. I don't care how many mics you use and how high quality they are or how expensive they are or what their patterns are, I've been through it for months and months. The Mic is not the answer. Regardless of the room.


Original Message:
Sent: 1/13/2024 12:14:00 AM
From: Robin Whitehouse
Subject: RE: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Just wanted to add in some observations pertaining to this whole discussion.

ONE
Steven, on the Low Frequency Spectra: PianoSens vs Microphone video, the microphone's FFT sample (the right-side graphic) contains a third partial sub-octave.  Other than in additive synthesis (an organ's 5 1/3 sub-third drawbar) I haven't knowingly encountered a situation where this occurs naturally, whether by room mode/resonance or standing wave.  To me that subharmonic reads about 94Hz, which doesn't align with HVAC or electronic interference.  But it does appear to read at exactly half of the third partial's frequency (looks like 185Hz) so I'm very curious if you can replicate that.  Alternatively, Is one (or more) of your room's dimensions 12 feet, perhaps?
Whatever it is, this characteristic might help reinforce your argument for eliminating the sound pressure transfer function from the ETD's measurements.

TWO

Blaine, on another thread you posted about testing the PIXEL Lavalier microphone.  While the product states it is omnidirectional on both Amazon and the product webpage, the pictures of it show a cardioid design.  The description also totes an embedded noise filter and "cancellation chip" to "weaken side noise and pick up every word you say."  More than one mic element is needed for DSP cancellation, and there's no way that thing actually has active processing.  SO it's a cardioid mic.  The cardioid pickup pattern is highly subject to the proximity effect, which means a significant over-emphasis of low frequency response when close to a sound source - that is likely why it didn't work well for you.

Omnidirectional mics are not subject to the proximity effect. While tablets do, or at least used to, sport a single omnidirectional mic, they now come with multiple microphones and lots of DSP cancellation.  I will presume that all tablet ETD's specifically turn off those DSP functions and source a single mic.  My 2016 iPad Air 2 apparently has 2 microphones, while the new iPad Pro has 5 mic inputs.

When my ETD (or rather, iPad microphone) has trouble, I usually pop in my MicW i436 measurement (thus omni) microphone.  It's not world class, but it has a reasonably flat response, protrudes from the body of the tablet to give acoustic space, and there's a noticeable difference with how my ETD performs when it is having trouble.  It's a little pricey for just an experiment though.  You might try again with the Dayton measurement mic: iMM-6S if you still have an audio jack, iMM-6C if you have USB-C.  parts-express.com is the place to get it. ($20 and $40 respectively).

THREE

On that same other thread, I think, Paul McCloud mentions nodes and anti-nodes in conjunction with the location of the microphone causing reading issues.  These room modes are the #1 cause of "bad" ETD readings, save for signal to noise ratio (vacuum cleaner usually trumps room mode).  So this is a real concern… ish.  I have often experienced the "note reads flat, move microphone, note reads sharp" phenomenon.  For me, this is most always remedied by moving the microphone.  It happens far less frequently with my measurement mic.  However, I do have to notice it to fix it - usually the spinner is behaving strangely, so I'm pretty sure I catch it.  I suppose you wouldn't have that worry with PianoSens, however...

Coming back to two-dimensions, I have to wonder if PianoSens is subject to string nodes and anti-nodes read errors, in the same way that room modes effect microphone readings.  I took a class at the last convention that (if I remember correctly) postulated that our understanding of nodes and string harmonics having static positions may be slightly wrong.  If this is true, then PianoSens is probably safe from the read errorr.  If not, then how does string position effect what part of the sound PianoSens measures? Perhaps it has a wide longitudinal pickup resolution to mitigate string nodes?

Side thought: if it has a very narrow resolution, we might be able to use PianoSens to create a measured cross section of a vibrating string (albeit that decay would make the measurement difficult to execute).  CAT scan of a vibrating string anyone?

------------------------------
Robin Whitehouse
Greenbelt, MD

Original Message:
Sent: 01-12-2024 02:27
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Listen to my post of a few mins ago…. on Pianotech

I think that answers things… do you hear beats? How much?

Demo of a PianoSens tuned Fazioli F308 using 8ths, 12ths, 16ths


Original Message:
Sent: 1/11/2024 1:28:00 AM
From: Blaine Hebert
Subject: RE: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Steve et al,

I struggle to do my best tuning on every piano I service, spinets and concert grands.  I do use an ETD (iRCT) but I actually enjoy occasionally leaving it off and tuning by ear. 

What I have realized (or admitted) is that on my finest tuning, whether by ear or device, and even on the best of pianos (OK, I have never tuned a Fazioli) the piano is completely out of tune!  What I mean is that there are beats in every octave, there are harmonics that will never be in tune, there are inevitable false beats, at least somewhere and every third, fourth, fifth and sixth beat with the temperament.  Then there is the string inharmonicity adding to the cacophany.

Your suggestion that we quanticize and rate different tunings runs into the problem that tuning itself is problematic and to some degree subject to personal opinion and preference.  That tuning that you are (rightly) proud of might sound offensive to a particular musician.  Remember that there is a practice among highly regarded "concert tuners" to slightly de-tune unisons to brighten or alter the overall sound.  How would your objective testing rate a tuning by one of these touted techs where the device might show a lower score against another tuner who tunes "pure"?

On the other hand, I highly agree that objective testing is something that our technology lacks.  One of the issues that arises is the variability among instruments themselves.  How many times have you compared two similar instruments and found one better than the other?  I did an experiment with voicing where I applied one technique to even numbered hammers and another technique to the others.  What was surprising was that among the hammers with either treatment there was enough variability to challenge the test itself and I had to base my conclusion on a broad consensus of all of the hammers with each treatment (the treatment was easily evened out in the end, no hammers were harmed in this test).

To properly do this experiment we might need to conduct it in a factory with a great many pianos of very similar scale and treatments, otherwise we might base our conclusion on factors unrelated to the actual tuning.  Another possible scenario might be a large institution with many recent and identical instruments.

Don't stop experimenting, but in the end, can our customers hear it?

------------------------------
Blaine Hebert RPT
Duarte CA
(626) 390-0512

Original Message:
Sent: 01-07-2024 00:54
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

I recommend you take your mic and move it to at least 10 different spots on a concert grand piano all over the soundboard, akin to the paper by Fazioli in 2017 and their contact mic experiments. Every spot is noticeably different. 

I started my music school training as a teenager by becoming a recording engineer and I put myself through music school that way. Years later I went from being a music professor to getting my advanced degrees in engineering. Of course I now have a fundamental understanding of the situation.

Without the physics training, a recording engineer will find out the hard way about small mic position changes. Now, this is so well documented in the literature, of course. Using the same mic for your ETD, and doing lots of positional changes, listen to the sound subjectively as though you are professionally recording the piano, not just using the tuning app. If the recording sounds subjectively 'good' it is probably in an ideal spot. It is 'hit and miss'. My experience with the technical analysis that I present in my classes is that small position changes will affect the tuning by 1 cent or more, worst case.

The ETD makers quietly acknowledge this problem. They don't want to expose it because it undermines their salesmanship of the app.

This problem led me to invent the PianoSens device. It is not just a 'guitar like pickup.' As an EE, I solved many problems doing this design.

I place the sensor < 1/8th string length to pick up all the partials > 8 partials, and making small movements of several centimeters in this 'region' and it has literally no discernible variance, which is loically to be expected. You can see small amplitude differences, of course, but not much. Tuning variances are now about 0.1 cents, not 1 cent. 

Steven Norsworthy

Professional Engineer, Professional Musician

RF2BITS.com

PianoSens.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101
------------------------------

I would absolutely love to do a zoom class, and I also have an unlimited zoom professional account. Let’s round up a whole bunch of people. Maybe the barking dogs and tiger sharks and the feeding frenzy will calm down a bit. We’ve got a cultural problem here. I’m quite congenial and likable and very kind, until someone lays an unprovoked rude hit, and this just keeps happening on Pianotech here. Many PTG presidents of local chapters have seen my presentation and they all 100% love it. I don’t know what’s wrong with some people on Pianotech. It would be too easy for me to give up on this crowd. I’m not going to do that. I’m gonna hang in there and defend what I know is right


Original Message:
Sent: 1/15/2024 2:49:00 PM
From: Gannon Rhinehart
Subject: RE: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Hi Steve,

Thank you for all of your hard work.

I would love to know more about the science. Please do not give up on us. 

Would you be interested in teaching an open Zoom course for those on the blog who would like to attend?

I have access to a 1000 person Zoom account that we could use.

Perhaps you could teach us the science and Paul could demonstrate it in practice.

Send me a text if you would like to arrange this.

Thanks again.

------------------------------
Gannon Rhinehart
Santa Fe NM
(505) 692-8385
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 01-13-2024 13:44
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Dear Robin and Blaine, (and perhaps others),

I have presented my full class now to several PTG groups, as I offer the class on zoom or in person. I have only had positive and exciting experiences and gotten much appreciation from the class members. I am sorry if you misconstrued it otherwise.

A truly new technology is 'disruptive'.

If you want your local PTG group to also receive the class, I am eager to accept the invitation.

Kindly and respectfully,

Steve


Original Message:
Sent: 1/13/2024 12:26:00 PM
From: Blaine Hebert
Subject: RE: Mics, sensors, and tuning

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

------------------------------
Blaine Hebert RPT
Duarte CA
(626) 390-0512

Original Message:
Sent: 01-13-2024 11:23
From: Robin Whitehouse
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Alright Professor,
Now I'm annoyed, and will see myself out. Apparently we're all too pedestrian to understand this unprecedented transformation in piano tuning you've bestowed upon us.

Since you've been an audio engineer, you'll be familiar with the phrase, "you can't polish a turd".  Well, the piano is a turd of distortions, and we've already enjoyed 200 years of polishing technique exploration.  Can Matlab be used to display the detriment of enjoyment to all the players I've tuned for, with the -0.650 cents deviant average tuning I've been delivering? "Bloody subjectivity," that you criticized in a different thread, is the final destination of all piano tuning.

I think we can accept that the data you are presenting is demonstrable, and that this system could very well be useful for some tuners in some circumstances. But your marketing approach has a little room for improvement.

Lots of us are nerds who like to explore how things work – as you should resonate with, being an inventor. You've presented a different technology and we're curious about it, and also in ways beyond your intentions, which should be exciting for you.  But you refuse to engage with us, and rather, profess with your many credentials and data points that we are performing inferior work and require your product.

Since we're not able to have a discussion, maybe it's time to stop spamming the whole tech list, and confine this revolution to one thread.

------------------------------
Robin Whitehouse
Greenbelt, MD

Original Message:
Sent: 01-13-2024 00:25
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

I could write a thesis on this subject. It's very time-consuming. The sensor is able to pick up at least 12 partials without the first half wave crossover. It's extremely invariant. I don't care how many mics you use and how high quality they are or how expensive they are or what their patterns are, I've been through it for months and months. The Mic is not the answer. Regardless of the room.


Original Message:
Sent: 1/13/2024 12:14:00 AM
From: Robin Whitehouse
Subject: RE: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Just wanted to add in some observations pertaining to this whole discussion.

ONE
Steven, on the Low Frequency Spectra: PianoSens vs Microphone video, the microphone's FFT sample (the right-side graphic) contains a third partial sub-octave.  Other than in additive synthesis (an organ's 5 1/3 sub-third drawbar) I haven't knowingly encountered a situation where this occurs naturally, whether by room mode/resonance or standing wave.  To me that subharmonic reads about 94Hz, which doesn't align with HVAC or electronic interference.  But it does appear to read at exactly half of the third partial's frequency (looks like 185Hz) so I'm very curious if you can replicate that.  Alternatively, Is one (or more) of your room's dimensions 12 feet, perhaps?
Whatever it is, this characteristic might help reinforce your argument for eliminating the sound pressure transfer function from the ETD's measurements.

TWO

Blaine, on another thread you posted about testing the PIXEL Lavalier microphone.  While the product states it is omnidirectional on both Amazon and the product webpage, the pictures of it show a cardioid design.  The description also totes an embedded noise filter and "cancellation chip" to "weaken side noise and pick up every word you say."  More than one mic element is needed for DSP cancellation, and there's no way that thing actually has active processing.  SO it's a cardioid mic.  The cardioid pickup pattern is highly subject to the proximity effect, which means a significant over-emphasis of low frequency response when close to a sound source - that is likely why it didn't work well for you.

Omnidirectional mics are not subject to the proximity effect. While tablets do, or at least used to, sport a single omnidirectional mic, they now come with multiple microphones and lots of DSP cancellation.  I will presume that all tablet ETD's specifically turn off those DSP functions and source a single mic.  My 2016 iPad Air 2 apparently has 2 microphones, while the new iPad Pro has 5 mic inputs.

When my ETD (or rather, iPad microphone) has trouble, I usually pop in my MicW i436 measurement (thus omni) microphone.  It's not world class, but it has a reasonably flat response, protrudes from the body of the tablet to give acoustic space, and there's a noticeable difference with how my ETD performs when it is having trouble.  It's a little pricey for just an experiment though.  You might try again with the Dayton measurement mic: iMM-6S if you still have an audio jack, iMM-6C if you have USB-C.  parts-express.com is the place to get it. ($20 and $40 respectively).

THREE

On that same other thread, I think, Paul McCloud mentions nodes and anti-nodes in conjunction with the location of the microphone causing reading issues.  These room modes are the #1 cause of "bad" ETD readings, save for signal to noise ratio (vacuum cleaner usually trumps room mode).  So this is a real concern… ish.  I have often experienced the "note reads flat, move microphone, note reads sharp" phenomenon.  For me, this is most always remedied by moving the microphone.  It happens far less frequently with my measurement mic.  However, I do have to notice it to fix it - usually the spinner is behaving strangely, so I'm pretty sure I catch it.  I suppose you wouldn't have that worry with PianoSens, however...

Coming back to two-dimensions, I have to wonder if PianoSens is subject to string nodes and anti-nodes read errors, in the same way that room modes effect microphone readings.  I took a class at the last convention that (if I remember correctly) postulated that our understanding of nodes and string harmonics having static positions may be slightly wrong.  If this is true, then PianoSens is probably safe from the read errorr.  If not, then how does string position effect what part of the sound PianoSens measures? Perhaps it has a wide longitudinal pickup resolution to mitigate string nodes?

Side thought: if it has a very narrow resolution, we might be able to use PianoSens to create a measured cross section of a vibrating string (albeit that decay would make the measurement difficult to execute).  CAT scan of a vibrating string anyone?

------------------------------
Robin Whitehouse
Greenbelt, MD

Original Message:
Sent: 01-12-2024 02:27
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Listen to my post of a few mins ago…. on Pianotech

I think that answers things… do you hear beats? How much?

Demo of a PianoSens tuned Fazioli F308 using 8ths, 12ths, 16ths


Original Message:
Sent: 1/11/2024 1:28:00 AM
From: Blaine Hebert
Subject: RE: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Steve et al,

I struggle to do my best tuning on every piano I service, spinets and concert grands.  I do use an ETD (iRCT) but I actually enjoy occasionally leaving it off and tuning by ear. 

What I have realized (or admitted) is that on my finest tuning, whether by ear or device, and even on the best of pianos (OK, I have never tuned a Fazioli) the piano is completely out of tune!  What I mean is that there are beats in every octave, there are harmonics that will never be in tune, there are inevitable false beats, at least somewhere and every third, fourth, fifth and sixth beat with the temperament.  Then there is the string inharmonicity adding to the cacophany.

Your suggestion that we quanticize and rate different tunings runs into the problem that tuning itself is problematic and to some degree subject to personal opinion and preference.  That tuning that you are (rightly) proud of might sound offensive to a particular musician.  Remember that there is a practice among highly regarded "concert tuners" to slightly de-tune unisons to brighten or alter the overall sound.  How would your objective testing rate a tuning by one of these touted techs where the device might show a lower score against another tuner who tunes "pure"?

On the other hand, I highly agree that objective testing is something that our technology lacks.  One of the issues that arises is the variability among instruments themselves.  How many times have you compared two similar instruments and found one better than the other?  I did an experiment with voicing where I applied one technique to even numbered hammers and another technique to the others.  What was surprising was that among the hammers with either treatment there was enough variability to challenge the test itself and I had to base my conclusion on a broad consensus of all of the hammers with each treatment (the treatment was easily evened out in the end, no hammers were harmed in this test).

To properly do this experiment we might need to conduct it in a factory with a great many pianos of very similar scale and treatments, otherwise we might base our conclusion on factors unrelated to the actual tuning.  Another possible scenario might be a large institution with many recent and identical instruments.

Don't stop experimenting, but in the end, can our customers hear it?

------------------------------
Blaine Hebert RPT
Duarte CA
(626) 390-0512

Original Message:
Sent: 01-07-2024 00:54
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

I recommend you take your mic and move it to at least 10 different spots on a concert grand piano all over the soundboard, akin to the paper by Fazioli in 2017 and their contact mic experiments. Every spot is noticeably different. 

I started my music school training as a teenager by becoming a recording engineer and I put myself through music school that way. Years later I went from being a music professor to getting my advanced degrees in engineering. Of course I now have a fundamental understanding of the situation.

Without the physics training, a recording engineer will find out the hard way about small mic position changes. Now, this is so well documented in the literature, of course. Using the same mic for your ETD, and doing lots of positional changes, listen to the sound subjectively as though you are professionally recording the piano, not just using the tuning app. If the recording sounds subjectively 'good' it is probably in an ideal spot. It is 'hit and miss'. My experience with the technical analysis that I present in my classes is that small position changes will affect the tuning by 1 cent or more, worst case.

The ETD makers quietly acknowledge this problem. They don't want to expose it because it undermines their salesmanship of the app.

This problem led me to invent the PianoSens device. It is not just a 'guitar like pickup.' As an EE, I solved many problems doing this design.

I place the sensor < 1/8th string length to pick up all the partials > 8 partials, and making small movements of several centimeters in this 'region' and it has literally no discernible variance, which is loically to be expected. You can see small amplitude differences, of course, but not much. Tuning variances are now about 0.1 cents, not 1 cent. 

Steven Norsworthy

Professional Engineer, Professional Musician

RF2BITS.com

PianoSens.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101
------------------------------

I would absolutely love to do a zoom class, and I also have an unlimited zoom professional account. Let’s round up a whole bunch of people. Maybe the barking dogs and tiger sharks and the feeding frenzy will calm down a bit. We’ve got a cultural problem here. I’m quite congenial and likable and very kind, until someone lays an unprovoked rude hit, and this just keeps happening on Pianotech here. Many PTG presidents of local chapters have seen my presentation and they all 100% love it. I don’t know what’s wrong with some people on Pianotech. It would be too easy for me to give up on this crowd. I’m not going to do that. I’m gonna hang in there and defend what I know is right


Original Message:
Sent: 1/15/2024 2:49:00 PM
From: Gannon Rhinehart
Subject: RE: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Hi Steve,

Thank you for all of your hard work.

I would love to know more about the science. Please do not give up on us. 

Would you be interested in teaching an open Zoom course for those on the blog who would like to attend?

I have access to a 1000 person Zoom account that we could use.

Perhaps you could teach us the science and Paul could demonstrate it in practice.

Send me a text if you would like to arrange this.

Thanks again.

------------------------------
Gannon Rhinehart
Santa Fe NM
(505) 692-8385
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 01-13-2024 13:44
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Dear Robin and Blaine, (and perhaps others),

I have presented my full class now to several PTG groups, as I offer the class on zoom or in person. I have only had positive and exciting experiences and gotten much appreciation from the class members. I am sorry if you misconstrued it otherwise.

A truly new technology is 'disruptive'.

If you want your local PTG group to also receive the class, I am eager to accept the invitation.

Kindly and respectfully,

Steve


Original Message:
Sent: 1/13/2024 12:26:00 PM
From: Blaine Hebert
Subject: RE: Mics, sensors, and tuning

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

------------------------------
Blaine Hebert RPT
Duarte CA
(626) 390-0512

Original Message:
Sent: 01-13-2024 11:23
From: Robin Whitehouse
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Alright Professor,
Now I'm annoyed, and will see myself out. Apparently we're all too pedestrian to understand this unprecedented transformation in piano tuning you've bestowed upon us.

Since you've been an audio engineer, you'll be familiar with the phrase, "you can't polish a turd".  Well, the piano is a turd of distortions, and we've already enjoyed 200 years of polishing technique exploration.  Can Matlab be used to display the detriment of enjoyment to all the players I've tuned for, with the -0.650 cents deviant average tuning I've been delivering? "Bloody subjectivity," that you criticized in a different thread, is the final destination of all piano tuning.

I think we can accept that the data you are presenting is demonstrable, and that this system could very well be useful for some tuners in some circumstances. But your marketing approach has a little room for improvement.

Lots of us are nerds who like to explore how things work – as you should resonate with, being an inventor. You've presented a different technology and we're curious about it, and also in ways beyond your intentions, which should be exciting for you.  But you refuse to engage with us, and rather, profess with your many credentials and data points that we are performing inferior work and require your product.

Since we're not able to have a discussion, maybe it's time to stop spamming the whole tech list, and confine this revolution to one thread.

------------------------------
Robin Whitehouse
Greenbelt, MD

Original Message:
Sent: 01-13-2024 00:25
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

I could write a thesis on this subject. It's very time-consuming. The sensor is able to pick up at least 12 partials without the first half wave crossover. It's extremely invariant. I don't care how many mics you use and how high quality they are or how expensive they are or what their patterns are, I've been through it for months and months. The Mic is not the answer. Regardless of the room.


Original Message:
Sent: 1/13/2024 12:14:00 AM
From: Robin Whitehouse
Subject: RE: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Just wanted to add in some observations pertaining to this whole discussion.

ONE
Steven, on the Low Frequency Spectra: PianoSens vs Microphone video, the microphone's FFT sample (the right-side graphic) contains a third partial sub-octave.  Other than in additive synthesis (an organ's 5 1/3 sub-third drawbar) I haven't knowingly encountered a situation where this occurs naturally, whether by room mode/resonance or standing wave.  To me that subharmonic reads about 94Hz, which doesn't align with HVAC or electronic interference.  But it does appear to read at exactly half of the third partial's frequency (looks like 185Hz) so I'm very curious if you can replicate that.  Alternatively, Is one (or more) of your room's dimensions 12 feet, perhaps?
Whatever it is, this characteristic might help reinforce your argument for eliminating the sound pressure transfer function from the ETD's measurements.

TWO

Blaine, on another thread you posted about testing the PIXEL Lavalier microphone.  While the product states it is omnidirectional on both Amazon and the product webpage, the pictures of it show a cardioid design.  The description also totes an embedded noise filter and "cancellation chip" to "weaken side noise and pick up every word you say."  More than one mic element is needed for DSP cancellation, and there's no way that thing actually has active processing.  SO it's a cardioid mic.  The cardioid pickup pattern is highly subject to the proximity effect, which means a significant over-emphasis of low frequency response when close to a sound source - that is likely why it didn't work well for you.

Omnidirectional mics are not subject to the proximity effect. While tablets do, or at least used to, sport a single omnidirectional mic, they now come with multiple microphones and lots of DSP cancellation.  I will presume that all tablet ETD's specifically turn off those DSP functions and source a single mic.  My 2016 iPad Air 2 apparently has 2 microphones, while the new iPad Pro has 5 mic inputs.

When my ETD (or rather, iPad microphone) has trouble, I usually pop in my MicW i436 measurement (thus omni) microphone.  It's not world class, but it has a reasonably flat response, protrudes from the body of the tablet to give acoustic space, and there's a noticeable difference with how my ETD performs when it is having trouble.  It's a little pricey for just an experiment though.  You might try again with the Dayton measurement mic: iMM-6S if you still have an audio jack, iMM-6C if you have USB-C.  parts-express.com is the place to get it. ($20 and $40 respectively).

THREE

On that same other thread, I think, Paul McCloud mentions nodes and anti-nodes in conjunction with the location of the microphone causing reading issues.  These room modes are the #1 cause of "bad" ETD readings, save for signal to noise ratio (vacuum cleaner usually trumps room mode).  So this is a real concern… ish.  I have often experienced the "note reads flat, move microphone, note reads sharp" phenomenon.  For me, this is most always remedied by moving the microphone.  It happens far less frequently with my measurement mic.  However, I do have to notice it to fix it - usually the spinner is behaving strangely, so I'm pretty sure I catch it.  I suppose you wouldn't have that worry with PianoSens, however...

Coming back to two-dimensions, I have to wonder if PianoSens is subject to string nodes and anti-nodes read errors, in the same way that room modes effect microphone readings.  I took a class at the last convention that (if I remember correctly) postulated that our understanding of nodes and string harmonics having static positions may be slightly wrong.  If this is true, then PianoSens is probably safe from the read errorr.  If not, then how does string position effect what part of the sound PianoSens measures? Perhaps it has a wide longitudinal pickup resolution to mitigate string nodes?

Side thought: if it has a very narrow resolution, we might be able to use PianoSens to create a measured cross section of a vibrating string (albeit that decay would make the measurement difficult to execute).  CAT scan of a vibrating string anyone?

------------------------------
Robin Whitehouse
Greenbelt, MD

Original Message:
Sent: 01-12-2024 02:27
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Listen to my post of a few mins ago…. on Pianotech

I think that answers things… do you hear beats? How much?

Demo of a PianoSens tuned Fazioli F308 using 8ths, 12ths, 16ths


Original Message:
Sent: 1/11/2024 1:28:00 AM
From: Blaine Hebert
Subject: RE: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Steve et al,

I struggle to do my best tuning on every piano I service, spinets and concert grands.  I do use an ETD (iRCT) but I actually enjoy occasionally leaving it off and tuning by ear. 

What I have realized (or admitted) is that on my finest tuning, whether by ear or device, and even on the best of pianos (OK, I have never tuned a Fazioli) the piano is completely out of tune!  What I mean is that there are beats in every octave, there are harmonics that will never be in tune, there are inevitable false beats, at least somewhere and every third, fourth, fifth and sixth beat with the temperament.  Then there is the string inharmonicity adding to the cacophany.

Your suggestion that we quanticize and rate different tunings runs into the problem that tuning itself is problematic and to some degree subject to personal opinion and preference.  That tuning that you are (rightly) proud of might sound offensive to a particular musician.  Remember that there is a practice among highly regarded "concert tuners" to slightly de-tune unisons to brighten or alter the overall sound.  How would your objective testing rate a tuning by one of these touted techs where the device might show a lower score against another tuner who tunes "pure"?

On the other hand, I highly agree that objective testing is something that our technology lacks.  One of the issues that arises is the variability among instruments themselves.  How many times have you compared two similar instruments and found one better than the other?  I did an experiment with voicing where I applied one technique to even numbered hammers and another technique to the others.  What was surprising was that among the hammers with either treatment there was enough variability to challenge the test itself and I had to base my conclusion on a broad consensus of all of the hammers with each treatment (the treatment was easily evened out in the end, no hammers were harmed in this test).

To properly do this experiment we might need to conduct it in a factory with a great many pianos of very similar scale and treatments, otherwise we might base our conclusion on factors unrelated to the actual tuning.  Another possible scenario might be a large institution with many recent and identical instruments.

Don't stop experimenting, but in the end, can our customers hear it?

------------------------------
Blaine Hebert RPT
Duarte CA
(626) 390-0512

Original Message:
Sent: 01-07-2024 00:54
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

I recommend you take your mic and move it to at least 10 different spots on a concert grand piano all over the soundboard, akin to the paper by Fazioli in 2017 and their contact mic experiments. Every spot is noticeably different. 

I started my music school training as a teenager by becoming a recording engineer and I put myself through music school that way. Years later I went from being a music professor to getting my advanced degrees in engineering. Of course I now have a fundamental understanding of the situation.

Without the physics training, a recording engineer will find out the hard way about small mic position changes. Now, this is so well documented in the literature, of course. Using the same mic for your ETD, and doing lots of positional changes, listen to the sound subjectively as though you are professionally recording the piano, not just using the tuning app. If the recording sounds subjectively 'good' it is probably in an ideal spot. It is 'hit and miss'. My experience with the technical analysis that I present in my classes is that small position changes will affect the tuning by 1 cent or more, worst case.

The ETD makers quietly acknowledge this problem. They don't want to expose it because it undermines their salesmanship of the app.

This problem led me to invent the PianoSens device. It is not just a 'guitar like pickup.' As an EE, I solved many problems doing this design.

I place the sensor < 1/8th string length to pick up all the partials > 8 partials, and making small movements of several centimeters in this 'region' and it has literally no discernible variance, which is loically to be expected. You can see small amplitude differences, of course, but not much. Tuning variances are now about 0.1 cents, not 1 cent. 

Steven Norsworthy

Professional Engineer, Professional Musician

RF2BITS.com

PianoSens.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101
------------------------------

I would absolutely love to do a zoom class, and I also have an unlimited zoom professional account. Let’s round up a whole bunch of people. Maybe the barking dogs and tiger sharks and the feeding frenzy will calm down a bit. We’ve got a cultural problem here. I’m quite congenial and likable and very kind, until someone lays an unprovoked rude hit, and this just keeps happening on Pianotech here. Many PTG presidents of local chapters have seen my presentation and they all 100% love it. I don’t know what’s wrong with some people on Pianotech. It would be too easy for me to give up on this crowd. I’m not going to do that. I’m gonna hang in there and defend what I know is right


Original Message:
Sent: 1/15/2024 2:49:00 PM
From: Gannon Rhinehart
Subject: RE: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Hi Steve,

Thank you for all of your hard work.

I would love to know more about the science. Please do not give up on us. 

Would you be interested in teaching an open Zoom course for those on the blog who would like to attend?

I have access to a 1000 person Zoom account that we could use.

Perhaps you could teach us the science and Paul could demonstrate it in practice.

Send me a text if you would like to arrange this.

Thanks again.

------------------------------
Gannon Rhinehart
Santa Fe NM
(505) 692-8385
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 01-13-2024 13:44
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Dear Robin and Blaine, (and perhaps others),

I have presented my full class now to several PTG groups, as I offer the class on zoom or in person. I have only had positive and exciting experiences and gotten much appreciation from the class members. I am sorry if you misconstrued it otherwise.

A truly new technology is 'disruptive'.

If you want your local PTG group to also receive the class, I am eager to accept the invitation.

Kindly and respectfully,

Steve


Original Message:
Sent: 1/13/2024 12:26:00 PM
From: Blaine Hebert
Subject: RE: Mics, sensors, and tuning

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

------------------------------
Blaine Hebert RPT
Duarte CA
(626) 390-0512

Original Message:
Sent: 01-13-2024 11:23
From: Robin Whitehouse
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Alright Professor,
Now I'm annoyed, and will see myself out. Apparently we're all too pedestrian to understand this unprecedented transformation in piano tuning you've bestowed upon us.

Since you've been an audio engineer, you'll be familiar with the phrase, "you can't polish a turd".  Well, the piano is a turd of distortions, and we've already enjoyed 200 years of polishing technique exploration.  Can Matlab be used to display the detriment of enjoyment to all the players I've tuned for, with the -0.650 cents deviant average tuning I've been delivering? "Bloody subjectivity," that you criticized in a different thread, is the final destination of all piano tuning.

I think we can accept that the data you are presenting is demonstrable, and that this system could very well be useful for some tuners in some circumstances. But your marketing approach has a little room for improvement.

Lots of us are nerds who like to explore how things work – as you should resonate with, being an inventor. You've presented a different technology and we're curious about it, and also in ways beyond your intentions, which should be exciting for you.  But you refuse to engage with us, and rather, profess with your many credentials and data points that we are performing inferior work and require your product.

Since we're not able to have a discussion, maybe it's time to stop spamming the whole tech list, and confine this revolution to one thread.

------------------------------
Robin Whitehouse
Greenbelt, MD

Original Message:
Sent: 01-13-2024 00:25
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

I could write a thesis on this subject. It's very time-consuming. The sensor is able to pick up at least 12 partials without the first half wave crossover. It's extremely invariant. I don't care how many mics you use and how high quality they are or how expensive they are or what their patterns are, I've been through it for months and months. The Mic is not the answer. Regardless of the room.


Original Message:
Sent: 1/13/2024 12:14:00 AM
From: Robin Whitehouse
Subject: RE: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Just wanted to add in some observations pertaining to this whole discussion.

ONE
Steven, on the Low Frequency Spectra: PianoSens vs Microphone video, the microphone's FFT sample (the right-side graphic) contains a third partial sub-octave.  Other than in additive synthesis (an organ's 5 1/3 sub-third drawbar) I haven't knowingly encountered a situation where this occurs naturally, whether by room mode/resonance or standing wave.  To me that subharmonic reads about 94Hz, which doesn't align with HVAC or electronic interference.  But it does appear to read at exactly half of the third partial's frequency (looks like 185Hz) so I'm very curious if you can replicate that.  Alternatively, Is one (or more) of your room's dimensions 12 feet, perhaps?
Whatever it is, this characteristic might help reinforce your argument for eliminating the sound pressure transfer function from the ETD's measurements.

TWO

Blaine, on another thread you posted about testing the PIXEL Lavalier microphone.  While the product states it is omnidirectional on both Amazon and the product webpage, the pictures of it show a cardioid design.  The description also totes an embedded noise filter and "cancellation chip" to "weaken side noise and pick up every word you say."  More than one mic element is needed for DSP cancellation, and there's no way that thing actually has active processing.  SO it's a cardioid mic.  The cardioid pickup pattern is highly subject to the proximity effect, which means a significant over-emphasis of low frequency response when close to a sound source - that is likely why it didn't work well for you.

Omnidirectional mics are not subject to the proximity effect. While tablets do, or at least used to, sport a single omnidirectional mic, they now come with multiple microphones and lots of DSP cancellation.  I will presume that all tablet ETD's specifically turn off those DSP functions and source a single mic.  My 2016 iPad Air 2 apparently has 2 microphones, while the new iPad Pro has 5 mic inputs.

When my ETD (or rather, iPad microphone) has trouble, I usually pop in my MicW i436 measurement (thus omni) microphone.  It's not world class, but it has a reasonably flat response, protrudes from the body of the tablet to give acoustic space, and there's a noticeable difference with how my ETD performs when it is having trouble.  It's a little pricey for just an experiment though.  You might try again with the Dayton measurement mic: iMM-6S if you still have an audio jack, iMM-6C if you have USB-C.  parts-express.com is the place to get it. ($20 and $40 respectively).

THREE

On that same other thread, I think, Paul McCloud mentions nodes and anti-nodes in conjunction with the location of the microphone causing reading issues.  These room modes are the #1 cause of "bad" ETD readings, save for signal to noise ratio (vacuum cleaner usually trumps room mode).  So this is a real concern… ish.  I have often experienced the "note reads flat, move microphone, note reads sharp" phenomenon.  For me, this is most always remedied by moving the microphone.  It happens far less frequently with my measurement mic.  However, I do have to notice it to fix it - usually the spinner is behaving strangely, so I'm pretty sure I catch it.  I suppose you wouldn't have that worry with PianoSens, however...

Coming back to two-dimensions, I have to wonder if PianoSens is subject to string nodes and anti-nodes read errors, in the same way that room modes effect microphone readings.  I took a class at the last convention that (if I remember correctly) postulated that our understanding of nodes and string harmonics having static positions may be slightly wrong.  If this is true, then PianoSens is probably safe from the read errorr.  If not, then how does string position effect what part of the sound PianoSens measures? Perhaps it has a wide longitudinal pickup resolution to mitigate string nodes?

Side thought: if it has a very narrow resolution, we might be able to use PianoSens to create a measured cross section of a vibrating string (albeit that decay would make the measurement difficult to execute).  CAT scan of a vibrating string anyone?

------------------------------
Robin Whitehouse
Greenbelt, MD

Original Message:
Sent: 01-12-2024 02:27
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Listen to my post of a few mins ago…. on Pianotech

I think that answers things… do you hear beats? How much?

Demo of a PianoSens tuned Fazioli F308 using 8ths, 12ths, 16ths


Original Message:
Sent: 1/11/2024 1:28:00 AM
From: Blaine Hebert
Subject: RE: Mics, sensors, and tuning

Steve et al,

I struggle to do my best tuning on every piano I service, spinets and concert grands.  I do use an ETD (iRCT) but I actually enjoy occasionally leaving it off and tuning by ear. 

What I have realized (or admitted) is that on my finest tuning, whether by ear or device, and even on the best of pianos (OK, I have never tuned a Fazioli) the piano is completely out of tune!  What I mean is that there are beats in every octave, there are harmonics that will never be in tune, there are inevitable false beats, at least somewhere and every third, fourth, fifth and sixth beat with the temperament.  Then there is the string inharmonicity adding to the cacophany.

Your suggestion that we quanticize and rate different tunings runs into the problem that tuning itself is problematic and to some degree subject to personal opinion and preference.  That tuning that you are (rightly) proud of might sound offensive to a particular musician.  Remember that there is a practice among highly regarded "concert tuners" to slightly de-tune unisons to brighten or alter the overall sound.  How would your objective testing rate a tuning by one of these touted techs where the device might show a lower score against another tuner who tunes "pure"?

On the other hand, I highly agree that objective testing is something that our technology lacks.  One of the issues that arises is the variability among instruments themselves.  How many times have you compared two similar instruments and found one better than the other?  I did an experiment with voicing where I applied one technique to even numbered hammers and another technique to the others.  What was surprising was that among the hammers with either treatment there was enough variability to challenge the test itself and I had to base my conclusion on a broad consensus of all of the hammers with each treatment (the treatment was easily evened out in the end, no hammers were harmed in this test).

To properly do this experiment we might need to conduct it in a factory with a great many pianos of very similar scale and treatments, otherwise we might base our conclusion on factors unrelated to the actual tuning.  Another possible scenario might be a large institution with many recent and identical instruments.

Don't stop experimenting, but in the end, can our customers hear it?

------------------------------
Blaine Hebert RPT
Duarte CA
(626) 390-0512

Original Message:
Sent: 01-07-2024 00:54
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Mics, sensors, and tuning

I recommend you take your mic and move it to at least 10 different spots on a concert grand piano all over the soundboard, akin to the paper by Fazioli in 2017 and their contact mic experiments. Every spot is noticeably different. 

I started my music school training as a teenager by becoming a recording engineer and I put myself through music school that way. Years later I went from being a music professor to getting my advanced degrees in engineering. Of course I now have a fundamental understanding of the situation.

Without the physics training, a recording engineer will find out the hard way about small mic position changes. Now, this is so well documented in the literature, of course. Using the same mic for your ETD, and doing lots of positional changes, listen to the sound subjectively as though you are professionally recording the piano, not just using the tuning app. If the recording sounds subjectively 'good' it is probably in an ideal spot. It is 'hit and miss'. My experience with the technical analysis that I present in my classes is that small position changes will affect the tuning by 1 cent or more, worst case.

The ETD makers quietly acknowledge this problem. They don't want to expose it because it undermines their salesmanship of the app.

This problem led me to invent the PianoSens device. It is not just a 'guitar like pickup.' As an EE, I solved many problems doing this design.

I place the sensor < 1/8th string length to pick up all the partials > 8 partials, and making small movements of several centimeters in this 'region' and it has literally no discernible variance, which is loically to be expected. You can see small amplitude differences, of course, but not much. Tuning variances are now about 0.1 cents, not 1 cent. 

Steven Norsworthy

Professional Engineer, Professional Musician

RF2BITS.com

PianoSens.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101
------------------------------