Pianotech

  • 1.  Verituner settings

    Member
    Posted an hour ago

    I will preface this by saying - yes, I eventually will tune aurally, but right now, verituner is how I get the job done.

    During some tuning instruction I've had, it was pointed out to me that while Verituner does a pretty good job in the midsection of the piano, the targets in the bass were multiple cents sharp where they would be set aurally by my instructor. Aside from that, I had noticed before then that the bass on my tunings could sound better. I'm not quite sure if the high treble also has issues, but the bass has always stuck out to me more.

    I do have the Verituner manual, but there are a lot of various settings that I've not messed with. I usually just use the built in style recommended for the size of the piano and start tuning. If anyone here is experienced with this app and can give any pointers on how to correct the bass targets, I appreciate it! Perhaps I need to use the "stretch" setting?

    I want my pianos to sound as good as possible while I'm still learning aural tuning!



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    Summer Eells
    Friendsville TN
    (865) 337-2728
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  • 2.  RE: Verituner settings

    Posted 41 minutes ago
    There are various styles of tuning bass and I'm not sure that strict harmonic matching is the way to go. Whilst I've found a target that my CTS5 tuner can follow reliably I have played octaves and listened not for any one harmonic match in particular but the best meshing of all harmonics from both notes together. Unless you find a machine setting that does exactly what your ears would do, use your ears. 

    If you can set individual notes, here are the offsets I use for the top two octaves - universally. Don't worry about how wrong that seems but there are two factors that make standard octave 2:1 or 4:2 tuning irrelevant and these offsets give a starting point which works. These are the maximum stretch settings from the old version of the CTS5

    C#6 3.5

    D 4

    D# 4.5

    E 5

    F 5.5

    F# 6

    G 7

    G# 7.5

    A 8.5

    A# 9.5

    B 10.5

    C7 12

    C# 13.5

    D 15

    E 18

    F 20

    F# 22

    G 25

    G# 28

    A 32

    A# 36

    B 42

    C8 63 

    Now of course different instruments with different inharmonicity should be tuned accordingly. Of course. But there are two things against this. My ears tell me that high frequency notes are flatter, even if mathematically correct. So really to sound good, those top two octaves need to be sharp. The second thing is that using your tuner you'll be tuning individual strings - as I do and tend to . . . but with a proviso! You tune each of the three strings perfectly and then play the note and the machine then shows the note to be flatter than each of the original strings. So if your machine tuning is sharper than it ought to be harmonically, then the Weinrich flattening of the note will get the notes in tune. But then when the ear wants to hear the notes flat, the notes need to be sharper anyway. 

    It's a particular delight when tuning treble to hear coming into tune and the string singing, harmonically in tune with the octave below, but this doesn't happen on all instruments. It's so percussive that the treble doesn't sing at all, or junked up by duplex mistuning anyway, or strings presenting false notes. So there's no _right_ way of tuning there. https://youtu.be/bId_YvF_4Gk?t=112 is an example of how to shim up a note to compensate for the Weinrich effect. Up in the treble one sees how flat the note is, how fast the phase shapes are moving left, and then tunes all three strings the same rate sharp, to the right on the tuner, and then the note ends up on pitch.

    I don't always get it right but on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfEQqfdbTA8 I felt happy about the treble.

    Best wishes

    David P


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    David Pinnegar, B.Sc., A.R.C.S.
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    +44 7868385643



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  • 3.  RE: Verituner settings

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 21 minutes ago
    Summer

    As a way to get you to tune aurally, but still rely on your Verituner, here is what will help. First, tune the bass with the ETD. Then listen to a 10th, starting with the 3rd note above the break, and the 10th above that. (E3 - G#4) Listen for the beats. They should be very audible. Then go chromatically lower, and across the break. Continue down for an octave. As you go down, the beat rate will slow down, but the beat rate needs to be almost the same as the one above. When you get to C2, play Bb3, (an octave and minor 7th), and listen to those beats. The beat rate of C2 - Bb3 should be the same as Gb3 - Bb3. Again, they should be very audible. Then go down chromatically, with the beat rate slowing down as before. You can use that test all the way down to A0. If you want, when you get to F1, kick the upper note up an octave, F1 - Eb3.  

    Next thing you know, you'll be an aural tuner. 

    Good luck. 



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