In my opinion the major problem of modern ETDs is that of digital technology.
OK - I'm one of those very stupid people who are backing up digital recordings of concerts . . . onto analogue tape. Some say it sounds better in the first place but i'm doing it because tapes will be around in 50 or even 100 years. Recently I bought a tape on a Ferrograph reel - and it's clearly an acetate tape probably made in the 1950s - only to find it largely blank other than, randomly a testing recording in the middle . . . the voice being mine, accompanied by mains hum of an old recorder possibly in the 1970s and reference to a double circular "magic eye" recording indicator. I presume this must have been at a school at which I was mucking around with a tape machine. Bottom line - analogue lasts. Tape probably 70 years old or more and recording probably 60 years old.
Analogue has its place and in that technology is an immediate dynamic response.
The Vogel CTS5 is a standard tuner in Europe, often used by organ builders as well as piano techs. It's like an oscilloscope display of the sound against a reference frequency and the waveform is composed of some 16 dots or so to the wavelength achieving great accuracy. Jitter - whilst with black and white display of digital displays one sees jitter, with the analogue you see what you hear and see the dynamic movement of pitch, so as to be able to tune on the strike or on the sustain as one wishes and seeing the progress of inharmonics passing through the fundamental.
Using the CTS5 was a gamechanger for me, taking uncertainty out of reading a digital display, and enabling me to get faster and faster for reliable tunings, often now coming down to around 50 minutes for a concert tuning in a hurry.
Best wishes
David P
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David Pinnegar, B.Sc., A.R.C.S.
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+44 1342 850594
Original Message:
Sent: 2/27/2024 9:56:00 AM
From: Nathan Monteleone
Subject: RE: Question for ETD users
IIUC the "phase display speed" in TuneLab only affects the top horizontal spinner (officially called the "phase display" in tunelab). It doesn't do anything to the spectrum display or the numerical pitch readout. That's just a point of clarification; per a recent comment from Robert Scott on pianoworld the phase display is in fact the weapon of choice for fine tuning except in the high treble. I doubt he'll mind me copy-pasting it here:
Regarding the experiments with TuneLab, I should point out that the Spectrum Display and the numeric display of cents error are not the most accurate way to measure pitch or to tune a note. The Phase Display is the most accurate guide when tuning all but the very high treble. The FFT-based Spectrum Display is a convenient coarse indicator and a useful trouble-shooting tool. But for the most accurate measurements, the Phase Display is better. The Phase Display is not based on an FFT. It is based on direct phase measurements between the audio input (mic or sensor) and an internal highly-accurate synthesized signal set to the target frequency for the given note. As such, the Phase Display does not provide a direct measure of frequency. But if you want to measure piano pitch instead of tune the piano, it does guide you to adjust the offset in the app. Then you can read the resulting frequency which is displayed. That is how you would go about doing things like evaluating the effect of mic position on measured pitch and evaluating the effect of false beats using different kinds of pickups. False beats cause the detected phase of the piano signal to advance and retard periodically. This causes the Phase Display to move left and right even when the piano is tuned (or the offset adjusted) to minimize that movement. A signal without false beats will produce an absolutely stable Phase Display that can be trimmed to appear absolutely motionless. But as we have seen, such a situation is nearly impossible with real pianos.
Edit/P.S.: Another way to "tune" TuneLab to get a more stable display, is to fiddle with the table of partials. I may try to experiment with that this evening if I have a moment...
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Nathan Monteleone RPT
Fort Worth TX
(817) 675-9494
nbmont@gmail.com
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Original Message:
Sent: 02-26-2024 23:47
From: Ron Koval
Subject: Question for ETD users
I don't use Tunelab regularly, but went hunting and found:
In the gear settings, find the Phase display speed. I believe the default is 1.00, but the range goes from .33 to 3.05. If you feel a 'lag' in the display during the first pass, move this to a larger number and see how the display reacts? If you feel that there is some jitter, move to a lower number. Sometimes the display at the bottom is the best way to move quickly to "close enough" for the first pass.
When you are moving on to fine tuning, move this number way down to .33 and watch how the display reacts. At this speed, you should be in the "nudge a little" zone to get as close to 0 as you would like to be. Nudge, watch, nudge, watch and keep playing at the appropriate tuning zone speed.
Here is the display stability on an old M&H 50 upright
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/DgFeJWv97LA\
Think of it like driving a stick shift coming off the highway and staying in a high gear. As the vehicle slows and the gas is pressed, the engine bucks and sputters (jitter). Instead of trying to drive like that at low speeds, the solution is to shift to a lower gear.
Adjusting the sensitivity is like shifting gears - although it is often buried behind a few taps into the settings. As you get much closer to the tuning target, selecting a lower gear (slower response) can really help stabilize the display and allow for finer tuning.
I found similar settings in Verituner, Cybertuner and Pianoscope. The recommendation for PianoMeter at this point is to ignore the needle during fine tuning and focus on the rings.
Ron Koval
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Ron Koval
CHICAGO IL
Original Message:
Sent: 02-18-2024 17:45
From: Ron Koval
Subject: Question for ETD users
Sunday tuning - Yamaha G3, during the second pass of a 25 cent pitch raise. With all the discussion about precision, I wondered if all of you don't see similar stability with just the phone mic?? I usually just aim for between 0.5 and 0 on the log display and then tune the other two by ear, but tried to tune each to the display for this short. My normal +/- 0.25 cent range is about the repeatability/accuracy limit of the apps due to varience during inharmonicity measuring - even with the sensor during testing... I returned it. If you don't have a stable display, have you gone through all of the settings to see if there are any adjustments you could make?
Display stability
Ron Koval
Chicagoland
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Ron Koval
CHICAGO IL
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