Ron, I thought I might give you my two cents worth on a couple of your points: >Does your SA-T take atmospheric conditions into account? The SAT does not take into acount atmospheric conditions, but because I can adjust the pitch of the SAT to any reasonable compensation *I* can take that into account and adjust the machine accordingly. Now, whether the memorized tuning would be adequate in a new location and environment, I have my reservations, and would prefer to tune "off-memory" because I suspect that inharmonicity factors may have changed slightly (only a guess; I may by easily proved wrong). >If your customer calls you the next day and expresses disapproval with the tuning, would you hesitate to return, _sans_ SA-T, to give a completely aural tuning? I would return *with* SAT (actually I use the ACT) and methodically try discover the areas of dissatisfaction. I've *never* had a complaint about the temperament, but may find that this client prefers a 2:1 octave in the high treble, because of the "ring" or that a 6:3 octave in the bass is causing a noticeable beat at the 4:2 coincidence. ONce I discover the problem I can use the ACT to solve it easily, in the same way I would have to use my ear. >One gentleman showed up and tuned the piano with an A-T. . . he demonstrated that the piano was perfectly in tune. When I first started tuning, we called them "box-boys;" those "quacks" who used those electronic boxes, cause the didn't know how to tune. I tuned aurally for 5 years, and then bought a used SAT, cheap, and thought it wouldn't hurt to have one around, just because. But I had my arsenal of true anecdotes, which clients had shared, mirroring your story. "They 'proved' it was in tune, but it still sounded terrible." What I later found they had proved is that they didn't understand inharmonicity, and hadn't a clue why we "stretch" the octaves, and why each piano is tuned differently, not to a theoretic chart. This is not information exclusive to aural tuners, just to educated ones. However, even uneducated aural tuners knew we stretched octaves "just a little bit," we just didn't know *why*. (Some of us thought melodic tunings help achieve this. . .but why do these strings keep breaking?) But the uneducated box-boys thought "0" cents deviation was "in-tune." The problem wasn't the box (although maybe it was in days of electronic antiquity), it was just ignorance. I'm convinced today that I tune better, and that I understand my tunings more, because of the time I've spent utilizing this tool. I can still tune aurally, but, even then, I will sometimes hear some strange sounds coming out of a string, that I can't figure out, but the the ACT will shed some light and guide my choice. Case in point: a client with a fine ear (non musician, of course) was hearing a subtle tone discrepency on one note in the middle of the piano. It took me a while to hear what he was talking about, but finally I heard it and started checking the partials of the strings, finding that one string on the 9th partial was 19 cents lower than the the other two. It may be inadequate training, but I would not have known what was happening by ear. That knowledge told me that replacing the string was indicated (although it could have been fuzz at the termination points) and the mystery was solved. All that. . . only two cents worth? Bob Simmons California State University, San Bernadino
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