Hale Site-O-Tuner

[Michel Lachance]

>I'm somewhat interested in this unit but I confess to not
>know much about it. I have been an aural tuner for some 12
>years now and am now comfortable with my skills. I'm
>concerned that using one of these devices will produce the
>"canned" or "compressed" tuning I always seem to be following
>up out in the field. What I am looking for is a tool not a
>crutch as soo many seem to use these devices for. Can you
>help me understand just what this items capabilities are?
>			Greg
>Greg & Mary Ellen Newell
>gnewell@en.com
>dt945@cleveland.freenet.edu
>gnewell@juno.com

Greg,

This issue about the usefullness of tuning devices versus aural tuning has
been over-discussed already in this forum.  If you want a long answer and
have access to World Wide Web, I would suggest you go to the searchable
gopher (you can get it from the Piano Page) and type in anything like
"Sight-O-Tuner", "Accu-Tuner", "Accutuner" or "SAT" and you will get enough
to spend several nights reading the discussions about the subject.

If you want a short answer, here is mine:  the Accu-Tuner is by far the
best tuning devices available and the only one that could serve efficiently
the aural tuning.  You can store your own tunings, or the ones computed by
the A-T, or any aural revised computed tuning.  You can also pitch raise a
piano in 15 minutes with an astonishing precision.

The last model of Sight-O-Tuners that came out from Tuner's Supply just
before the close-out had some programming features and could even compute a
"concert tuning" from C3 to F6 if I recall.  The old Sight-O-Tuners are
high precision machines but should be considered more like "measuring
devices' than "tuning devices" in regards of the pianos.

Regards

Michel Lachance, RPT