> I have been considering a tuning aid and have found one in the APS Catalog. > It is a KORG AT-12 AUTO Chromatic Tuner. Is this any good? My budget is > very limited so I need something economical and does a good job.... > > Pat Hopkins -------------------------------------------- Pat: If I correctly infer your needs from your note, the Korg won't be accurate enough for you, but I do have a suggestion. ALL tunings, with or without the use of an ETA, require an understanding of how inharmonicity affects tuning. Without that understanding, the tuner cannot make the (AURAL) judgments necessary for balancing the stretch. For instance, three excellent-sounding single octaves stacked one on top of another don't necessarily make up one excellent triple octave; compromise is necessary. That said, I would say that a used Sight-O-Tuner would be both the minimum AND entirely sufficient. They aren't all that expensive. While they don't have the automatic functions of the Accu-Tuner or the Reyburn CyberTuner (which can both calculate reasonably good tunings based on a few measurements, and remember them), they are extremely accurate in measuring both pitch and overtone relationships. A person who understands how a tuning is constructed can get huge amounts of useful information from a Sight-O-Tuner, including visual feedback on tuning tendencies, appropriate interval width, consistency, and stability. For instance, tune an octave by ear, then measure all the coincident partials (at least 2:1, 4:2, 6:3, and 8:4) and see what your ear told you. Try the test intervals for these coincidences, decide where the octave lies with respect to them, and compare visually. Tune several octaves and see if you exhibit uniform tendencies. Tune a temperament and see how it compares with a calculated one, particularly in evenness, then clean up by ear, and measure again. Decide if you want to overrule the box. Tune a whole piano, then with the tuner set on C7, play C6, F5, C5, C4 (they all produce partials at C7) and see how they line up (they can't, and you will want to be able to explain why). Whack a note and see how much if any its pitch changes. You didn't mention your level of experience. If you've done a lot of aural tuning, you will be used to making these compromises, and may just need to translate it into visual terms to open up a new world of useful feedback. If you are not very experienced, you will need to know all this stuff before you tune for money anyway! With real understanding of what the S-O-T can measure, one doesn't need the automated features of the more expensive devices (I don't call them machines). They're just faster. Without such understanding, one probably doesn't know enough to do an excellent aural tuning anyway. There are some who say that aural tuning is better than electronic tuning, as if the two are mutually exclusive. While it's unlikely one can get a truly EXCELLENT tuning without an understanding of what one is, and a refined ear, the final product is what matters. Since the ear is the final arbiter, it certainly behooves us to get it as refined as possible, as soon as possible. When all is said and done, a tuning must SOUND good, but using an ETA doesn't mean you can't LISTEN too. If the tuning doesn't sound good, it doesn't help that it was entirely aural, and if it sounds great, who cares if an ETA upped the speed and consistency of the learning and tuning processes. After ten years of tuning without an ETA and fifteen more with, I just don't see any reason not to carry one, but it really doesn't matter to me what others do. A good tuning is a good tuning. However, I have followed "aural" tuners who were very proud of their work and of their refusal to use an ETA. I have (AURALLY) found inconsistencies in their work which I think they themselves would have noticed (and not tolerated) had they regularly monitored their work visually. Speaking of budgets, we have a relatively inexpensive occupation to tool up for. There's some stuff ya just gotta BUY. Buying a good ETA may knock many valuable hours off the learning curve, get a beginning tuner into the field much sooner, or quickly help refine a working tuner. That alone can pay for it many times over. Best wishes in your search, Bob Davis, RPT Stockton, CA
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