SAT in low bass

[Wimblees@aol.com]

In a message dated 97-05-14 04:42:16 EDT, Ted Simmons writes:

>Hi list,
>   While we're on the thread of using SAT's for piano tuning, I'd like to
>relate an incident that happened recently.  I was called in to tune a
>spinet that I had never seen before.  I set up my SAT for this piano and
>began the tuning.  As I got into the lower bass the SAT indicated that the
>notes were very flat and had to be adjusted upwards.  When I got to the
>lowest B, however, the  SAT indicated that it was only slightly flat and so
>I merely tweaked it a little.  I was puzzled by the fact that among all of
>those "very flat" notes was one that was almost on pitch.  So I did some
>aural checks and, while striking the lowest B, I played notes up from it
>one at a time and discovered that this B was in unison with D1.  Instead of
>being flat, it was sharp by a great amount!  I love my SAT and it performs
>well for me, but it fooled me down in the low bass.  I've been leery of its
>bass capabilities ever since.  Can anyone explain why this happened and how
>the SAT can be used to home in on the correct pitch for these low notes?
>
>Ted Simmons, Merritt Island, FL (1 hour's drive from Orlando)
>
>

I am sure some techs will problably give you all sorts of partial readings,
and overtone phenomenons, and inharmomonicity reasons why this happens, but
from my point of view, who cares?  Not to sound flippent, but on some very
cheap spinets, the bass strings are so stiff, and probably so coroded with
dust and gunk, that a true pitch will not be able to be heard by any machine,
even the new Cybertuner. Using you ear was probalby the best solution,
because if you think the low B was where it should be, the customer will most
likely not know it.

Willem Blees  RPT
St. louis