World Class Junk

[Michel Lachance]

BSimon1234@aol.com wrote:
>
> This list seems to have an abundance of technicians who seem to, almost
> exclusively,  tune large Steinways and Baldwins grands every day.  That must
> be lovely.  I hope someone might be able to help me with a world class lousy
> piano.
>
> I have used a SAT for a number of years, quite successfully. Today I
> attempted a tuning on a 1965 Hallet Davis spinet. It reliably, repeatedly,
>  gave FAC numbers of 38.2 - 10.1 - 1.1.
>
> This translated to a tuning with octaves beating wildly, at about 3 beats per
> second. I measured everything many times, measured the stretch of notes next
> to the wild notes, tuned aurally and tried to find a FAC setting that matched
> a decent octave, experimented with putting "standard" numbers into the SAT
> and seeing how the tuning compared.  Not even close!  I then mused about
> adding one cent to the A number to stretch the octaves for pure fifths - ho -
> ho - ho ! (:-)
>
> Forgetting about the cracking bass bridge, the dead bass strings, the
> majority of strings that beat wildly, the hard hammers, etc., -   what would
> you do with a piano like this? No -  don't answer that, it is too obvious.
>  What would you do with a SAT to aid in attempting to tune a piano like this?
>
> I finally put the SAT away and did a completely aural tuning, and was
> underwhelmed with the results. The customer was delighted.
>
> But really, - what would you do?
>
> Thanks,
> Bill Simon


I also met some pianos where the SAT was of no help.  I wonder how the
RCT would perform on these wild animals.

Michel Lachance, RPT