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. what would you do with a piano like this? Bill, Part of your problem is that the SAT will not accept that high an F number! F=20 is as high as it goes. If you are reading 38 and it's setting 20, that's why you are getting wild octaves! Of course, I have one of the original SAT's. The II's may be different in that aspect. What I do in this situation is go back to the old sight-o-tuner procedure of tuning to two octaves and a fifth above. You have to come out of your page into "tune" mode to do this. The procedure is as follows: 1. Use the FAC page you computed to tune about two octaves above the break. Remute that area so you are using only the center string as a reference. Recheck the centers against the SAT for slippage. 2. Close the page by pressing SHIFT and then pressing TUNE until the SAT resets itself, then press TUNE to get into TUNE MODE. 3. Whatever your first bass string is, play an octave above as your reference note. For example, if your first bass note is E3, E4 is the reference note. 4. Now set your SAT an octave and a fifth above that, or B5. 5. Play E4 and stop the lights with the CENTS button. 6. Without changing anything tune E3 to stop the lights. 7. Check it aurally. 8. Make whatever compromises are necessary to smooth things out. Sometimes changes in the lower tenor area are necessary to make the transition smoother. 9. Step the SAT down one note and complete the bass tuning. 10. Face the fact that some pianos cannot really be tuned! Hope this helps, Warren --- Home of The Humor List Warren D. Fisher fish@communique.net Registered Piano Technician Piano Technicians Guild New Orleans Chapter 701
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC