Direct Partial Matching with Tune-Lab

[Richard Brekne]

Hi list.

I tried an experiment today with Tune-Lab on a C3 I tune weekly for the
local Jazz Club. I used Cyber Ear to set an A3 to A4 temperament. Then
switched over to Tune-Lab for the rest of the piano. I had set up a
tuning file ahead of time so that the partial selection was set to the
2nd partial for all 88 notes, and proceeded as follows.

Starting at G#3 I set Tunelab to read G#4 (2nd partial of this set in
the file) and tuned G#3 to match. That gives me a 4:2 octave. I tuned
this way down to the last 5 notes and then manualy reset the tuning
partial to the 3rd for the octave above "reference" note, so that I got
6:3 octaves for these last 5 notes. Then rechecked these as 4:2 octaves
and listened a bit and finnally settled on the 6:3's.

Starting at A#4 going up, I set Tunelab to read A#3 (again the 2nd
partial of this as set in the tuning file) and tuned A#4 to match. This
gave a 2:1 octave type all the way up.

This is a really conservative stretch to be sure, but I just wanted to
keep things simple for this little experiment. I was really pleased tho
with the results. I noticed as I moved upwards that I had to keep
re-seting the offset to make the display stop. It needed several times
to be adjusted upwards, as I progressed up the keyboard. Kinda neat to
"see" the natural stretch unfold on its own. In the end it was 14 cents
above the origional offset of 0 for my starting pitch of 441. (this was
for C7).

The tuning had a really nice (for me anyways) speed for 10ths and 17ths
all the way up, and needed only very minor adjusting along the way to
keep the progression smooth. Same thing in the bass. Double octaves
sounded really great in both treble and bass as well.

I kinda liked this way of using the "machine" as I have this built in
prejudice to calculated tuning curves, and this way I am assured of
setting this "curve" exactly the way I wanted it to. The proceedure took
almost no extra time from simply tuning straight from a calculated curve
as the only "intervention" neccessary on my part was to re-set the
offset from time to time to stop the display as I moved further upwards,
and down the bass.

Richard Brekne
I.C.P.T.G.  N.P.T.F.
Bergen, Norway