RCT

[Leslie W Bartlett]

I'm absolutely new to electronic tuning-  have tuned ONE piano with a SAT
III, and hated it!  Of course, I hated tuning by ear for the first
thousand hours of practice or so..........     It occurs to me that
carrying around a laptop, with all its electronic sophistication, plus
its tendency to be fragile would be considerably more of a hassle than
the very portable SAT.  I haven't seen many comment about this, and,
since I am being swayed by electronics, having been shown how little I
know about tuning by those nasty little lights, would appreciate thoughts
in this regard.

Thanks
les bartlett
houston

On Fri, 17 Sep 1999 22:39:38 -0700 "Don Mannino"
<donmannino@mediaone.net> writes:
>Greg,
>
>Since preferences in things are mostly based on opinions and personal 
>taste, you should not try to pin this down to some demonstrable 
>absolute "this is better because."  Most of us agree that a Mercedes 
>is better than a Hyundai, but hey - tell me one thing that the 
>Mercedes does better!  They both will get you where you need to go at 
>the maximum speed limit, they both can be ordered with lots of 
>options, but few would argue about which is better, at least after 
>trying them both for a little while. Many, many people are very happy 
>with the Hyundai, but I think most would argue with the Hyundai owner 
>who scoffs at the Mercedes as no better!
>
>A few of the points which, to me, make RCT worth the cost:
>- The sound of the tunings is very different between RCT and TuneLab.  
>I have not been able to get TuneLab to generate a decent (to me) 
>temperament, for instance.  Even RCT has trouble doing this on some 
>pianos, but it is much better than TuneLab.  Dragging a generic curve 
>to match inharmonicity measurements does not give the same affect.
>- With RCT, you sample 5 or 6 notes, you select the tuning style, and 
>it calculates an excellent tuning. There is no messing around with 
>dragging the chart around and doing a visual estimation of an aural 
>tuning. It is easy and accurate.
>- If you don't care for the default octave styles, you can 
>individually tweak them to taste, and this is repeatable from one 
>piano to the next.  No need to guess.  Again, I find this much easier 
>in actual use than dragging that generic curve around.
>- The tuning display is more precise to use.  I have used both 
>extensively, and have concluded that RCT's is much better.  Others who 
>have used both may want to chime in - I think they will agree.
>- RCT allows easy, graphical comparisons of different tunings, making 
>it very easy to compare two tunings in the computer.  I use this a 
>lot!
>- All piano tuning involves compromises, and (no offense to Bob) Dean 
>understands aural tuning extremely well, so was / is able to design 
>the software with the right compromises built in.
>- The harmonic analyzer is a very useful tool, which I use on most 
>tunings to help choose which partial to tune to.  This cannot be 
>discounted as a minor difference - it is extremely useful.
>
>Since TuneLab does a good job for you, then enjoy it! Obviously it 
>suits your needs - but this is not really sufficient qualification to 
>be called as good as RCT.
>
>Don Mannino
>(Beta tester for RCT and formerly TuneLab, but with no financial stake 
>in either one)
>

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