RCT

[Roger Jolly]

Hi Frank,
               A little light or perhaps, or mud on the subject. Re
inharmonicity, my current passion and night mares.
 Lets assume a reasonable curve has been calculated of equal quality, by
any of the three major ET's.
 Point 2 we are dealing with a well scaled piano but the voicing is a
little uneven.
 For simplicities sake we will look at octave 5 upwards.
 In this register upwards we are tuning to the second partial aurally, as
with the ET.
 If you have a very bright note the 2nd is almost non existent and the
inharmonicity also increases.Aurally your brain reverts to the fundamental.
so in the next octave you compound the error, and so on up the scale. With
your interval checks we back track and fudge the error.
With the ET's and a fixed curve, a badly voiced note will sound wrong, but
the error will be corrected in the next octave.
In KC I demonstrated this effect with Gina in my voicing class. Gina tuned
an octave for zero beat, I detuned the octave by voicing the upper note,
and retuned the octave when voicing the lower note. 
Unless we fully understand what is taking place with inharmonicity, (and I
don't) this will be a never ending debate. I do know that from my work on
the subject, both Dean and Bob are diligently paying attention to the
inharmonicity problems.
As a side note the calculated values for inharmonicity are entirely
different than the real time measurements.
I have conducted a wide variety of test with a good aural tuner vs RCT ,on
PSO's, (scaling, reg, and voicing, loaded with errors). Neither of us would
want to comment as to which is the better tuning.
For concert work, I am happy trusting my RCT and back tracking to fix
voicing anomilies, aurally our brain can quickly compromise, and make
corrections. The ET's are fixed, but in the majority of cases, on good
instruments, it can be used as an invaluable trouble shooting tool, if one
knows how to use it.
No answers I'm afraid, just mud to cloud the waters.
Have a nice day.
Roger


At 09:19 AM 19/09/99 -0400, you wrote:
>I've never used RCT, but my experience with TuneLab is extensive, and before
>TuneLab I did (and still sometimes do) aural tunings.   I do think I can
>clarify some of the points Don made.
>
>Don Wrote:
>
>>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.
>
>TuneLab allows the user to choose many, many options for developing a
>tuning.  Dragging a curve is just the quickest and dirtiest.  Even then the
>curve may be modified to suit specific tastes and choices of the tuner.  If
>I don't like the rough temperament developed by the TuneLab curve, I have
>the choice of making more or fewer inharmonicity measurements and creating a
>curve a note at a time using just about any combination of criteria that can
>be imagined.  If the temperament does not suit the tuner, blame the choices
>the tuner makes, not the software.
>
>
>>- 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.
>
>I can get a suitable tuning for most pianos using TuneLab and measuring
>three notes.  The whole process takes about three minutes and allows me to
>make choices.  I gather that RCT (in this particular mode) makes all the
>choices for the user.
>
>>- 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.
>
>If you don't like the defaults, there are many more choices.  Just change
>the defaults to suit you.
>
>>- 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.
>
>I can't comment of RCT, but the tuning displays on TuneLab are more precise
>than I can attain with the hammer.  The spectrum display is extremely useful
>for tuning the notes above the dampers.  I can get most of them with out
>having to mute, since the display lets me see what each individual string is
>doing.
>
>>- RCT allows easy, graphical comparisons of different tunings, making it
>very easy to compare two tunings in the computer.  I use this a lot!
>
>TuneLab does this, but not easily.  I would like a much more straightforward
>means of displaying comparisons.
>
>>- 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.
>
>TuneLab provides all the information for the tuner to make the decisions.
>The machine makes no decisions except for suggesting a stock curve.  I like
>the control and the ability to make the choices.  Maybe this is the big
>difference between the two systems, and maybe this is the explaination as to
>why some personalities prefer one system to the other.
>
>>- 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.
>
>This sounds like a nice feature.  I can't comment, not having used it.
>>
>
>
>In summary, I would say that the big differences between the two systems are
>$750, and the philosophy of user involvement in decision making.  Both
>systems will give you good results if you know how to use them, but, If
>you're poor and opinionated, try TuneLab first.
>
>I'm waiting for the first system that works on Windows CE.  Whoever gets
>there first will truly have an advantage.
>
>Frank Weston
> 
Roger Jolly
BaldwinYamaha Piano Centre
Saskatoon and Regina
Saskatchewan, Canada.
306-665-0213
Fax 652-0505