SAT II pitch raises

[pianolover 88]

I do many P.raises each week as a floor tuner, tuning mosly newer and some 
older pianos. I ALWAYS enter the overpull % manually, and also re-enter, or 
at least check to see if more is needed as i progress upward into the 
treble, where it is almost always flatter. For instance, if f5 is 30 C flat, 
then I add a +10 C overpull. I NEVER let the SAT dictate the % of overpull 
as it is rarely enough, just as the stretch in the treble (as input from the 
FAC mode) is usually not enough, and I end up adding more stretch manually.

Terry Peterson
Associate Member PTG
Los Angeles, CA


>From: "Jim Coleman, Sr." <pianotoo@imap2.asu.edu>
>Reply-To: pianotech@ptg.org
>To: pianotech@ptg.org
>Subject: SAT II pitch raises
>Date: Sun, 03 Dec 2000 16:48:07 -0700 (MST)
>
>Dave and Terry gave good basic answers about SAT pitch Raises. I will
>add my 2 cents worth here:
>
>It is not necessary to measure each note during pitch raise, this takes
>extra time. With the SAT, one can do the PR in 10 to 15 minutes and have
>the results close enough for a good fine tuning to follow. If the piano
>is more than 50 cents flat and string breakage is a possibility, I use 2
>PRs, the first time, just to A440, the second time I measure the pitch
>of three A's, taking the rough average of them as the one upon which to
>compute the PR for A3. I use a temperament strip throughout the piano
>and tune only the middle strings, finishing up with clearing the unisons
>roughly for the plain wire notes. If one string is left slightly high, I
>will deliberately leave the next one deliberately low. I only desire to
>balance the tension during a pitch raise. When I use this "quick and
>dirty" method, the entire tuning including the pitch raises takes no
>more time than an ordinary fine tuning.
>
>During the PR's the hand learns the tuning pin torque fairly well and
>is able then to do a better tuning on the final pass.
>
>Just a note of caution when doing the rollover technique from MSR to SHIFT;
>If you hold down the MSR button too long, it will not know that you
>intend to do a pitchraise calculation and may measure some extraneous
>sound in the room and give you weird results. So, once you have measured
>the pitch drop, press the MSR button and quickly press the SHIFT or Green
>SHIFT button quickly, release the MSR button, then release the SHIFT 
>button.
>Just before you release the SHIFT button, you will notice the offset
>amount in the right window. If you used the 25% overpull (MSR-BlueSHIFT)
>the amount in the window should be approx 25% of the amount of flatness
>which you had measured on the chosen sample note. Of course, one COULD
>measure each note as some others prefer, but the results versus time are
>not worth it in my opinion.
>
>My personal preference is to sample the treble only once or twice and
>then after tuning the unisons, the Bass is tuned by ear to match
>wherever the Tenor section fell. I can tune the Bass faster by ear than
>with the machine. Whatever small variations you may find after the PR
>are easily and stably corrected during the fine tuning.
>
>The SAT III processor runs at twice the speed of the previous models, so
>it is important to do the rollover technique quicker to avoid picking up
>odd sounds which could skew the results.
>
>Doing fast pitch raises helps develop hammer technique in both speed and
>accuracy in the long run.
>
>Jim Coleman, Sr.

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