I think most unisons should be pretty clean: No rolling wa-wa-s. Not even a slow one. BUT I certainly observe that many pianos, especially older and lower quality, while you may leave with no identifiable wa-wa-s, not even slow ones, the unisons are not clear, but rather many will be garbled. I tuned three pianos today, a 1960s Kohler & Campbell spinet (yuk!), a 1960s Baldwin spinet (double yuk! - worst one I ever tuned), and a 1914 Lester upright (very well preserved, all original, but unfortunately, still 86 years old). I'm not sure that there was one set of unisons in all three pianos that I would call real nice and clean (like I can get on most all unisons on my 7 year old Boston grand - or any other good piano in good condition). I have made posts in the past about why does it take me two hours to tune a piano. Well, my time is down to about 60 or 75 minutes on most pianos, some longer, some actually shorter. Many pianos I will do two passes on in this time frame. I think the biggest difference is that I don't labor about on pianos that will just not tune cleanly. In fact, I generall tune a good piano more quickly than a poor quality/worn out piano (and I have much higher expectations for the good piano). I think I'm finally getting the feel for when a piano sounds bad - whether the cause is me or the piano. Terry Farrell Piano Tuning & Service Tampa, Florida mfarrel2@tampabay.rr.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Woodrow, John (Parramatta)" <John.Woodrow@pil.com.au> To: "'Pianotech List'" <pianotech@ptg.org> Sent: Monday, December 11, 2000 3:01 AM Subject: Unisons - how clean? > List, > Situation: A home tuning, on an average quality upright, aiming to be > completed in 1 hour. Piano tuned every 12 months. > > We probably mostly agree that the goal should be to tune razor sharp perfect > unisons. I say mostly because I have seen it mentioned here than some > believe that unisons should not be razor sharp but have some 'depth'. > Anyhow, leaving that debate to one side, for the home tuning situation > described, I am interested in what others consider to be a definition of > acceptable unisons. > > Do you consider anything less than perfect unisons unacceptable, or do you > consider that while perfection is the goal, the situation, cost and time > dictates that something less than concert level perfection is acceptable > from a customer perspective. If less than perfect is acceptable, how would > you define that standard? > > This is not a customer problem, just evaluating my own standards. > Appreciate opinions. > > Regards, > John Woodrow ICPTG > >
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