The Verituner, an opinion from a user in Holland

[antares]

Thanks for your response Paul Larudee,

my last e-mail was not meant personally for you but more in general
and of course I understand the reasoning behind your complaints.
I personally have no complaints at all, but maybe this has to do with the
fact that I almost never do double tunings anymore.
The other day I did a double tuning on a Bösendorfer concert grand. It was
about 3 Hz too low and it took me exactly 1 hour and 45 minutes to complete
the task of bringing it up to the desired pitch.
The concert was in the evening and I checked the tuning again and amazed to
find a very stable tuning exactly at 444.

For the double tuning I charged 2 tunings, which is fair, attending the
concert is another matter.

So my question is : do you think 1 hour and 45 minutes is slow for a double
Verituner concert tuning?
(I am not opposed to your opinion, I am merely curious)


friendly greetings
from

Antares,

Amsterdam, Holland

"where music is, no harm can be"

visit my website at :  http://www.concertpianoservice.nl/


> From: larudee@pacbell.net
> Reply-To: pianotech@ptg.org
> Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 19:38:19 -0800
> To: pianotech@ptg.org
> Subject: Re: The Verituner, an opinion from a user in Holland
> 
> Antares,
> 
> As you may have gathered from my posts, I agree completely with you in terms
> of
> the final result.  Verituner is unsurpassed in this regard.  My problem is
> with
> the amount of time it takes to achieve that result.  I find myself having to
> do
> a second pass much more often with VT than with RCT.  With RCT I do a second
> pass only when the piano needs a pitch adjustment of nearly 10 cents or more,
> and I charge extra.  I don't feel justified in charging extra for pitch
> adjustments smaller that that, when they wouldn't require a second pass with
> RCT.  I think I would lose a lot of customers if too many of my routine
> tunings
> included a pitch raise charge.
> 
> The other criticism I have is that even the first pass takes somewhat longer
> than necessary, in my opinion, because of the rather primitive display.  With
> RCT you have only to keep your eye on the spinner the whole time.  It moves
> right, left, clockwise, counterclockwise, and blushes, but it's always that
> spinner.  With VT you have an inner spinner and an outer spinner and you have
> to
> switch focus, and the inner spinner sometimes disappears and becomes a sharp
> symbol or a flat symbol.  Then in coarse mode you have yet another type of
> display (even more primitive).  I think its a bit confusing, on a reactive
> level, and results in somewhat slower eye-hand coordination.
> 
> Of course it's more satisfying to get the VT final result, but not if it's
> going
> to slow me down.  These are problems that can be solved, and when they are,
> I'll
> be in the market again.
> 
> Paul Larudee
> 
> antares wrote:
> 
>> Dear colleagues,
>> 
>> I have not been a subscriber to Pianotech for some time now (I have been
>> extremely busy in the last year) and somebody told me about the recent
>> Verituner posts on this list.
>> I am a Verituner user myself and curious by nature, so I surfed to the
>> archive to read the last mails about this subject and, subscribed again.
>> 
>> Maybe it would be correct to tell you that I have used the Verituner for
>> almost a year now and that, to this day, I am extremely happy with it.
>>> From day one I noticed that un-tunable instruments suddenly began to sound
>> like real pianos and that beautiful pianos sounded so incredibly even and
>> harmonious that it soon became more than clear to me that only the very best
>> aural tuners would be able to get the same result (and certainly not within
>> the 45 minutes I need).
>> I tell you this because I can simply not understand how anybody with real
>> knowledge about this miracle machine, can have anything against it.
>> Sure, I read  the complaints about the way it looks, about the weight and
>> about the over-pull capacities, but how about the - unsurpassed - final
>> result?
>> 
>> I live in Amsterdam, in Holland, and Holland happens to be a country where
>> the Verituner has become rather popular in a very short time.
>> Some new users, indeed, have made a few remarks (on the Dutch piano forum)
>> about their Verituner, and they were basically the same as the ones I read
>> in the archives : a little bulky and the way it looks.
>> But they all are very happy and very enthusiastic VT-tuners because they are
>> aware that this machine is a true revolution in tuning machine-land.
>> 
>> I myself have, for a fairly long time, used a Yamaha PT-100, so I have
>> become used to that kind of weight and volume in my tool back.
>> The size of the verituner therefor is no real obstacle to me. The way it
>> looks? sure.. it definitely could be more sleek and cool looking.
>> But we must not forget that the verituner, with its wonderful possibilities,
>> is at the same time reasonably new on the market and in its early stages of
>> development.
>> I am certain that the makers (technicians themselves) are aware of what
>> piano tuners/techs want (and they are, because there is a Verituner forum
>> where new ideas are being posted continually by VT-users) and, because of
>> the highly inspirational atmosphere there, I am sure that we can expect more
>> exciting developments in the near future.
>> 
>> At the same time, I am more than content with my fantastic tuning aid and I
>> am also aware from experience that most industrial products change and
>> develop very fast (depending on the market).
>> It is the same with my car ; I could wait till doomsday for the very last
>> new development but at the same time I need one right now, so I choose a
>> model and (luckily enough) I am happy with it, knowing that the next model
>> is always 'more and better'.
>> 
>> Let me just make clear to you that I don't earn one Euro, nor a penny, with
>> this e-mail and that I am certainly not against any other really nice tuning
>> machine (and there are those, and tastes always vary from person to person).
>> 
>> What is most important to me is the final the result : a perfect electronic
>> ear.
>> That - is truly remarkable and that earns some respect.
>> 
>> friendly greetings
>> from
>> 
>> Antares,
>> 
>> Amsterdam, Holland
>> 
>> "where music is, no harm can be"
>> 
>> visit my website at :  http://www.concertpianoservice.nl/
> 
>