Performed my first road tunings with tunlab 97. Had experimented at home , but have not utilized EDT's on the road these 20 years. Applied on a Steinway D, just tuned aurally Sunday, took tunelab for Mon., Tues. 7am calls. First I analyzed my previous days work. The "average" preprogram, liked my top end, I had stretched the low tenor a little more then it says, and the bass a little more then it says. I did find an "error" in the top octave, sharp c# and g#. Most of the top end made the indicator sit with very little drift, very please to see. Secondly I applied the "average" tuning. Debated the machine for while and abandoned it. Did low tenor and bass aurally, then analyze what I was doing with ETD. I given a little more then 4:2 programmed for the middle stretching downwards towards the bass for nicer fifths. Thirds become less dissonant down here anyway, and can bear the extra little bit favoring fifths. In the bass I gave a bit more then the 6:3 it requested. It claimed The last 3 bass notes were quite flat, but if I ask it to listen to higher partials the indicator slows down and stays still when it reaches 12th. The second day I put it on automatic note switching I tuned aurally and largely ignored it except for looking up periodicly, curious what it thinks of what I'm doing. This tuning "monitor" did help avoid a couple errors, producing a smoother tuning. Question: The preprogrammed "Steinway D sample" tuning has less bass stretch then the "average" preprogram. This surprised me. Why would that be? I found the "sample D" to slow the thirds way down, but leave fifths noisier then I prefer. The "average" was to my habits, but I give a little more , increasingly so towards the bottom. Conclusion: This is forcing analysis what I do in a new way. I have gone through stages; becoming a zelot about every crazy test to my own detriment, then simplying back to 4ths and 5ths, everything else for refining checks only. I will tune by ear and refer to it as a monitor. I will still do most home tuning aurally only. I see it as a tool to be used on my best pianos to analyze, think, thus hopefully refine my skills. The used laptop was $100US on e-bay, 75mhz pentium, built in mic and speaker,loaded with windows 95. The registration for this version of the program will be less then $40, I'm using the free download version for trial, sure a good deal. Now a part of my kit. Cheers Dave Renaud RPT Canada ______________________________________________________________________ File your taxes online! http://taxes.yahoo.ca
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