"Self tuning piano" questions

Robert Scott robert.scott@tunelab-world.com
Wed, 24 Dec 2003 21:03:29 -0500


Don,

When you say "The method I use for pitch measurement is accurate to about 
1/6000th of a cent at the low end of the piano", was that a misprint?  
That is equal to about one part in 10 million.  Even at A-440, that means 
a difference of one beat in 6.3 hours!  If you can read such a difference 
in under 10 minutes, then you must be able to detect a phase difference at 
A-440 of 9.5 degrees.  But the note won't sound for that long without 
active stimulation.  I have done active probing for resonsances similar to 
what you did for an article in the Journal, "Measuring Inharmonicity Using 
Continuous Excitation", June 1993.  I found that the resonsant peaks, even 
when measured in this manner, are still too broad to define a resonant 
frequency to any better than about .02 cents.  So 1/6000th of a cent is a 
bit beyond belief.

Robert Scott
Real-Time Specialties
  

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