Overpulls was Re: Best Tuning Strategy using SAT III

[David Ilvedson]

----- Original message ----------------------------------------
From: A440A@aol.com
To: pianotech@ptg.org
Received: 9/12/2005 5:42:34 AM
Subject: Re: Overpulls was Re: Best Tuning Strategy using SAT III


>Alan writes: 
><< When I use the ETD, my pukingly persistent predeliction for perfectionism 
>takes over and I just have to stop the lights. So for the example given, where 
>accuracy isn't the issue, but speed is, I can go faster just setting a rough 
>temperament, then octaves up and down using only fifths as checks (double 
>octaves or arpeggiated chords in the upper treble).  >>

>Greetings, 

>       I too suffered from this when I began using the SAT, however, I found 
>the way to finer tunings was to let  the machine to do all the "tractor" work 
>in a first pass, and then just be a guide on your final tuning.  
>     Stopping the lights on a pitch raise is like using a micrometer to hang 
>picture frames.  I find no need to be that accurate at that stage.  AND,  if 
>you will just "get near" from A0-88, resetting the pitch raise function each 
>octave,  you will have a well balanced, albeit out of tune, piano, ready to be 
>fine tuned with little fear of octaves drifting behind you make the tuning pass 
>with most of your attention on unisons.  I often do a 15 minute, 20 cent 
>pitch raise, and tunings will usually exhibit surprising stability.  

I'm not clear on this technique below?   I also bump the pitch down to loosen any rust etc. but what is watching the lights while dropping the pitch mean?   If your SAT is set for that note you are tuning won't the lights continue to rotate as you go down?   Maybe it's Monday...I don't know...

David I.

>     I found the key to getting my speed up was to allow myself one downward 
>tuning movement per pin on a pitch raise.  After bumping the rust loose and 
>pulling the string sharp, I watch the lights while dropping the pitch.  When the 
>lights stop, I stop. They will sometimes then move back sharp, so on the next 
>pin, I go a little flatter. It is easy, over the course of 5 or 10 pins, to 
>have left an average that is extremely close to what you would have had if 
>every light had been stopped.  This is the place for looseness and speed.  
>    With only one movement per pin my brained learned the pattern, and how 
>much "windage" was required to leave that note almost still.  I had to 
>continually remind myself, at first,  to just make the move and go on to the next, but 
>usually one piano is enough.  If I forget and begin to go back and forth, I am 
>just trying to tune fast and the whole purpose of a fast, 15 minute fix for 
>flatness is wasted. 
>      Once mastered, I found it a speedy tool when flat pianos are 
>encountered.  It lets me put a very close tuning on anything if I have 80 minutes or so. 
> Another plus for this method is that it allows all the pins to be "set", as 
>you go, so if on the final pass, the string is right, you can wiggle the pin, 
>test-note it, and go on.   
>       I also use the pitch raise calculator when I am doing a one pass 
>tuning and the pitch is off by more than one cent.  Hey, I don't know if anybody 
>could really discern the few tenths of a cent that might alter an uncorrected 
>tuning, but I paid for them features and I am too much of a tightwad to let them 
>go to waste.  
>Regards 
> 
>Ed Foote RPT 
>http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html
>www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/well_tempered_piano.html
> 
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