Hi again Bernard I have to agree about your comments relative to the transient phase of sound. Any tunelab probably has noticed more then once the ofte times variant course of pitch development in individual unison strings. This is one of my other beefs with the earblind use of ETD's. You can actually see exactly what Bernhard is refering to very easily on the Tunelab display. It underlines the need to keep your ears open and ready to decide. That said... judicial use of an ETD as an aid in getting your ears satisfied is a great asset to any tuners skills. That Steinways official policy is no ETD is another matter entirely. And even they are getting ready to back off on the ETD question. Cheers RicB ------------------------------ Bernard Stopper writes: No they dont and there are good physical reasons why they dont. (You will find not one tuner at Steinway (at least in Hamburg) who is allowed to service concerts with an ETD for example). This has nothing to do with traditionalism or ignorance to modern technology. Most modern ETDs are doing fast fourier transformation (FFT) for pitch calculation. Be sure, the he ear has no FFT transformator... There is a big difference in what you get measured and what you hear. In some ETD manuals you find sometimes statements of "0.1 Hz accuracy" This is true for a signal that would not float in pitch over more than 2 or 3 seconds to catch enough samples at the current possible samplerates. Piano sounds are a really nonlinear matter that can float in pitch up to some Hz over a second, when strucked firm. By transforming a signal from the time domain into the frequency domain with the desired accuracy (what most ETDs do), you loose the information when a singal passes exactly what frequency at what time. Tuning with an ETD makes it necessary to tune at low volume levels (Pitch float is less at low volume levels). A good aural tuner tune with a firm struck, to catch also the transient phase of the sound at higher volumes. Low volume tuning is like not voicing the left pedal, it leaves the transient phase untuned. But sometimes it may happen, that the pianist also use volumes above mp... Bernhard Stopper Qui habet aures audiendi audiat
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