Cracking the unisons

[b98tu@t-online.de]

Hi Ric,

yes, there was a contest at the BDK convention between aural tunnig (done by 
me) and a Tunelab tuning done by Wolfgang Wiese
(european Tunelab distributor).

Shortly said, the Tunelab tunig won the race with the votes for the aural 
tuning.

The explanation:

The left piano was named "Piano B" and was tuned with the help of Tunelab.
The right piano was named "Piano A" and was tuned by me aurally (Onlypure 
method, Pure 12th tempereament)

30 votes were given by piano tuners, who did not know what piano was tuned 
in what manner.
Unfortunately they get a paper with two columns, with the left column named 
"Piano A" and the right column "Piano B"
There were 5 criteria:
Unisons, temperament, bass stretch, treble stretch, and overall impression, 
for every criterium on could to vote for one or the other instrument.

Paul Stöckle, long years chief of of the european Fazioli distributor Piano 
Fischer in Stuttgart, referated immediately after the contest, and without 
knowing who tuned what piano, he immediately stated that he immediately had 
recognized the aural tuning as the piano on the right side, and that it 
sounds far better than the other one.

After counting the votes, The ETD had won with about 60 % to 40 % . This 
result was publisehd immediately after the voting and shocking also for 
Stöckle.

So far so bad.

Having analyzed the votes later showed, that 1/3 of the votes have seen that 
they have voted for the wrong instrument, and remarked the columns. From 
this votes (who have seen that the columns of the vote paper is is different 
from the piano standing), the aural tuning get about 80%  for overall 
impression, unisons, bass stretch and treble stretch. The temperament was 
voted about 60 / 40 for the ETD. (The temperament was really difficult to 
stabilize in my arual tuning, but later i was told that the piano i had to 
tune, was used before for a seminar with Reyburn´s Impact lever seminar, 
where the newbies turned the tuning pin up around a half tone.)

The other 2/3 of the votes have not remarked, that the piano standing was 
different to the voting paper columns and had a result in the complete other 
tendency that means the same tendency of 80/ 20 for treble stretch, bass 
stretch, overall impression and unsisons for the other piano, and 60 / 40 
for the temperament but for the ETD, i.e the ETD tuning probably profited 
from the aural votes in that case.

Finally said, a 80/20 result for the aural tuning was turned into 60 / 40 
for the ETD due to this mistake.

In later discussions, all professionals stated, that the aural tuning on the 
right sided Piano A was far better than the ETD tuning. (Also the pianist 
Ragna Schirmer preferred the aural tuned piano at the concert she gave the 
evening)

So a revanche is neeeded with avoiding such mistakes. Would be interesting 
to make a contest with the Verituner.

regards,

Bernhard


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ric Brekne" <ricbrek@broadpark.no>
To: "pianotech" <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 07, 2006 12:35 AM
Subject: Cracking the unisons


> Hey Bernard !
>
> Whats this I hear about a tune-off between you and the Tunelab guy down on 
> the continent ? The word I got was that a group of tuners judged between 
> the two and Tunelab won hands down no bones about it ?  Being skeptical of 
> such arrangements from the get go I asked about what tuning you used... 
> judging criteria.. ect ect.. but I havent really heard back from the 
> fellow.  Would you care to tell us the real story ?
>
> 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 ETDB4s 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 ETDB4s 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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