David Even when you do a non-offest tuning, after you?do the FAC, if you go to A4 and play it, you'll notice that the lights don't stand still. There is probably a very good explanation for this, but take it for what it's worth, and just tune the piano. It will come out OK.? But I've got a bone to pick with you for?tuning it "where it's at". In my opinion, unless the customer specifically asks to have the piano tuned to some other pitch,?we're?being paid to tune the piano to A440.?If, by November, or some other month, it needs to be done again, well,....?? that's what we're in business for.? The only time I will tune a piano lower than A440 is when it's a very old upright or grand with rusty strings, and tuning it up to pitch will create more problems than the customer is willing to pay for.?? Wim -----Original Message----- From: David Nereson <da88ve at gmail.com> To: pianotech at ptg.org Sent: Mon, Aug 3, 2009 10:41 am Subject: [pianotech] offset of SAT to non-440 First of all, I did call Inventronics about this first, but just couldn't seem to get "on the same page."? ? This time of year, most pianos are sharp from summer humidity. Rather than lower them all down to A440, knowing they'll need a pitch raise in November if I do, I just tune them sharp. This requires offsetting the SAT to a sharper pitch.? ? Following the outlined procedure in the instruction manual, I turn the unit on, press Tune, then play A4 on the piano, then press the Cents Up button on the SAT (III) until the lights stop, then press Shift, Reset. The unit should now be offset to the higher pitch. Then I go ahead and measure the SAT numbers and store them to a page in memory. Before starting in to tune, I go to A4 on the SAT and play A4 on the piano to make sure the lights are still stopped, i.e., that the unit is offset to the pitch of A4.? ? Here's the problem: the lights are never stopped at A4 after performing the offset. They're always rotating counterclockwise, indicating that A4 is flat! Well, I don't want to raise the piano any sharper! Why, after having supposedly offset the unit's reference point, does it still show A4 as flat? Should I have A5 or A6 in the window when I offset? (I've tried both, and it doesn't seem to make any difference.) The guy at Inventronics said to "drop down a couple cents," or to "leave off a couple cents" or something like that, but I'm not sure what he meant.? ? In reality, I don't raise the whole piano to the sharpness of the low tenor, which is usually the sharpest area of the piano. I'll lower the low tenor some, leave the treble where it is, and maybe pull the bass up a tad. On older pianos, I don't like to have to pull the bass up ANY, because of possible string breakage, but if I don't then I have to lower all of the tenor and treble, and do a pitch raise when November comes along. And these school systems don't want to tune more than once a year if they can get away with it.? ? But I digressed. Why don't the lights stand still after having supposedly offset the pitch?? ? --David Nereson, RPT? ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20090803/31882102/attachment.htm>
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