[pianotech] Tunic software

[Phil Bondi]

Hi all.

I know I'm a few days late on this discussion, but after 
reading some comments here, I feel compelled to add my 2 
cents. I also want you to know that my experience with ETDs 
is limited to just one, and I do not have an understanding 
of how the others work.

A few years ago, after talking to Dave Andersen and Tom 
Servinsky, I started on my quest to 'tune like Virgil'. I 
find Virgil a fascinating study in accuracy, spot-on 
unisons, and the ability to do all that while teaching a 
class is just phenomenal. I always felt my best aural 
tunings were as good or better than the tunings I was 
getting from my ETD. Cocky? no. Confident. I learned how to 
tune aurally from using my ETD as my guide, but after 
watching Virgil, hearing what he was producing, and talking 
to those techs, I realized I was woefully behind those techs 
in my personal quest to bring each piano I service to its 
pinnacle. I better mention that Larry Crabb might be a tad 
upset with me if I didn't mention his influence and his 
involvement in my development of aural tuning. He taught me 
what to listen for, and how to test.

A few years pass while I'm on my quest to sound like Virgil, 
Dave, and others that I felt were steps ahead of me 
aurally..always asking questions, and trying to listen and 
hear what I was missing in my tunings..

..then I heard Tunic.

I remember hearing Bernhard's example that he shared on 
pianotech..a piece in Bmin. - and I remember thinking..oh 
my..that's it. There were some comments that his sample was 
a nicely tuned piano with a good voice attached to it. I 
could not have disagreed more. What I heard was a tuning 
that transcended anything I had heard before from a ETD, or 
was able to produce consistently aurally.

Last year in Anaheim, Dave Andersen was there with a 
piano..so was the Ranvenscroft. Both of these instruments 
impressed me with their clarity and translucent voice. I 
forget which one, but I believe one of those pianos was 
tuned using Tunic. As a new RVP, the majority of my time was 
tied up, literally!, in meetings, so I was not able to take 
in all that Anaheim had to offer. I met up with Bernhard in 
the lobby..on Sunday..as people are leaving from their 
Convention experience, I'm finally getting to mine, and it's 
with a developer that shared with me 'the sound' I was 
after. After talking with Bernhard for 1.5 hrs., I agreed to 
purchase his software as soon as I was able. It took me 2 
months to save up the money, and it has been a fabulous 
journey since then. My older ETD, while a trustworthy 
instrument and faithful tool, has been relegated to strictly 
pitch raises and poorly-scaled pianos. It has been replaced 
with Bernhards OnlyPure software, because the results that 
are produced with this software turns heads.

I still tune aurally once in awhile, but Bernhard Stopper 
has developed the software that Virgil Smith has been 
hearing all his life. I would have never guessed that a 
piece of piano tuning software would ever be able to produce 
Virgil Smith-type tunings without alot of tweaking and 
gnashing of teeth with the software. With Tunic, you turn it 
on, and go. I does not get any simpler than that. The 
results turns heads.

-Phil Bondi(Fl)