[pianotech] Raising rates in recession

[Ron Nossaman]

Don wrote:
> Hi Ron,
> 
> Yes, it is one of the ideas that exist. However the ETD takes time to
> measure and calculate that over pull--so super fast doesn't fall within
> their province. 

Hi Don,
That has been my observation, which is why a lot of the 
"pitch" for ETD use never made much sense to me. For years, I 
heard techs say "I have one, but I can out-tune it". I've seen 
tens of thousands of words go by on the pianotech and caut 
lists about the compensations, workarounds, myriad provisional 
dodges, tweaks, and general coddling necessary to get the most 
out of these machines that everyone claimed to be able to 
out-tune, but used anyway. Eventually, this all somehow 
condensed down to "less stress". Really! It's only very 
recently that I've heard techs say they like their ETD because 
they can do better tuning with it than they can aurally. That, 
at last, makes sense to me. I still hear techs say ETD use 
produces faster tunings, but I've never seen anyone using an 
ETD that moved along any quicker than a decent aural tuner. 
Maybe that's just a "baby pigeon" sort of thing, and I just 
haven't looked in the right place. Repeatability, I think, is 
the truly golden part.


> Accurate usually, but--not always. I just did a 9 foot that was 5 to 21
> cents sharp. When I finished it was 3 cents flat, so I had to tune it a
> second time "on my dime". It had been tuned twice in the previous two weeks
> and has a damppchaser system. Do you suppose the last tuner just didn't
> bother with A440? He uses an ETD, because he must. (translation poor aural
> skills)

How does one not bother with A440 with an ETD? I've seen 
pianos go out like this when the DC was unplugged, or plugged 
in after they were tuned.


> There were several keys where repetition was a problem (jacks) due to some
> one elses idea of regulation. All in all I was "at" the piano for 3.5
> hours--a new record of slowness for me.

Just needs a little touch up, right? How bad can it be, it was 
just tuned...

The horror, the horror.
Ron N