[pianotech] understand the relationship of the heavenly bodies

Thomas Cole tcole at cruzio.com
Sun Feb 6 13:43:00 MST 2011


Barrie,

I tuned aurally for 25 years in private, university and recording studio 
settings and for the last 14 years have tuned with RCT. Tuning in noisy 
environments, such as intermission touchups and noisy households, along 
with the developments of more sophisticated ETDs were primarily 
responsible for the change.

Your post does not tell me anything about what sort of tuners you are 
referring to or what machines they are using, but you do say that your 
exposure to ETD users is limited. The picture you paint of ETD tuners 
"pressing the wrong buttons" gives the impression of someone who just 
bought a machine and started tuning without any instruction about how 
best to use the machine, aural checks, tuning hammer manipulation, etc. 
- hardly a fair assessment. One could point out experienced aural tuners 
doing equally bogus work. Not everyone is bent on being the best and 
some are satisfied with just being in the game.

 >The tuners swing the note a long way out to put it back in, then seem 
to knock hell out of the note. is this the norm for an ETD user.

This is a description of a novice tuner, or possibly someone who never 
progressed beyond such a formative stage, and has nothing to do with the 
tuning device. If you have been reading all the posts in these recent 
threads, you must know that ETD users can score very high on the PTG 
tuning test.

I'm confused by your last question so I won't comment.

I hope that we can some day move toward a consensus where the ETD is an 
important tool in our tool box: it has its strengths and its weaknesses 
and it's important to know when to use the ear or the box. It was Dr. Al 
Sanderson who said that the best tuning is accomplished with both the 
ear and the ETD. It has been my quest to find out what he meant by that.

Tom Cole
Santa Cruz, CA

On 2/6/11 11:46 AM, Barrie Heaton wrote:
> In message <8CD931C79F855F8-1AF8-5211 at webmail-d083.sysops.aol.com>, 
> tnrwim at aol.com writes
>> Thank you for you very eloquently stated remarks. The ETD does 
>> indeed create, in most pianos, a temperament that not all aural tuner 
>> will be able to match. If all you do is tune the piano with the 
>> machine, and leave the instrument alone, then the tuning the ETD 
>> created will most likely be very pleasing to the ear.
>
> Hmm the pianos I have seen tuned by them in the UK are not " very 
> pleasing to the ear" they are OK it must be the user, they must be 
> pressing the wrong buttons or something. The other thing I have 
> noticed with my limited exposure to ETD here in the UK. The tuners 
> swing the note a long way out to put it back in, then seem to knock 
> hell out of the note. is this the norm for an ETD user.
>
>
> This argument about ETD is like the real piano V the digital one. 
> There are those who love them and those who hate them. Do the folk who 
> use ETD promote the wonders of the Digital piano as strongly as they 
> seem to say that  ETD tuning is better than the real thing, or do they 
> believe the real thing can't be reproduced digitally as it always 
> sounds like a recording, good one,  but not like being there.
>
>
> Kind regards
>
>
> Barrie
>
>
>
>
>
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