Once again, here we are... I have an experiment for the aural techs out there. (ETD users too, if you want) Ever notice how some tuners seem to achieve the "wow factor" tuning, time after time?Yet other techs with similar training don't quite "get there"? I've wonderedabout this many years, in fact, it has driven my ETD experiments. If the auralpath doesn't lead to the "wow factor" with so many technicians, how can the ETD be used to achieve that result? (especially on "lesser" instruments?) I've come to the conclusion that the "wow factor" has a lot to do with the manipulationof the stretch of the piano. (and unisons, of course!) I know I've written about this before - my hybrid tuning technique, but here's the experiment: For simplicity, I want you to tune only 5 single strings. A2, A3, A4, A5, and A6. Do this after you are done tuning the piano.(you'll need some mutes...) A4 is the only note etched in stone, Tune those 5 notes as if they are the onlynotes on the piano - no fair using any other notes to aid your placement.(no fair leaving the notes in place! Move them to give your ear a chance to hear...) Tune them as you would a unison - you should find that there is a tiny bit of wiggle room where the octave feels "mostly pure". The goal is to use this wiggleroom to maximize the purity of all of the combinations possible between those 5 A's. (Single octaves, doubles, triples, etc..) Once you are satisfied that you've found the "idealized" stretch for those notes, goahead and pull out the mutes and check the unisons. How far is your normal tuningfrom this idealized stretch? Better question? Why isn't your normal tuning achievingthis idealized stretch? Can you find a way to alter your tuning recipe to better fit the piano? ETD people,is your machine flexible enough to let you manipulate the calculation to match those5 notes? For a full match, you'd want to extend this down to A0 (gets a little tougher down there)and up to A7... Ron Kovalchicagoland
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