[CAUT] String Coupling / SB and Bridge stiffness...and maybe Pure Sound

[Richard Brekne]

Ed

I dont see how string coupling gets into how Tunic works.  Nor would I 
accept the idea that the <<unusually clear sound>> you mention below is 
not something that aural tuners are capable of producing. Personally, I 
reject utterly the suggestion that any machine can out perform the well 
trained and very experience aural tuner aside from being able to more 
precisely identify whether a given string is vibrating at a given 
frequency... and even there there is very good grounds for questioning.

Tunic works because of the algorithm behind it, which is in most 
simplistic sense a perfect 12ths priority tunings based on math that 
utilizes 3:1 partial matching. This is then imposed onto a pianos 
inharmonicity and is doable aurally just like any other stretch is given 
the appropriate aural tests. In essence it is the stretch itself that 
works.  Even so... this can be tweaked aurally to enhance the end 
result, as any ETD generated tuning can be. There is to much para 
inharmonicity for things to be otherwise, even in the higher regions of 
the piano, and no ETD per date has either the hardware processing 
capability to take this into consideration or an algorithm for dealing 
with it.

I've heard plenty of discriptions of Virgils tunings, and some of his 
more experienced followers that fit this <<unusually clear sound>>. IMV 
this has nothing to do with approaching anything like a "mathematically 
perfect unison".  It has to do with getting closer to an aurally clear 
unison within a greater perspective of that unisons realtionships with 
all other unisons in a piano.

Cheers
RicB


    Kent Swafford, are you there?

    Consider this line of thought:

    Assuming that all unisons involve some degree of coupling, then it
    is not possible to tune a "mathematically perfect" unison by usual
    aural methods because, as the tuned note approaches unison, when it
    passes the "coupling threshold" it will couple with the other
    string(s) without having to be the exact matching frequency.
    (Listening high up the partials would help.)

    Since, with Tunic Pure Sound, you are tuning each string of the
    unison "solitary," to match the ETD display, is it possible that the
    three strings, when tuned this way, are closer to a "mathematically
    perfect" unison that an aurally tuned unison can be?

    Can this account for the unusually clear sound of certain very
    widely spaced chords on the Hailun piano you tuned with Tunic?

    Ed Sutton