While the ETDs do each have their own way of dealing with the breaks the
problem is that the position of the inharmonicity breaks and level of
deviations vary and the machines settings don't unless you change them. I
say this being an ETD user (I don't leave home without it) but I also
recognize their limitations. I've used the Verituner as well. It's a
terrific machine with lots of options for custom settings as you've outlined
below with Ron K's settings and for those who like the style it offers I
wouldn't hesitate to recommend it. I too experimented with various custom
settings on the Verituner but it comes down to this. There really isn't one
stretch setting that works for everything so you have to decide which of the
many that are available you will use. But the decision is somewhat
arbitrary until you tune the piano and find either that it works or that it
doesn't. While some pianos are much more forgiving for "universal" settings
most that we encounter on a day to day basis are not. At least not if we
are seeking the highest level of tuning accuracy. By that I mean what we
would do based on what our ears tell us if we were really listening
carefully. Clearly with many machines you can get a very passable tuning
with a calculated curve. But not always, and not predictably. Ultimately
that's why I gave up the VT and went back to the SATIII. Not because the VT
wasn't a great machine delivering on a lot of promises or because the SATIII
is a better machine, but because I found that no matter what I used I needed
to keep a careful ear to what was going on in order to make those
corrections that invariably are picked out by the customer when you least
expect it. For me, the SATIII was just simpler to work with for that
particular style. YMMV.
Though unscientific, I find it interesting to note that the only complaints
I've ever gotten about tunings (at least that I heard about) came when I
tuned a strictly machine tuning and did not pay attention or do my due
diligence with aural checks. The machines definitely have their benefits
and strengths as have been cited and, as I mentioned, I use them on every
tuning. But without consistent aural checks and the inevitable corrections
that must be made to the calculated curve, they can disappoint.
David Love
www.davidlovepianos.com
From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Fred
Sturm
Sent: Friday, April 16, 2010 3:00 PM
To: caut at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [CAUT] using as ETD
On Apr 13, 2010, at 3:01 PM, Ron Overs wrote:
The ETD's stretch calculation is based on the inharmonicity following a
geometric curve,
Actually, this is a misconception, which may be somewhat more
true of some ETDs than others, but fails to understand the "magic" of a
smooth geometric curve _at a particular partial level_. It is the fact that
the 6th partial is being tuned (as one of the options) that smoothes out the
break as a starting point. The fundamentals jump around a bit across the
break, while the partials in their smooth progress make the intervals "work
out" pretty darned well. This is what the SAT does on its own without any
fudging (and there are methods to fudge to make the thirds progress better
if that is desired). Other ETDs have various other methods of dealing with
breaks, some of which are pretty sophisticated and emulate what an aural
tuner would be trying to do. I'll quote here from Ron Koval's recent post on
the Verituner and the "Schubert tuning":
A0 12:6 75% / 6:3 25%
G#1 8:1 100%
A1 4:1 80% / 6:3 20%
These are user presets that ask the machine to compromise
between a couple possible ways of tuning an individual note, giving
precedence at some ratio, much like we might favor a 12th over a double
octave, but not want to go so far as to make the 2:1 octave too wide (or
something along those lines, the point not being the intervals I chose as
examples, but the process of compromise).
In any case, at this point one simply can't make broad
generalizations about "ETD tunings" any more than about "Aural tunings."
ETDs can be used in so many ways, and they have so many sophisticated
options built in, that someone who understands them can do anything using
the ETD that an aural tuner can do. In fact, that was true to a lesser
extent going way back to the Sight-O-Tuner, except that there wasn't the
calculating ability built in that makes it all so much faster today.
Bottom line, it depends on the operator, whether using ears or
using ETDs. Anyone claiming that either "method," in and of itself, is
superior, or is bound to lead to superior results, is mistaken, IMO. OTOH, I
have been using ETDs for 15 years now, and personally I can claim with utter
assurance that I produce much better and more consistent tunings using an
ETD, which is not to say I wasn't pretty proud of my aural skills. But that
is just because I find that using a tool makes life easier and more precise,
like maybe I might find using a ruler better for creating a straight line
than eyeballing it. When it comes to tuning, the ruler analogy has to be
modified to note that we aren't dealing with a plane surface, and some
calculation is in needed in order to make the line "look straight." So it
has to be a "smart ruler," which is what modern ETDs are.
Regards,
Fred Sturm
fssturm at unm.edu
http://www.youtube.com/fredsturm
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