<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><BR><DIV><DIV>On Aug 20, 2007, at 10:03 AM, Fred Sturm wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; ">I came to believe, based on things I had read and conversations I had had (which I'm afraid are hazy at this point) that Al Sanderson had made a change to the FAC calculations to give more stretch to the bass, in response to criticism by people using the SAT for concert tuning.<BR></SPAN></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Paul told me the curve had been recalculated for the SATIII, but I didn't realize it was for that reason.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><BR><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "> And I came to the conclusion that it was a "patch" that didn't actually make any sense for pianos with an inharmonicity profile that happened to have a plain wire, low tension F3. (Note that the Hamilton 243 and the various flavors of Acrosonic are essentially the same scale, somewhat foreshortened. But the smaller Acrosonics happen to have wound strings for F3. Why should there be that much difference in their tuning?)</SPAN></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>I have tried using your idea at times and thought that the temperament section turns out funky. It really does take a stretch of 18 or 19 for the temperament to work out right in the Hamilton, and in most cases I haven't thought the bass was too stretched either. Using the numbers in the "library" for the Baldwin Hamilton doesn't work, because they are the "pre-recalculated" numbers. Way too narrow.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>But for scales like this, I often will instead resort to the F4 tuning procedure. I will go ahead and store an FAC tuning for the instrument, but then do an F4 stretch tuning from C3-F5. The temperament section turns out so much nicer, and since the SAT is listening to the fundamental beginning at F#5 rather than C6, you don't get those squirrelly readings in that section like you do with the FAC tuning. Then, for the upper octave and a half, I will switch back to the stored FAC tuning, or do it aurally, and for the bass I set the SAT for the 6:3 partial and readjust the cents setting as needed, but sometimes the FAC numbers work just fine in the bass.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Only thing to remember is that when using the F4 stretch, you need to remember the stretch number. If you switch out of the memory mode, it seems the machine forgets the F4 and you have to recalculate it.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">(I had found that with those larger numbers, I was constantly needing to intervene and narrow the octaves).</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN>I also always tuned the bass downwards (never started at A0) so that I would know what was happening and be able to intervene. </DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><DIV>The problems I've had with "intervening" is that I wind up with a whole string of affected notes that have to be changed just to make one fit better in one spot. IOW, trading one compromise for another, or a whole bunch of them. For example, D#3 might be wound, and doesn't work well with the scale of the plain strings in the octave above it, so we tweak it aurally to work better in the temperament. But that can set a whole series of problems with bass tuning beginning with B2, and all the other related notes going down in the bass, and it may well affect double octave and other coincident partials in the scales above the temperament.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>I lost a long time tuning client over something similar after the church bought a new Yamaha GA-1 (or whatever that little 4'11" thing is). Some member had decided it was a travesty that their church didn't have a grand piano and gave $5000 for the church to buy one. Nevermind that the Charles Walter studio they already had there was a much better piano and took up little space in the cramped choir loft, they needed a grand, and so the music director had to scramble to put the remainder of his budget for the year with the gift and buy a grand at the first opportunity. It was about the third time I'd tuned the little grand after they'd gotten their freebies from the dealer when the pianist called to complain about two notes -- the two notes I had fussed over for at least 20 minutes or more trying to correct during the tuning. The lowest two notes of the tenor section of this little grand, I believe C3 and C#3, are wrapped. To get a clean octave with the octave above, absolutely nothing else in the scale worked out anywhere close with those two notes, and I simply could not tolerate the sound of the compromised chords when the octaves were clean. It made the entire piano sound out of tune. I had initially tuned it with the SAT, and tried to make aural corrections, only creating more problems with every aural correction. I finally opted for compromising the octaves slightly so that other intervals worked better - coming back around to exactly how the FAC had calculated it. The piano sounded better overall. But the pianist couldn't get over the sound of those two notes with their octaves, regardless of how bad everything else sounded if I'd tuned the octaves pure, even after I explained (on the phone) that the problem was in the design of that piano and that was the best compromise I could come up with. I offered to come back and demonstrate, or try to tune some compromises that would make her happy, but she must have already made up her mind I didn't know what I was doing, and they haven't called me back again. Had she been there and I been able to give her the option of where to leave those notes, I think she would have agreed with me. There is no guarantee either that she was playing the piano at the same temperature and humidity as when I had tuned it. That would have made it much different, too.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>But the FAC was right. It had produced a scale that was the best compromise overall, and the smallest of aural corrections just made things worse. In my experience, this happens far more often than the reverse. I find it to be a very rare occurrence that aural corrections are an improvement.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Jeff</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><BR><BR><DIV> <SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><DIV>Jeff Tanner, RPT</DIV><DIV>University of South Carolina</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"></SPAN> </DIV><BR></BODY></HTML>