SAT use

[Lawrence A. Gardner]

Dick Day writes:
<<ise using the method in the SAT manual I find that by
<the time I get to F6 or so all of notes starting around F4 have gone flat.  I
<have tried the procedure measuring 5 to 6 times over the keyboard,  measuring
<once, and measuring every note.  I still get the same result.  I am sure the
<problem is not in pin setting.  I have been tuning for 6 years and studied as
<an apprentice for 3 years before that.  And I never had any trouble until I
<started using the method above.

One thing nobody has mentioned yet is that you have to tune the unisons as you
go to get the best accuracy from this method of pitchraising.

The method I use is a "leap frog".  I just use two rubber mutes and leap frog
them over each other.  I start from A0 and go to C88.  On a grand there's no
problem with this method.  On an upright, I still leap frog as far as I can,
then when I get to somewhere around A61, I switch to my wire mute that I turned
into a split mute.  The rubber part looks like the kind you can buy (I just got
one from APSCO in Feb.)  However, the steel that it comes on is too awkward to
use.  If you cut the rubber to approximately 1/3 and2/3 you'll find that you can
fairly easily isolate the middle string and keep on going up to C88.

To minimize my mute movement, I tune the middle string, leap frog the mute, tune
the right string of the unison below, tune the left string, then I tune the
middle string of the next string and the pattern starts over.

I agree with the observations that you need to abandon your desire to set the
pins on your pitch raise, and if things are really bad (-50c or more), I still
feel like I'm chasing my tail and I have to force myself to stop and settle for
a "whole  lot better" vs. "perfect".  I am often amazed at how little I have to
change the unison on the 2nd time through.

Another think I agree with is that I rarely overpull the bass strings.
Sometimes if I'm changing the bichord bass strings a fair amount (over 20 or
30c) then I do adjust the SAT for the overpull.  Most of the time I find that
the bass strings are fairly stable and it's the plain wires that gone out.

Larry Gardner, RPT