List - I've been using an SAT since February (SAT III since June) after tuning aurally about 45 years. I have a few questions that I don't recall being discussed on this list in the years I have been on (but then, I miss a lot because I don't have time to keep up with reading all the posts). >From the start, the SAT showed me something I had only marginally been aware of in tuning aurally, and that is that many strings change in pitch as the tone decays. This seems particularly noticeable from about F5 on up, and is usually a drop in pitch. Some strings, however, go up in pitch. What is the cause of this change? Is it a change in the plane in which the strings vibrate? Where should one try to stop the lights, on the attack or the decay? At this point I set them if possible in the middle, where the attack is sharp and the decay flat. The results please me as well as any aural tuning I have done. I would also be interested in knowing how many of you SAT users normally try to stop the lights consistently in octaves 6 and 7. I find myself settling for increasing motion as I approach the top. At this point I am satisfied if it sounds as good as or better than I would do by ear. My purchase of the SAT was spurred on by the promise of working faster (and earning more). I have been using it consistently now fir 6 months except for rare occasions when I had to revert to aural tuning because things were not going well. However, to this point I see no measurable increase in speed. I think it relieves me of some stress, and it is really a help on pitch raises. I can record the exact amount of offset on non-standard pitch tunings. I think what is happening is that I am getting more picky. And I am very well satisfied with the results I am getting. Finally, do most of you visual tuners mute the whole piano or tune unisons as you go along? A friend loaned me a Coleman/Diefebaugh tape made perhaps 1980 promoting muting the whole piano (as well as the SAT over the SOT), stating that tuning one string of a unison and going over the whole piano, then one outside string over the whole piano, and finally the third, would lead to more stable tuning. The thesis was that this would better allow the strings to move over the bridge without rolling it. However, in the SAT manual, Dr. Sanderson recommends tuning unisons as one goes along. Dr. Jim Coleman, what is your position now? Bill Maxim
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