Accu-Tune/aural

[Richard Brekne]

Richard Moody wrote:

> I am wondering why SAT III can't tune unisons.  Or why everybody
> prefers to tune unisons by ear rather than by machine even though
> using the machine for everything else. The unisons I tuned with
> TuneLab sounded OK, but I do tune unisons by ear after tuning
> everything else with TL, hmmm I wonder why....   ---ric
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: pianolover 88 <pianolover88@hotmail.com>
> To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
> Sent: Saturday, March 17, 2001 5:41 PM
> Subject: Re: Accu-Tune/aural
>
> > I now use the SAT III and it is very accurate indeed, as tests
> confirm. Of course, i >ALWAYS confirm with tests,(although
> > I very rarely find the SAT to have gotten it wrong) and tune unisons
> > aurally, .
>
> > Terry Peterson
> > Precision Piano Service
> > Torrance, CA
> >
> >

I think this is largely due to the fact that An EDT is listening to one
partial at a time. When you tune with Tunelab for example... the partial
is set to 1,2,3,4, or whatever you chose.. this is mainly for achieving
the calculated curves. There is no option built into these for anything
else. They deal with one partial at a time. Unisons dont always come out
so well this way. Try tuning aurally sometime in this fashion... say in
the bass... pick out sayyyy the 6th partial and resolutely as best you can
make unisons beatless at the 6th partial. You will no doubt find that not
all unisons will sound any where near alike to each other.

Another thing is that ETD's are primarilly set up to listen to one string
at a time. Its not set up to sort out and deal with two coincidents at a
time, whether they come from octaves or other intervals or from unisions.
There are probably other contributing factors, and Robert and Dean should
probably expound on those for you.



Richard Brekne
RPT, N.P.T.F.
Bergen, Norway
mailto:Richard.Brekne@grieg.uib.no