Numbers for the EBVT

[John M. Formsma]

Robert and Bill B.,

Having your offsets (below my post) and Bill B.'s insistence that they won't
work, I tried a temperament on a Steinway M today. I might not do EBVT
correctly, as it seems to be rather elusive, but I have followed his written
directions closely for some months and have a good working idea of the
temperament as he wrote it. From your offsets, given my understanding of
EBVT with the knowledge that Bill B. has not heard or sanctioned my
rendition, the temperament did not sound like EBVT. It seemed close, but the
tempered 5ths and 4ths were beating too fast.

So, I tuned the EBVT F3-F4 octave and got the following offsets. The FAC
tuning which was offset had the following numbers: F 8.5; A 8.2; C 9.2. I
used the A4 from the FAC tuning, then tuned the rest aurally. Here are the
offsets after measuring:

F3	-0.3
F#3	-1.8
G3	+0.9
G#3	+1.0
A3	-1.9
A#3	-1.5
B3	-0.9
C4	+1.5
C#4	-1.7
D4	-1.7
D#4	-0.7
E4	-2.8
F4	-0.5

Another way I measured was to turn the SAT II on and measure the notes in
the tune mode. I don't know if that will be helpful, but here are the
measurements:

F3	-1.0
F#3	-3.2
G3	-0.5
G#3	-0.4
A3	-1.0
A#3	-2.0
B3	-3.0
C4	+2.1
C#4	-1.2
D4	-0.3
D#4	-1.2
E4	-2.3
F4	+0.8
F#4	-1.0
G4	+1.9
G#4	+3.0
A4	  0.0

Bill B., could you please use these offsets and the other measurements on a
Steinway M to see if this is even close? Maybe then we could get closer to
having more correct offsets.

Thanks,

John M. Formsma
Blue Mountain, MS
PTG Associate, Memphis Chapter

mailto:jformsma@dixie-net.com

**************

David, I followed Bill's aural EBVT tuning instructions using a software
simulation called "Temperament Designer" and came up with the
following offsets for Bill's EBVT:

A     -1.73
A#    -0.10
B     -1.15
C      3.62
C#    -0.75
D      0.08
D#     0.27
E     -2.59
F      1.37
F#    -3.01
G      2.77
G#     0.76

-Robert Scott
  Real-Time Specialties