Pitch Raises ... Multiple Passes?

[Farrell]

You didn't answer my question!  :-)   Yes, my norm is to do a two pass pitch raise for anything more than 60 or 70 cents flat (although on this Winter, I did in fact pitch raise it in one pass - don't tell anyone!). But that was not the question. Let's say we have a piano that is 30 cents flat. The tune unisons as you go approach would suggest that something like 20% overpull in bass, 25% in tenor, and 33% overpull in treble areas is appropriate to get you to target pitch. If you strip mute the piano for your pitch raise and only tune the center strings, then pull out the mute felt and tune unisons, how might that affect your selected overpull percentages? Thanks.

Terry Farrell
  
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Kevin E. Ramsey" <ramsey@extremezone.com>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Thursday, August 22, 2002 10:04 AM
Subject: Re: Pitch Raises ... Multiple Passes?


Terry, that's a good question. Most of the time when I see something like your high performance Winter that's that flat, I figure it would be safer to do two pitch raises. I feel better spreading that much tension out over the whole instrument rather than loading up one section tuning from bass to treble. I always strip mute no matter what I'm doing, it just seems easier to pull it out than to move mutes constantly. 
    If you were to try pitch raising one of these things that much and hit it right on the money in one pass, I don't think you'd have much luck because the different sections of the piano are going to react differently depending on the thickness of the plate and stiffness of the soundboard, and other intangibles. You could certainly get it pretty close though. 
    I would strip it off and do two really quick pitch raises, the first just slightly higher than in tune, pull in the unisons, and then do an equally quick regular pitch raise, then fine tune. I don't like replacing strings in spinets too much myself. I remember trying to do it the way you mentioned a few times when I was starting out, carefully recalculating the single wire flatness for a 33% overpull as I went up. I pulled in the unisons, and it was close enough to get there in a second pass, but it was more work than it was worth, I thought. 
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Farrell 
  To: pianotech@ptg.org 
  Sent: Thursday, August 22, 2002 5:18 AM
  Subject: Re: Pitch Raises ... Multiple Passes?


  Hello Kevin. I was raising the pitch of a massive high performance Winter spinet yesterday a full half-step. And I was thinking that it would go faster if I were to strip mute the piano, PR just the middle strings, then go back a do the unisons. Do you do that in the plain wire sections? How do you find that approach affects your overpull percentage needed? Thanks.

  Terry Farrell
    
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: "Kevin E. Ramsey" <ramsey@extremezone.com>
  To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
  Sent: Wednesday, August 21, 2002 11:30 PM
  Subject: Re: Pitch Raises ... Multiple Passes?


  Joe, glad it works for you, however, I find that the bass requires a twenty percent over-pull. Perhaps our methods differ; during a pitch raise, I tune the single bass strings and one string of each bi-chord first, then I pull out the strip and tune unisons by ear.  I'm also tuning the bass first, ala Sanderson. When I do a pitch raise, I do it with a SAT (Gets you real close, real fast), so I do the bass first. I can understand the 10% overpull thing only if I've already brought the rest of the piano up first. 
      Please clarify.
    ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: Joe And Penny Goss 
    To: pianotech@ptg.org 
    Sent: Wednesday, August 21, 2002 7:46 PM
    Subject: Re: Pitch Raises ... Multiple Passes?


    Kevin,
    If the bass is about 30 cents flat I want to raise the note about three cents sharp ( about 10% ) of pitch. So with a SATlll that raises the pitch 25%  that would result in too much over pull for me so I will set the over pull for 12 cents and roll the program into the machine.
    I take only one measurement at A2 to arrive at my over pull. Works very well for me.
    I use the 25% in the tenor and about C4 the 30% to the top then retune.
    On pianos 25% or less flat or sharp I use the Verituner 100 and its 10% bass, 30% tenor,
    and 36% treble and retune.
    Joe Goss
    imatunr@srvinet.com
    www.mothergoosetools.com
      ----- Original Message ----- 
      From: Kevin E. Ramsey 
      To: pianotech@ptg.org 
      Sent: Wednesday, August 21, 2002 7:40 PM
      Subject: Re: Pitch Raises ... Multiple Passes?


      >
      >     All wound strings: 1/5 (Example: You test 10 notes, or so, and find
      them
      > about 30 cents flat. You would set your ETD to +6 cents sharp and tune
      those
      > strings to that setting.)


          Here's another little brain saver:  What if you're pitch raising a piano and want to do a 20% overpull in the bass, and it's, say, 28 cent's flat. (let's see, one fifth of twenty eight would be ......... ah........ ah........)  

          Take 28, and double it for 56. Move the decimal point over to the left one place. 

           5.6 is 1/20th of 28. 

          At least, that's how I do it.