Aural vs. electronic again

[Bill Ballard]

At 8:01 AM -0500 1/20/03, Farrell wrote:
>>"The machine is only for the first-pass structuring of the tuning.
>>There's a fit and finish to it which has to be aural (and
>>experienced), and not just in unisons work."
>
>My hand is not up, as I do all my unison tuning aurally. But what do
>you mean by the above statement? The machine for a first pass, and
>then no machine is fit to calculate a good final tuning? Not on a
>well scaled piano? Not with a SAT III with a good DOB adjustment?
>Not with a Verituner?

Of all of them, the VT, with its 88 samples instead of 4 or 5, will 
have the best chance of calculating a good final tuning. Whether it's 
the absolute best final tuning depends on the machine (the Yamaha 
PT-100 being only slightly above say a Korg AT-12, both down at the 
bottom of the barrel) and the ears of the technician. If the 
technician decides (either at the end of the tuning, or as it 
progresses) that octaves need to be tweaked, then the technician is 
doing a better job of "calculating a good final tuning". If he or she 
stores those aural corrections then it's ultimately an aural tuning. 
If he/she comes back to the same piano 6 months later in the yearly 
seasonal cycle, lays on the stored tuning, and because the board 
moisture content may be changing the inharmonicity across the scale, 
ends up making aural/manual corrections, ONCE AGAIN the technician is 
doing a better job of "calculating a good final tuning".

At 2:17 PM +0100 1/20/03, Richard Brekne wrote:
>"First pass" for many tuners means taking the tuning very very close
>to the point the ETD checks out. From that point on only the ear can
>be usefull because only the ear can make value judgements.

Richard is picking up on it.

>but Shirley you are not saying that a good machine, properly used,
>can't calculate a good tuning?

And stop calling me Shirley. ("This is Captain Roger Over, out." "....what!?")

Bill Ballard RPT
NH Chapter, P.T.G.

"Woh"
     ...........Keanu Reeves in "The Matrix"
+++++++++++++++++++++