machines or not? what?

[Alan Forsyth]

Hello once again,

Andre wrote;

>>>"I dare say Tony, that if you know how to tune unisons at their most
beautiful ">>>

As a matter of interest, when are unisons at their most beautiful? Sometimes
if I tune unisons exactly spot on with an ETD, the note goes dead. Why is
this?  Supposedly the best unison is when the fundamental and partials no's
2,3,4,6,and 8 etc are all lined up so as they are not beating, but is this
the most beautiful? Is the most beautiful unison when it is at it's
quietest, or when there is no extraneous noise coming from all the
intermediate partials (partials 5, 7 and 9) or when you have got rid of that
irritating zinging noise from the very high partials (those above no 8) that
you get from some very metallic sounding pianos?

      >>>"(and I believe you can do that), and if you know how to
really set dem pins solidly....than working with the machine I
described to you before will freeze your blood. Yesterday I came to the
house of a very good, professional pianist. ..........saying that already
two times tuned it">>>

It happens so often with those tooners who wear stetsons and spurs on their
boots. When they come across a note that appears to be in tune, they just
leave it. And you can't just leave it. You have to test it's integrity. Give
the pin a slight jerk and the string goes way out and you have to actually
detune the pin to get the note back on pitch. What is happening is that
because of humidity changes, the tensions on the speaking and non-speaking
lengths of the strings have become unequal. When the soundboard expands or
contracts, the string tends to stick on the bridge and not slide through it
as it were to re-distribute the tensions. The tooner thinks it's in tune and
ignores it, leaving the note in a state of limbo. That is why his 45 minute
tuning does not last very long.

>>>"I took out 'ma box', decided very carefully on which pitch I should
tune and took a full 50 minutes">>>

What, only 50 minutes, for 235 strings!!!! That was a "Turbo" tuning as you
put it.  That's 1 string every 12 seconds! Impossible!

  .......>>" to set strings and pins according to the spinner on my ETD's
display.">>>

Aarrgghh, I hate those spinning displays. I much prefer the linear type. It
doesn't make you go dizzy or your eyes go all googly woggly.

>>>" because the greatest care had been taken to follow exactly what my box
was telling me, all intervals were astonishingly pure ">>>

What kind of temperament is this where the intervals are pure. Intervals are
not supposed to be pure, in equal temperament at least.

     >>>"(as far as they can be) and the sequential progress was so even
that all 88 keys formed one huge family in a very harmonic accordance.">>>

Yes, indeed it is like listening to that heavenly choir again. The piano is
singing!

>>>"My box listens to 8 overtones....">>>

Yes, but does it display them all simultaneously, so that the tuner can also
see what's going on?  I would like an ETD that displays at least 2 or 3
partials simultaneously.

     >>".... and is continually referring to a most perfect example. Next to
that it aims for the very best and most honest distribution or spread
between each interval.......I hope this example will make feel a bit more
trusting.">>>

Andre, Andre, Andre,  I do actually use an ETD but it is not one of those
that are always mentioned on this list. I have used an ETD for 10 years now,
but have never as I said earlier used it for setting the bearing scale (or
temperament) and I actually don't expect it to. The reason is that the
machine or those that I have experimented with calculate the inharmonicity
curve for various notes or as many as you wish, and then assumes that the
notes you have measured are actually at the correct frequency. BUT the notes
are not at the correct frequency because the piano hasn't been tuned yet.
The machines seem to assume that inharmonicity of a string remains constant
no matter what tension the string is at. They are designed wrong. The ratio
of inharmonicity to the tension changes constantly according to the stiffnes
(or tension) and so do the spacing between all the partials of that very
same string. I have followed the instructions to the letter on some tuning
programs, and I just did not like the temperament that they churned out.

An ETD is great for stability in tunings, because you can see straight away
that a note that you may have tuned previously is slipping. Also for pitch
raising, it is very useful although I do not make use of their overpull
functions. I have my own mathematical formula for calculating the amount of
overpull I will need mainly because different types of frames react
differently to pitch raises.

Is there a website for this Veri...expensive...Tuner that you mentioned?

Regards
Alan Forsyth
Ruffling a few more feathers in Edinburgh tonight.