Hi Mark, Like Terry, I'd offer up the following points: Terry's suggestion about demonstrating pitch is exactly what I do: tune one string of a unison. It can be played one after the other, or together, and then tuned to 2 cents off to show appropriate "out of tuneness." Well done Terry! The number of times I've heard, "It has to be installed correctly" makes me want to vomit. As Terry pointed out, "Duh." Of course it has to be installed correctly and maintained correctly. So just because some dolt in the past has not done this, doesn't mean you will or I will. You're using a false premise to not install these systems, Mark, because you WILL do it correctly and you WILL educate your clients (all three minutes of it) about proper care. And yes, of course whole home humidity control is best - and I've yet to see the whole home system that maintains the level of humidity control that a Piano Life Saver system does - and I've seen some very extensive systems. One elaborate unit was designed for a clients piano room with her "B" and still we play "chase the pitch." At any rate, please don't take my excitement and strong words as a personal attack. It's not. It's just a position I feel strongly about and feel that we can offer our clients such a level of protection with these systems. William R. Monroe On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 5:26 AM, perrys piano restorations < perrymark at hotmail.com> wrote: > Hello, > > My name is Mark Perry, and I am an aural tuner and rebuilder. to answer > your question about justifying a pitch raise, it is interesting as I read > the many responses. > > first, if it is bad enough to need a pitch raise, I warn the customer there > will be an additional charge. I always ask over the phone when the last > tuning was, and let them know before I drive out that it may need one. As > for some measuring technique, I think the one thing being an aural tuner > gives me is the advantage of knowing how bad it sounds to my fork. I can > show this audibly to the customer if they ask, or I can tune a key to pitch > and play an octave. One of my employees has the tune-lab system, and he > explains to me how the piano is measured, and how the machine pitch raises. > We have tuned side-by-side in many college rooms, and often watched each > other. This is the first machine which matches my ear almost to > perfection. It is so accurate that we are often less than one cent > different when we reach the last octave. The tune-lab is easy to read and > see where the pitch is if you know what you are looking at. Many people > just want to be told why they need one, and will trust you based on your > good work. > > As for the piano life-saving system, while they work well when properly > installed, I have seen them poorly installed buzzing on the soundboard, > dumping massive amount of humidity into the piano soaking the felt, I have > also seen them work to crack a soundboard. they MUST be installed > correctly, and with the understanding that proper maintenance is a MUST. I > almost never recommend the piano life-saver system in a home. It is always > better to regulate the humidity in the room. The moisture king system works > to do this quite well. I even have some customers who have gone to the > expense of installing a humidity system into their heat pump. this is far > better for every aspect of the home as well as the piano. Either way, if > you install the life-saver system, be sure to do a good job for the sake of > the piano. > > God Bless, > Mark > ------------------------------ > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech_ptg.org/attachments/20090403/246e8d4b/attachment-0001.html>
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