[pianotech] pitch raise

[David Love]

Rob:

I'd still learn to measure and set the overpull.  It's not hard to learn.
You only need to remeasure every octave or so and when you're done that way
you won't be even 5 cents off.  Your way might work but it might not, you
may not overpull enough or too much and then you'll might still off too far
to get a reasonably stable tuning.  The Cybertuner has a better overpull
function because it measures  continuously for you the trailing 5 notes as
you go and calculates the average to figure out the overpull so you don't
really need to do any manual measuring.  Better chance for an acceptable one
pass tuning with that function on.  

David Love
www.davidlovepianos.com


-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf
Of Duaine Hechler
Sent: Saturday, December 12, 2009 7:20 PM
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [pianotech] pitch raise

Rob,

Great story because I believe it and I'm doing it (except with
Cybertuner) *- major pitch raise, bottom to top, tuning unisons as I go,
one pass.*

IF there are any aural tuners out there that can to this *same - exact -
major pitch raise and tuning* - in less than 90 minutes - I want to know
your *exact *secrets,

Duaine

Rob McCall wrote:
> I haven't done very many pitch raises because I'm still fairly new,
> but I took some advice I received from Jer "Speedy" G about speed and
> applied it to my pitch raises.  I use an ETD (SAT IV) but I don't use
> the overpull function (primarily because I haven't learned how to use
> it yet!) but I found that I haven't needed it much.
>
> Here's the situation behind my first "rapid" pitch raise.  My 12 year
> old daughter won first place in a songwriting competition and was to
> play that evening at a district-wide event. They said they had a
> fairly new piano, the school was only two years old, and the piano
> sounded fine.  
>
> Wanting to make sure my daughter sounded the best she could, I decided
> to stop by the school that afternoon just to check it out.  I just
> "happened" to have my tuning kit with me, figuring maybe a unison or
> two might need some touching up.  What I found was a 2007 Yamaha P22
> that hadn't been tuned since new.  It was 40-70 cents flat and not a
> single unison sounded good.  I had less than 3 hours before the show
> started.
>
> Since this was to make my own child look wonderful, :-) and the school
> wasn't going to pay, I volunteered to donate a tuning to the school.
>  I loaded in the P22 page on my SAT and starting at A0, I just started
> pulling up pitches and unisons as I went, using a single mute. On the
> trichords, I'd mute the C and R strings, tune the L, move the mute 1
> string to the right, then match the C to the L, then I'd pull the
> mute, placing it in the next C and R position, and pitch up the R
> string so that it sounded close to the L and C strings I'd just tuned.
> I just moved as fast as I could.
>
> Instead of calculating overpull, I just brought each note up to pitch,
> and made the lights spin (about 2 lights/second) ever so slightly on
> the sharp side using the SAT. As I got to the last 2 octaves, I tried
> to get it as close to on pitch since I figured the rest of the piano
> is fairly close to pitch, I surmised that I didn't need to pull the
> last one's so high as most of the required tension was pulled up.
>
> Bottom to top, it took me 20 minutes!  My previous pitch raise took me
> 90 minutes.  And you know what, I was much happier with this one!
>  When I went back to tune, I found most pitches to be within 5 cents
> or less and I was able to speed through the tuning much faster.
>
> So, I went from a 3 hour tuning and pitch raise on my prior piano, to
> having this one pitch raised and tuned in a total of 1 hour and 45
> minutes.  I was very pleased.  Since then, I've done 3 other pitch
> raises the same way with very good results.  So, while not totally
> scientific, I found it to be time-saving and productive.  And I think
> my tunings sound better, too.
>
> By the way, the piano sounded beautiful to even my discriminating ear
> that evening.  Or maybe it's just because my daughter was playing the
> piano.  Either way, I was smiling!
>
> While tuning, I also gave out cards to about 9-10 different parents
> who were helping to decorate, because they said they needed their
> pianos tuned, too!  Win-win for everyone!!
>
> Sorry for the length of my post... but this topic reminded me of my
> paradigm-shifting event.
>
> I'll see if I can post a link to my daughters performance (which
> included a mic malfunction) and maybe I can get some feedback on the
> tuning.  Or you can just tell this proud parent that his daughter
> sounded wonderful!  :-)
>
> Regards,  And thanks "Speedy" G.  :-)
>
> Rob McCall
> McCall Piano Service, LLC
> Murrieta, CA
>
> rob at mccallpiano.com <mailto:rob at mccallpiano.com>
> www.mccallpiano.com
> 951-698-1875
>
-- 
Duaine Hechler
Piano, Player Piano, Pump Organ
Tuning, Servicing & Rebuilding
Reed Organ Society Member
Florissant, MO 63034
(314) 838-5587
dahechler at att.net
www.hechlerpianoandorgan.com
--
Home & Business user of Linux - 10 years