Keith, On one recording I did about a year ago, I had exactly 1 hour to be done. That was it. The piano that was brought in (a grand rented from the local store), was over 1/4 of a tone flat. I had to remove the action and adjust the damper stop rail. I had to tighten the screws on the hammer rest rail as these were clacking when the hammers landed on it. They were all completely loose. I had to fix squeaking pedals and fix some sticking keys. Try doing all of that in 1 hour and tuning and raising pitch on it too! I raised it up to pitch QUICKLY using my EDT and then tuned the rest by ear. I'm twice as fast without the EDT anyway. Half of the time, by the time the EDT hears it, I could have already had the note tuned or at least half way there. I agree with Israel completely. Too much time can be and IS, wasted fooling around with the EDT determining what we are going to do with "it" during times like this, when all we need to do is use our ears, figure it out quickly and then keep going until we're done. In this case, it seems to happen in most cases, :) about 3/4 of the way through the tuning, some yahoo in the lighting booth, decided it was time to turn ALL of the lights on and, yes, you guessed it, the tuning began drifting slightly. I just kept going and in fact, I sped up! I figured, the sooner I was done, the more accurate to whatever it was going to wind up being, the tuning would be. And, yes, I did get the whole thing done in 1 hour. Barely.. They told me, if the pianist comes in and smiles, you're in! If not, you're in trouble. I just smiled. The pianist came in, sat down, played it for a while, smiling almost immediately and then, not only smiled but, talked to me for a while. He said, great job man!!! Thanks a lot!!! You betcha, I said and I left... Great feeling to hear that. Anyway, there is a time for using an EDT and there is a time to just shut it off and move on. Our ears are always (or should be anyway) the final judge regardless. Jer -----Original Message----- From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Israel Stein Sent: Sunday, February 06, 2011 1:32 PM To: pianotech at ptg.org Subject: Re: [pianotech] Octaves & Unions Well, Keith, I am not comfortable depending on an approximation that is then furthermore based on an assessment of pitch drift - which could change gradually as I do the touchup and require me to decide whether or not I should change the offset here or two notes down the scale, or wherever, and requires me to pay attention to every note - rather than just the ones that are audibly out of whack. And in the real world of recoding sessions you run into all kinds of situations and all kinds of demands - reasonable or not. So in critical situations I prefer to use the method that gives me direct feedback on the final product - the sound - rather the method that gives me an approximation modified by an estimate and requires a double-check by ear anyway. In my opinion, the electronic alternative is too risky. And not because I don't know how to use it - because I do, and use it in less critical situations all the time... Israel Stein On 11:59 AM, Mr. Mac's wrote: > On Feb 6, 2011, at 11:37 AM, Israel Stein wrote: > >> But if changing the pitch is inadvisable - why take time to adjust an ETD, when you have, say, 10 minutes to touch up a piano? > Israel, > > Come on. 10 minutes. > > Any tuner put in this position is going to make > executive decisions regardless. > > Why make it an issue as to method of madness? > It serves no purpose. > >> . Way too much trouble... > > It's never too much trouble to do what must be done > in the time allocated. It's what there is. > > Keith
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