[pianotech] "Repeatable" tuning

[Susan Kline]

On 1/28/2011 2:51 PM, Duaine Hechler wrote:
> Susan - hold the phone - NOW - you are saying that you - don't - trust -
> your - ear - to make corrections (touch ups) and to - make - sure - they
> - are - right - you are going to use an ETD.
No, Duaine, that's not quite what I said.

I said that for recordings over several days, where the engineers were
cutting between tracks recorded at different times, the aural tunings done
carefully were repeatable enough that any differences would not cause any
trouble at all, splicing between them. And I believe that. In fact,
it has happened that way with my tunings.

However, when Ed Foote mentioned OVERDUBBING from different tunings,
that is a completely different situation, where the tiniest discrepancy
(one cent, for instance) will show up. For that, sure ....

The question we were addressing (or trying to address) was to what
extent aural tunings are "repeatable" --- and, in my experience, for
anything except overdubbing recordings (which I have never had to tune
for, and which had never occurred to me as a possible task) they
are perfectly "repeatable", after any interval of time.

Most classical recording (well, all classical recording?) does not
overdub. They do separate takes entire, and then cut between them.
Actually, I think that the less splicing they do, the more musical
(if less totally "perfect") the result, which is why I prefer recordings
of a live performance to those done in a studio and then subjected
to "death of a thousand cuts."

That is, over time and after experience, one's tunings become
consistent enough that by any realistic criterion, they are repeated,
and their character is the same. Overdubbing, which is like laying
the transparency of a photo directly on top of another transparency --
that's a particular and rare circumstance, where the tiniest
difference would stand out. Put the two photos side
by side, and you wouldn't see any difference. That's repeatable, in
my book.

Susan
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