<HTML>In a message dated 12/16/00 8:42:31 AM Central Standard Time, A440A@AOL.COM writes: <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px"><<The problem I see with what you did is that it is purely arbitrary. >>    No,  that is not what arbitrary means. arbitrary adj. 1. Determined by chance, whim, or impulse, and not by necessity, reason, or principle. </BLOCKQUOTE> It still sounds arbitrary to me.  You may have had a reason to do it, the program that you have previously stated you "would stake your professional reputation on" suddenly became inadequate so you picked some numbers arbitrarily that you thought might make an improvement.  Of course, you may have been somewhat lucky that the horseshoe you threw landed fairly near the stake.   I seem to recall that many people have criticized both my octaves and temperament without ever hearing them too.  I also know that musicians don't usually complain about a piano tuning unless it is unusually intolerable. I'd bet any day of the week that I can determine octaves precisely and consistently either by ear or using the SAT and be done with the tuning much faster than using methods which require the dialing in of so many deviations of deviations.  I wonder if I might even be done entirely before you or anyone else trying to do what you describe has finished programming. I, for one, would never enter either a professional or casual situation and attempt to tune a piano by applying someone's calculation for a temperament to an FAC program and then simply boost the 7th octave by a shot in the dark, arbitrary amount.  It's not the way I think about tuning at all. Bill Bremmer RPT Madison, Wisconsin</HTML>