Just wondering if there is a general trend with some makes or if the tuning ability is an individual characteristic feature like the tone/touch for us players.

I once had a cheap entry level grand. My tuner said the tuning pins were super tight and he couldn't iron out the blatant inharmonicities that left their mark on the treble sound (harsh, disturbing sound). When he was trying to tune it, it was almost painful to watch him try to set the pins right. He had to apply brutal force to get them moving. Then, of course, the same force often took the pins too far and so he had to start over.

Then, I got a much better piano. It sounds great, but also the tuners have always loved it as the tuning pins have great torque without being stiff. All tuners have said that this instrument has been a pleasure to work on.

So, are there makes that are famous for their "tunability" or others that are notorious for being hard on a tuner's mental or physical health? Please also feel free to share some individual stories.

It seems to me that when people are about to buy a piano, they never ask: Can it be tuned with ease? This seems to be a major factor in how the instrument will sound/hold up over the years, much more important than, say, the presence of a soft-close fallboards or beefy brass casters or whatever that often take center stage as "quality features."

Any grand is more 'comfortable' to tune, due to the body position while working.

As far as the other issues, yes ... if the pins are ridiculously tight, or have way too much "drag", those are both detriments.

Good tone without false beats, and a mellow voicing help as well.

Even a high quality piano that is painfully bright (resulting in me having to use my ear plugs) can be 'uncomfortable' to tune. The ear plugs make it possible to get through 95% of the tuning without pain, but I have to finish up and do my final checks without the plugs. It's never as good of an experience when the plugs are necessary.

Estonias are usually enjoyable to tune - as are mellow Yamahas - similar high quality pianos - even some Chinese grands make the grade as far as tuning 'comfort'.

Good subject.

By comfortably do you mean difficult or easy to tune?

Two pianos come to mind; Pearl River's and newer Story & Clark's. I find them somewhat challenging to fine tune. This is by no means a slam to those piano manufacturers in any way shape or form.

Piano's that are smooth to tune are most Yamaha's, Kawai's, and Steinway & Son's grands.....notice I said grands.

Kawai's are as smooth as honey. They're great to play too. Petrof is an easy or comfortable piano to tune. But the smoothest, and I've only tuned a few, are Bosendorfer.

I don't think in those terms. Each piano is individual. Every brand and situation is different and presents its own ease or difficulty. No fixed or even general rule for me.

Yea, but some brands are more individually difficult to tune than others....

Steingraber by far was the easiest to tune and Bosendorfer is very similar.
I find the Steinways or others like Yamaha that have considerable string/felt contact at the front to be difficult in regard to string rendering - a little ProTek makes a big difference.
Then there are the ones that move 30 cents before you feel the pin move. And then there was this Baldwin with the snappy pins -and that thing that someone tried to call a pin block - all that could be done with that is compromise and make it sound as good as possible.
Then there are the ones that had the glycerine dope (just guessing) but the end result is that you cannot feel the pin move - no snap to give the needed feedback.
Then there are the ones that have crappy agraffes that whine at you when the string tries to move.
Then there are those that have bent tuning pins - end result of a crappy tuner.
Then there are the Dilignet pin blocks that did not get drilled right.

If a piano tunes terrible, we cannot hardly get it in tune let alone get it to stay in tune. I can think of many different brand names off of the top of my head that I will not mention but that most technicians know very well that tune horrible, have tight tuning pins and a water fall full of false beats.

I can name just as many nice, smooth tuning pianos that are a dream to tune. They fall into place, sound wonderful when we're done and make our lives much less miserable.

Some of the worst ones (although not always) are those that are neglected for 20 years.

Underwater pianos are the hardest to tune, 'cos I can't hold my breath that long!!

Steinway grands are the easiest for me.....perhaps it's because I tune a lot of them...such a great pin block 'feel'

Square grands from the later 1800s are the worst. Any brand.

My back hurts just thinking about tuning squares!

It isn't that hard to manipulate the tuning pins on most birdcage pianos with a tuning lever, but they can only really be fine tuned with powerful explosives devices or trebuchets.

Dave,that's too funny

Why not mention them? I know you guys are not only tuning artists but also business people and don't wsant to badmouth your customers' pianos. But it would be incredibly useful and helpful for others to know as this has fundamental bearing on a piano's ability to perform. This is good to know for people like me, players and lovers of pianos and piano music.

FWIW, Seiler fan, Seilers, particularly grands, are quite easy to tune. The tuning pin action is great, stability is excellent. The smooth, yet firm turn of the pins reminds me of Steinway's pin action.

I like tuning Kawai pianos, probably because I tune hundreds of them. The pin action is "springy," for lack of a better word, but easy to adapt to.

Old Aeolian spinets from the 60s-70s-80s are a pain because they just never sound good and are loaded with "false" beats. Same for Kohler and Campbell, Currier, and other little PSOs of the same era.

OK.

All Kimball's especially Whitney spinets are my all time least favorites to tune along with the name brand "grand" and those that Dave mentioned. Many Story & Clarks aren't much fun to tune either. Especially the older models known for breaking bass wires during pitch raises.

Bose, Yamaha, most Kawai's, Boston's, Charles Walter and certain Steinway's are my favorites to tune. Grands in particular. Like Dave, I tune a lot of Kawai's and Yamaha's too but also tune many other brands as well including quite a few Steinway's.

I can't stand tuning most Steinway verticals. The tuning pins are just way to tight and jumpy to manipulate and the strings creep like mad on many of them. Just when you think you're done, you go over it only to find many of the strings have crept up a LOT for the 4th time in a row. These, are practically impossible to keep in tune.

I don't much care for many of the Chinese and many Korean models either. To many service calls for action problems and they do not always tune like they should. While one may tune fine, the next may not. Very unpredictable they are IMO.

Our dealers do not sell many of the other nice tuning pianos around here so we don't get to see them on our end of the planet.

Square grand's and your typical older player pianos, I will not tune at all.

This is an almost impossible question to answer.

Over the years, there have been literally thousands & thousands of manufacturers.

I couldn't even begin to imagine how many different 'names' of pianos I've tuned

over the years, but, as has been said, you can only judge each individual piano

on it's own merits.

I've turned up at jobs where, at first glance, you think "ah - this is going to be easy".....

then 1 1/2 hours later you just think "there's no-way this is going to get any better,

no matter how long I spend on it" !!!

On the other hand, I've turned up to jobs where your initial reaction is "oh no! - what

have I got myself in for here?" - and it's been a delight to tune.

These days there are really only a handfull of mass-producing factories around the world,

and even amongst them, the ease of tuning can vary enormously from piano-to-piano,

probably mainly due to the environment in which it's kept - although quality control

of pianos leaving the factory must be variable, to say the least!


I've worked on terrible Steinways/Bechsteins & the rest, and the only pianos I can say

are (from 27yrs experience) consistently a pleasure to work on are Bosendorfers.

.

Any upright over a hundred years old and anything that wobbles. It's hard to tune a grand with wobbly legs.

If a piano has been rebuilt and the new strings were not scaled correctly it can be very difficult if not impossible to tune especially the bass.

I used to own a very stable 1914 Steinway K52. the tuners absolutely hated it.. that the pins were so hard to tweak, that they were innaccessible.. they'd have to reach below this board for some of them. the good thing was that it was basically a wonderful piano and hardly crept out of tune. I didn't tune it once for 3 years (being student/artist on the budget from hell)and my tuner told me 'you can get this baby tuned only once a year' (assuming i had tuned it 6 months ago). A oouple guys who worked on it said they'd have to charge me extra because it took so much more time.

My current tuner tuned it the last couple times before I sold it and expressed great respect for the monstrous beast... then told me he absolutely hated working on it.

One step farther: what qualities, materials, design and manufacturing properties exist in the easy or difficult to tune pianos? If stability is an issue, include those as well.
Anyone have an ideal design?

I want a piano with wings that can be moved away from walls and out from underneath book shelves just by pushing or pulling it with one finger because it can fly. Does this count?

My guess is that makers of hard to tune pianos make the following errors:

Drilling the pin block too fast, which burns the wood, which makes the pins sticky (holes are drilled with an automatic machine in mass produced pianos)

Using dull drill bits, which again, burns the wood, making the pins sticky

Re-sharpening drill bits too many times, which makes the diameter of the hole too small, making the pins too tight

Using low cost, ultra flexible tuning pins which lack the strength to turn in the block without twisting

Failing to control or allow for humidity when drilling

Failing to check tuning pin feel when when drilling or stringing and make adjustments accordingly.


A great feeling pin block isn't hard to do - Drill the hole accurately and don't rush the drill bit, use good, sharp bits, use good tuning pins (some makers measure pin diameter and reject those out of spec), use clean tuning pins (some makers wash tuning pins with solvent to remove machining debris). And last but most important check your work before you string the whole piano.

Makers who have a habit of bad feeling blocks are not concerned with future sales. A bad feeling block now will likely be the same or worse in 30 years. Does a good piano maker want to be complained about on line in 30 years with thousands of examples of poor workmanship in the market??

Many of these pianos play and sound pretty good, and people buy them because they like them. Just fix the tuning pin feel, and you have a winner.

Na. 'Doesn't count, Jerry ... Unless ... It dispenses a tuning fee, plus a nice tip, in gold coins the minute you're done.

I like what Bob said. To bad I can't get my wish for wings though...

In many of today's pianos, I see the pressure bar is driven to far down causing a greater angle from the pressure bar up to the tuning pin and from the bar down to the speaking length than what should be there. With to much pressure, this too, often causes creeping or a sudden move of the string as it lets go through the pressure bar jumping the string past it's tuning mark. I have let the pressure down on pianos like this. It does help the tuning considerably and the stability as well. I think the block and tuning pins are mostly to blame though but both are contributor's.

Properly seasoned wood certainly seems to help with less warpage of parts.

Have any of you ever noticed that the blued tuning pins almost always tune easier than the other ones?

There. I put in 2 cents worth and that's just about all it's worth too. Unless I can get my golden wings!!!?

No flying pianos.
Bob, you covered the pin block very well.
Using the smallest daimeter pin can make a difference.
I always like to add a brass rod between pin and agraffe or capo - this can help remove drag from felt. Many pianos have this in the upper tenor and treble sections.
Open face blocks may have an advantage as the coil is closer to the block than on a piano with plate webbing.
Tuning pins can also be too long. It is not always necessary to get the longest pin just because the block is thick enough.
The type of material the block is made with. I like the Dilignit but it is not very forgiving when drilling. Some blocks have more glue than wood.
When I can make the smallest move with the hammer and feel the pin move and hear a pitch change with no gummy or jumpy/snapy feel, it is usually a great piano to tune.

Thanks all for your responses. Very informative!

My favorite is a piano inside a home that is just filled silly with clutter...especially around 40 years of National Geographic on the top of the lid of a Whitney spinet.

In one such appointment a few years back, I arrived to find a client who showed me to the piano...it was so tight that I barely had room to sit...strike one...I had to unload 200 lbs of books/mags from the lid...strike two...

I got half way through the tuning and when I picked up the bench to set it back a couple inches, it tripped on the books behind me and it, and I, fell over backwards crashing to the floor. The customer actually yelled at me! for this...

Strike three...I just calmly packed my tools, and respectfully told her to call Jerry Groot. (ok, I didn't say Jerry...I was just making sure you were listening)

In case you think this was funny as heck, you are right. I look particularly hilarious falling down, because I put up a big fight on the way down...because I hate falling down...so, if she'd had the right attitude we could have had a good laugh at my expense...but instead we just agreed to part company.

I love all pianos, even old untunable awful monster beasts...it beats doing the other things I'm qualified to do professionally, and my shovel broke already...so I'd be outta luck if not for piano tuning...

RPD

Yeah, I'm listening alright Rick! hehehe. I think she really did call me too! I've had lots of people like that where you think, how in the heck to you even walk through this room let alone, get to the piano or into the bathroom or bedrooms? Some people are really bad at not being able to toss things out.

That's been my impression over the years. I thought I was just superstitious.

I won't take appointments for square grands anymore, and I don't refer those out either. Good luck if you have one of those, trying to find a tuner.

But adding a trebuchet to my tool kit ... that's an excellent idea. Damn, I can't wait.

I built a tiny one that sits on my bookcase in my office. A large one that can be transported on top of my vehicle is next on my list of projects.

Thanks for the reminder.

Reminds me of that old TV show, "Northern Exposure" where the radio announcer built a Trebuchet and was tossing pianos. It does look like fun!

If you can't tune it... toss it!