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Hi Bill,

Coming from the master, that's high praise indeed!...thanks.

That's great about your interview.

Here is another impressionist composer...a Ravel piece, played by Katherine Bacon. This is from a Welte-Mignon piano roll, transcribed and encoded for the LX by Wayne Stahnke for his "Immortal Pianists Series". Sounding magical in EBVT III.

"Ondine" from "Gaspard de la Nuit" by Ravel http://www.box.net/shared/yc1li5yfcn

Much better unisons, GPM - good job!

Where in proximity to the piano are the mics placed?

Glen

GP, again, this is such wonderful material! I once attended a recital where the artist played, "L'oeuvre Intégrale de Ravel" (The complete works of Ravel). That meant everything Ravel ever wrote for piano and it was all in the 1/7 comma meantone temperament. He was a French artist but I can't remember the name right now. It was a long evening. I seem to enjoy most the music from the Impressionist period.

It is interesting that many technicians, artists and music educators believe that music from this period could only work in ET. If an entire evening was performed and roundly applauded in a temperament far stronger in color character than the EBVT III and the piano was embraced by the artist, it is a strong indication that ET has never been a requirement.

The dynamic range of your piano is second to none! I must say that your unisons are of first rate, artist and broadcast quality! I certainly could do no better! It seems to me that the quality of the unison is directly dependent upon how much time one is willing to spend on their perfection. I am known as a "fast" tuner, one who can "pop" any string into tune with a flick of the wrist. For the most part, this works for me.

However, I do take Kamin's admonitions seriously. While I may not agree completely with his method of stabilizing a string, it does take time to make each string really hold precisely to where you want it. I have a tendency in most usual work to pass over a unison where I don't hear a beat in just a fraction of a second. With your piano and for your purposes, that won't do. What I hear from your tuning is very careful consideration of each. I know that you can hear the slightest beat and your work shows that you have labored long and hard to eliminate them. Congratulations are due you for that!

I simply can't imagine what some people advocate, so called "color" in unisons! This is usually combined with the insistence upon strict ET and "pure" octaves. Just what combination are we really talking about here? In my opinion, that only means that perfection of ET and octaves is ultimately unsatisfactory and the degradation of unisons is used to achieve "color". Wrong approach, sorry.

Congratulations again on starting a thread that has now surpassed over 100 pages, over 1,000 responses and well over 10,000 views! They can't all be indications of little or no interest. They can't all be a few people patting each other on the back. After all, how many ET or "standard practice" examples have generated so much interest? How much interest could be expected from the same technology applied forever?

Hi Inlanding and Bill,

Thanks, I appreciate the feedback! I did not use the ETD this time for most all of the unisons, and the more I rendered each note, the better I could hear when the unison was right. The very low bass and high treble, I still have to use the ETD for the unisons.

I want to add this......thanks for your praise Bill. I know you would not post these compliments if what you heard on these recordings was not up to par.

All the factors are now coming together here for some wonderful sounds....This 1925 M&H BB piano,(original soundboard), the rebuild, Ari's hammers and bass strings, the Wapin bridge modification, and now your newest EBVT III tuning, which really helps to enhance the remarkable tone/timbre of this piano.

You are correct Bill...I spent more time on these unisons, thanks to your tip of listening to the sustain/decay. With this new tuning lever from Joe Goss/Mother Goose Tools, I am able to really fine tune the strings. I also discovered I have to 'slow' pull the strings....have not mastered the quick maneuver yet...I always overshoot a bit. It's very interesting...there is a point at which the beats are gone, but that does not mean the unison sounds the best it can ...it has to be that the sustain/decay of the unison remains as pure as possible, as you suggested Bill...that's what I learned to listen for this time around.


Here are a few more pieces...this is from the www.live-performance.com "LX" Jazz Series "Johnny Guarnieri plays Duke Ellington" Composed by Juan Tizol, and first performed in 1937 by Duke Ellington. Johnny Guarnieri recorded these live on Wayne Stahnke's Bosendorfer SE reproducing grand in the early 1980's. Wayne then re-encoded them for the LX.

1. "Caravan" played by Johnny Guarnieri, Jazz piano on the LX http://www.box.net/shared/oxtiqku0tv (some great bass and treble sounds/energy going on here)

Here are 2 wonderful pieces from the live-performance LX library, "The Original Piano Trio, The Complete Recordings, Vol 2". Wayne Stahnke does a superb job in transferring and encoding these Ampico and Welte piano rolls into the LX language.

1. "Lovey Dove" The Original Piano Trio on the LX http://www.box.net/shared/gf7fulb4iv (nice sounding octaves in this piece)

2. "Dear Old Southland" The Original Piano Trio on the LX. http://www.box.net/shared/54goxv9x67


Glen, here is picture of the mic placement I used for these recordings. Patrick showed me this when he was here. It has to be exactly 12 inches apart, from the center of each mic tip...Patrick used a tape measure as did I! Then you just make sure that it's at a 45 deg angle by using a 8 X 11 piece of paper. You then have to find the optimum place by first "listening' with your ears...then place the mics in that 'sweet' spot. I did not have the Edwards string cover in place for the recordings.

That is one indication a person could presume. It could also be that the audience and the artist could not tell the difference between the two temperaments if presented in the same way.

GPM,
Thanks for the image...It is clear what most of the difficulty is with my recordings...room acoustics (solid wood floors, etc). Way too many reflections in the room. My mics are placed a bit closer to the piano and about 6" further down on the case so as to minimize the room effect. The ceiling is too low and the wall is too close to the end of the case as well, which does not help matters.

As for Johnny Guarnieri - I sat 5 feet from him during one of his entire sessions at a dinner restaurant. He played Stealing Apples three times, one third faster the second time, then the third, it was double speed! His hands moving over the keys were a blur. I've never seen anyone play jazz stride-style like that except for Ralph Sutton, Teddy Wilson, Oscar Peterson, and of course my all-time favorite, Art Tatum, where velocity, dexterity, and complex harmonies were superlative in every regard. To top it off, Johnny's hands were ultra small, and it was so impressive to see him stretch to reach even the hardest to reach tenths.

Keep up the good work on the unisons...to me, any temperament, quasi or otherwise, is useless without high-quality, stable, unisons.

Glen

Yes, good explanation of the NOS stereo technique. Just to clarify, the left mic is -45 degrees off the center, the right mic is +45 degrees off the center, making the angle between the two mics 90 degrees.

It gives a remarkable stereo capture, and I personally like it a bit more than the ORTF standard which has a wider angle and closer distance between the mics. The NOS is somewhat more focused to me.

If you record people talking in NOS and then play it back, listening through your headphones, sometimes you will hit the stop button just because you think somebody in the room is talking to you... only to realize that the talk stops when you hit the stop button

@Glen: If you want to, you could post a picture of your piano and its surroundings, I might have some suggestions that could help.

Patrick, thanks for the clarification! I knew 45 was in there somewhere.

I wish I could have heard all these great jazz pianists live...what a great experience Glen. I have a few more I recorded after I tuned the piano a few days ago.

Here is one more Johnny Guarnieri piece from this Jazz Series CD.

"Mood Indigo" p/b Johnny Guarnieri on the LX http://www.box.net/shared/9pvmsu00q6

Dick Hyman, another great Jazz pianist, also recorded live for Wayne Stahnke. Here are a few of his pieces from the Live-Performance Jazz Series "Dick Hyman plays Fats Waller".

1."Bach up to Me" http://www.box.net/shared/6pig8agrnh

2. "Ain't Misbehavin'" http://www.box.net/shared/a2p9218zur

Bill...a little 'Pipe Organ' effect at the end of this piece.

3. "I'm Goin' To See My Ma" http://www.box.net/shared/luzss5b89m


Dick Hyman recorded "Stealing Apples"! Just now recorded it with the Zoom H4 etc.

3. "Stealing Apples" http://www.box.net/shared/9nz0yd7sba

Dear GP,

I just listened to "Lovely Dove." That one must be great fun to watch the keyboard!!!

The sound quality is excellent. Very polite, honest and true recording of a sweet song with a sweet tuning. Love the NOS!

--Andy

Patrick,

Were you using this NOS setup for the micing of your piano in the earlier post, where you included photos of your white piano?

For this effect I can recommend the Soundman binaural mikes:
Soundman
The mikes go inside your ears and you record exactly what you hear. Because of anatomical differences in head and ear shapes the effect is personal; to get the reality effect you have to listen to a recording made from your own head, or your twin.

Kees

So, if we put the "mics" in our ears, will they record the voices in our heads???

Only if the voices sing to you in EBVT III.

Greetings all,

I am amazed at the amount of views and replies to this thread. I never imagined it would garner this much interest. It's great to see this amount of interest in pianos and alternate temperaments!

Having said that, I thought it would be a good idea to put the recordings of this latest EBVT III tuning Bill did over the July 4, 2010 holiday, in one folder so that folks do not have to wade through all the postings to hear the piano. Here is the link to that folder:

"Tune-a-Thon" in EBVT III-July,2010
http://www.box.net/shared/f6rhcniue5

In going through the some 65 recordings made during Bill's 2nd EBVT III tune-a-thon visit, I came across 3 selections I don't think I posted before. Wading through all these recordings I posted in this thread is time consuming to say the least...that's why I tried to put them all in one folder.

Here is an original Ampico piano roll played by Rachmaninoff, and it's in Dflat! This was recorded during Bill's visit and is played on the Ampico system. http://www.box.net/shared/0tm1clj3ue

Here is another Rachmaninoff piece, this time it's on the LX, scanned from an original Ampico piano roll and encoded to play on the LX by Wayne Stahnke. Recorded Aug,2010 after my first attempt to re-create Bill's latest tuning figures.
http://www.box.net/shared/axjqf9z0up

Here is a another new-age George Winston/Windam Hill piece wonderfully played here by Gregg. EBVT III evoking a hauntingly beautiful scene, showing how it's right at home with modern new-age harmonies.
http://www.box.net/shared/vhlne35use

(in listening to these box.net files, it's better to download the file, then listen to it, rather than relying on the box.net player...for some reason, there is a slight amount of added distortion with the box.net player, especially in the treble notes)

Thanks GPM - that sure made it easy to get caught up with all these great recordings. You're right that they sound significantly better through a better MP3 player and decent headphones.

Thanks Mark...yes, there is something strange about the box.net player, it has some distortion, and I also noticed that the 'air' around the sound is less.

On another note, I had the great pleasure of meeting John Callahan of http://www.callahanpiano.com/ last week while in San Francisco. He was pulling out his tuning tools, and I asked him if he was the piano tuner, sure enough, he was. We then talked piano for at least 20 mins, eating into his tuning time..but he did tune that Yamaha C7 in record time, and it sounded great! I told him all about EBVT III and sent him the links to my PW EBVT III post, and to the EBVT III folder. He liked what he heard and is interested to try it!

He also gave me a wonderful DVD about his rebuilding business, it's called "Miracle in a Box" www.miracleinabox.com ..... a fascinating journey following the rebuilding of a 1927 Steinway "M" that was donated by a patron to the local University, and was given as 1st prize to the student winner of the First Berkley Piano Competition. Very educational and enjoyable documentary by film maker John Korty and narrated by John Lithgow.

Thanks, GP for these latest recordings. I now have a file of nearly 400 MB of music created entirely in your home and entirely in the EBVT III! I have been in recent contact with my webmaster and I will soon post all of these on my website for anyone to access.

However, I have been waiting all this while for at least two recordings that I know were made, one of them, I think the very first or among the very first, the overture to Carousel or what I think of as the "Carousel Waltz". Also, Gregg's reading of Chopin's Fantasie Impromptu. There was also a set of early music that Gregg played on the Disklavier but which I believe we recorded on the M&H.

There doesn't seem to be an end to what we accomplished during our session even with all of the problems and delays. You also produced some excellent recordings afterward, all of which I will be pleased to post on my website, the same as if I had tuned the piano myself. Your replications of my tuning are that good!

Grandpianoman -

I think your latest recordings, which I just stumbled upon, are incredible! I can only second what Bill has already stated regarding the quality of your tuning, as I am also very sensitive to any unison that is not absolutely perfect!

I was especially impressed with the recordings of the songs played by Dick Hyman, via the LX I presume? I believe he lives in Venice, FL just a few miles from me. Since I still plan to record the EBVT III on a concert grand, perhaps he would like to come and play it to experience the tuning for himself.

Thanks,

Nick

Jeez Nick,

I thought first you would tune the piano with the EBVT temperament. Then you would record the piano being played. BUT, what the heck do I know....