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For comparison here's the pipe organ effect in just intonation, without doing anything special to the octaves (just beatless sounding). Pipe organ effect just intonation It seems much less rich than with EBVT Kees Surely you mean it sounds less rich than with stretched octaves? I'm with Mark on this one - it seems to be the octave type that give the pipe organ effect a lot more than the temperament. It's the effect of the equal-beating 12ths and 15ths that create this sonority between the bass and the treble. I also think Danny Boy #2 is in EBVT... and I can mainly tell because of the octaves, as Bill points out it's immediately obvious from the movement of the octaves at the beginning. A better, and more difficult, comparison would be between an ET tuned with the same octave types as the EBVT!
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pipe organ effect in just intonation,...
It seems much less rich than with EBVT
Kees Surely you mean it sounds less rich than with stretched octaves? Argument against that is that it's just C major that gives the effect. If it was just the octaves all keys should have the effect. So I think the good M3 is also part of the mix. However I prefer not to think and try it out. Maybe tomorrow. Kees
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pipe organ effect in just intonation,...
It seems much less rich than with EBVT
Kees Surely you mean it sounds less rich than with stretched octaves? Argument against that is that it's just C major that gives the effect. If it was just the octaves all keys should have the effect. So I think the good M3 is also part of the mix. However I prefer not to think and try it out. Maybe tomorrow. Kees To me, the EBVT III and Just intonation sound remarkably alike and I think I know why. The Just intonation (I think, I have never tuned it) has a pure third and a pure 5th in C major. You have all the harmonics lined up in that key, so you get that effect. The EBVT III has thirds and sixths that beat rapidly but equally, so the cancel each other out. The octaves and fifths also beat equally with each other, so they cancel each other too. It gives you the illusion of Just intonation in the key of C Major but leaves all of the other keys usable for any kind of music whereas Just intonation surely does not
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Why is it necessary to classify people so? I see a lot of "box thinking" in this thread. Words like "partisan" and the likes.
Frankly, I resent this. Can one not use a forum to learn from one another?
Last December, I actually tuned my parents' harpsichord to (a first attempt at) EBVT III. I actually e-mailed Bill with my feedback, which was NOT all negative. To wit, my parents normally use it for chorales in the closer keys, so they really liked the more harmonious major thirds. However, the more remote keys were (obviously) more colorful, which to my ear, was problematic. A flat major was one of them, but it may have been a mistake in my interpretation of Bill's tuning instructions. So to my mind, there were some positive aspects, some not-so-positive. Certainly I never condemned EBVT III outright.
But somewhere in this thread, I expressed the sentiments that I actually prefer the same type of third in all twelve keys.
And this now makes me an "ET partisan" who won't accept a challenge? And puts me in a box with all those bad ET-only-people? I was actually one of the first to take the test, and I even added a bit of self-irony, because when the results were published, it turned out I got all those answers wrong that I thought were easy!
Why is it necessary to continue with these stereotypes of "us" and "them", "friend" and "enemy" etc. etc.
As a musician interested in piano technology, I find tuning and temperaments really interesting, but I'm afraid this "camp thinking" takes out all the fun in reading these threads. It's a shame that these threads keep returning to offensive-defensive behavior, instead of focussing on the actual matter on hand, namely temperaments! Mark, You were never one of those I had in mind when I made that comment. I know you have an open mind. Even if in the end, you prefer ET, I am OK with that, believe me. But there are those who have made up their minds in advance and nothing would change their minds.
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Or is the pipe organ effect actually a result of both the EBVT III temperament AND the right amount of stretch?
Yes!
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Either way, those on the ET only list have already made up their minds. We already know what their opinion is whether we read it or not and whether they ever listen to anything or not. I have to disagree with you a little bit on that point Bill. But, just a little bit. Although, for the most part, you are correct. Just not with me. I had made up my mind totally at one point that I hated EBVT III. But, I tried keeping an open mind to various possibilities with tuning methods, kept listening, kept trying and kept learning. I still don't have all quite yet but, will keep trying... Jer, You were not one of the people I had in mind when I said that either.
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Bill, GPM, from your comments it seems I nailed it.
I don't want to get my main point lost though, that this is a 100% a machine tuning, and EBVT can be machine tuned with high quality results. When tuning I just stopped the display for every note (wearing earplugs) and did not listen to anything.
After I was done I went over Bill's 21 page tuning instructions and found a few faults. Double checking with tunelab it turned out those faulty notes had drifted. When retuning them with tunelab again they were in complete accord with the EVBT instructions.
Kees Kees, I would like to hear some actual music played with a tunelab generated EBVT III. The pipe organ effect is only for C Major, so the stretch that Tunelab provided must have been right for that key to produce the effect. The fact is that the EBVT III is an irregular well temperament. That means all of the 5ths are of different sizes. I specify F3-A4 as being 4:2 and A3-A4 as 6:3. C3-C4 and C4-C5 will also be 4:2 while D4-D5 will be 6:3 + when the aural directions are followed. No ETD can handle that. That is not to say that a Tunelab generated EBVT III couldn't sound good, it just could not be the same as an aural or ETD direct interval version the way I do it.
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OK.
As I said before, there is more than one way to accomplish the same goal. Last week Friday for fun, I tuned using the EBVT III and then checked the tenor section with my RCT set in its normal mode and everything in that section was less than 1¢ off. Most of it was right around 1/2¢ off or less or dead on with my RCT. So, either I tuned EBVT incorrectly, or I tuned it correctly, I'm not sure which being an amateur at this new tuning...
Any Thoughts?
Jer, If you tune a piano in the EBVT right at A-440 and there is an electronic keyboard near and its pitch is right at A-440, play both instruments from C3-C5 together as unisons. You will hear that many notes are dead on and the most difference there will be is just a slight wave between the two. When people talk about the compatibility of the piano tuned in the EBVT III with other instruments, particularly fixed pitched instruments, what I tell them is that the difference is internal to the piano itself. The piano is more in tune with itself and therefore it is compatible with all other instruments or voices.
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Bill:
It's not generated by tunelab, it's generated by me with my own software. Tunelab doesn't do anything except measure how close a pitch is to where I tell it that it should be. And I tell it to be where you say it should be. For example in the bass you stated that 5ths octaves, octaves and 5hs, and double octave all should sound good. So I just compute the four locations dictated by those four criteria and place the note in the center. Mindless octaves are easy, the can be computed precisely.
If you want to hear it you should send me some tunelab inharmonicity data taken from a particular piano, and I can generate a tunelab file which, when loaded, executes my instructions. Then tune electronically and evaluate the results. Or tune aurally and see if my pitches agree with yours. Several people have done so already, but no results are in yet.
If GPM sends me his IH data I can at least compare the output of my program against your aural tuning.
I don't know how well the results will be, but I'm curious to find out.
Kees
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Bill:
It's not generated by tunelab, it's generated by me with my own software. Kees, as I told you in another thread, even if you make your calculations with an independent software, strictly following Bill's aural intructions, you are taking: 1. Tunelab's iH constants measured for only a limited set of sample notes. 2. Tunelab's estimations of iH constants for all remaining notes 3. Tunelab's formula to calculate offsets for individual partials So you are doing you own calculations, yes, but from Tunelab's estimations, not from actual measured iH data. That is the reason I don't think you can get a close approximation of an aural tuned EBVT III. Couldn't you measure in your piano all the partials needed to do the calculations, instead of estimate them? I guess it will be worth the work involved. That way you'll get a really close to aural tuning.
Last edited by Gadzar; 06/08/10 01:25 AM.
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GPM,
I give up.
I have listened several times Il Postino 1 and 2 and I can not tell which is EBVT III.
Sorry.
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Rafael:
Instead of discussing what you think I am doing let me ask you a question: Are you of the opinion that you can't tune a good quality ET with tunelab?
Kees
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Off Thread... Sorry.
Bill,
Yes, I attended the seminar all together with another approximately 40 technicians of all the country, from Tijuana to Cancun.
It was dictated by Paul Rea, National Service Manager of Petrof USA LLC.
Unfortunately it was not on tuning but only on regulation and voicing. Very interesting. I learned a lot of new ways of doing things. Paul Rea taught from an empirical (not theoretical) perspective. It was a hands on seminar with a concert grand and a studio vertical piano. We regulated and voiced both actions. The concert grand was completely restaured in ocasion of this seminar.
Mr. Vargas (Pianos y Organos's owner) was there. He is now about 45 years old, maybe the person you knew was his father (rip). He continues to sell 1 to 3. (if in USA it costs 1 dollar you get it from Pianos y Organos for 3 dollars).
That's why I allways buy my stuff directly from the USA, even if I have to wait 2 or more weeks for delivery.
Pianos y Organos has a list of 500 technicians in Mexico, some in this list are passed away tough and of course there are also new technicians who are not listed there.
About a PTG chapter in Mexico, I guess it is not possible yet.
Last edited by Gadzar; 06/08/10 01:49 AM.
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Kees,
No. I believe you can tune a perfect temperament octave A3-A4 or F3-F4 in ET with Tunelab, if perfection exists.
But, I think it is all you can do right with Tunelab. As for the rest of the scale I've never got a satisfying tuning with Tunelab. I had allways to tweak something to have it sound right. Not that the octaves sounded wrong, no. But the piano sounded weird. I guess I've never found the correct stretching with Tunelab.
Maybe now it is different. Since I abandoned Tunelab it was updated and it has an automatic feature who optimizes the tuning curve, I've not tryed it.
With Verituner I used to have the same problems until I began experimenting with "Custom Styles", a Verituner's feature which allows you to customize the stretching of the octaves and/or other intervals all along the entire scale from A0 to C8, exactly as you want and where you want.
Thanks to Ron Koval and others from who I discovered the way to use and design Custom Styles!
But even with Custom Styles you have to match the selected style with the piano in turn as each piano has different iH and needs a particular stretching. If you don't do a correct match the tuning won't be right. And you'll have to tweak things. That's why I prefer aural tuning.
Last edited by Gadzar; 06/08/10 02:47 AM.
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Kees,
Now, if we find an efficient way to measure and store real iH data of all partials involved to calculate the 88 offsets needed by any ETD to store a tuning, then we can use this ETD to produce clinical tunings in any temperament we want.
Eliminating all that guessing introduced by mathematical models which never adjust very well to real imperfect world.
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Phil, Thanks - good to know I wasn't alone on my hunch. A better, and more difficult, comparison would be between an ET tuned with the same octave types as the EBVT! Exactly the point I was getting at! What's the point of comparing one temperament with a certain stretch to another temperament with a different stretch? Can EBVT III, or any temperament for that matter, take credit for the "in-tune-ness" of the high treble with the partials of the bass and mid-section? I submit: no, it can't. That's a matter of stretch. (In fact, by averaging the mindless octave between a 12th and a 15th, and building the octaves on top of one another (average of averages), I would guess that the unequal character of the temperament octave is actually "smeared" more towards ET in the high treble and low bass.) To put it differently: Bill tunes EBVT III in conjunction with mindless octaves. How would EBVT III sound with ... RCT OCT 5 stretch? ... 4:2 octaves? ... Stopper-type pure 15ths? With all due respect, I find it a bit misleading to state that because the high treble of the RCT tuning is flat, this means that ET is somehow inferior to EBVT III - the two temperaments weren't used at the same stretch! What should have been stated, to my mind, is that the stretch of the RCT tuning is inferior to the stretch of the EBVT III tuning.
Autodidact interested in piano technology.
1970 44" Ibach, daily music maker.
1977 "Ortega" 8' + 8' harpsichord (Rainer Schütze, Heidelberg)
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Off Thread... Sorry.
Bill,
Yes, I attended the seminar all together with another approximately 40 technicians of all the country, from Tijuana to Cancun.
It was dictated by Paul Rea, National Service Manager of Petrof USA LLC.
Unfortunately it was not on tuning but only on regulation and voicing. Very interesting. I learned a lot of new ways of doing things. Paul Rea taught from an empirical (not theoretical) perspective. It was a hands on seminar with a concert grand and a studio vertical piano. We regulated and voiced both actions. The concert grand was completely restaured in ocasion of this seminar.
Mr. Vargas (Pianos y Organos's owner) was there. He is now about 45 years old, maybe the person you knew was his father (rip). He continues to sell 1 to 3. (if in USA it costs 1 dollar you get it from Pianos y Organos for 3 dollars).
That's why I allways buy my stuff directly from the USA, even if I have to wait 2 or more weeks for delivery.
Pianos y Organos has a list of 500 technicians in Mexico, some in this list are passed away tough and of course there are also new technicians who are not listed there.
About a PTG chapter in Mexico, I guess it is not possible yet. Thanks for the run down, Rafael. Nothing seems to change in Mexico as far as that goes. The markup was worse than I thought. My friend in Chihuahua enlightened me a year ago or so on the question of "Why is Mexico so poor?"
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Phil, Thanks - good to know I wasn't alone on my hunch. A better, and more difficult, comparison would be between an ET tuned with the same octave types as the EBVT! Exactly the point I was getting at! What's the point of comparing one temperament with a certain stretch to another temperament with a different stretch? Can EBVT III, or any temperament for that matter, take credit for the "in-tune-ness" of the high treble with the partials of the bass and mid-section? I submit: no, it can't. That's a matter of stretch. (In fact, by averaging the mindless octave between a 12th and a 15th, and building the octaves on top of one another (average of averages), I would guess that the unequal character of the temperament octave is actually "smeared" more towards ET in the high treble and low bass.) To put it differently: Bill tunes EBVT III in conjunction with mindless octaves. How would EBVT III sound with ... RCT OCT 5 stretch? ... 4:2 octaves? ... Stopper-type pure 15ths? With all due respect, I find it a bit misleading to state that because the high treble of the RCT tuning is flat, this means that ET is somehow inferior to EBVT III - the two temperaments weren't used at the same stretch! What should have been stated, to my mind, is that the stretch of the RCT tuning is inferior to the stretch of the EBVT III tuning. Mark, if you use the same octave tuning procedure to tune ET that I use to tune the EBVT III, you will basically get standard practice. It is because the 5ths in the EBVT III are irregular that the octaves are irregular too. You can tune a nice ET and play that C Major arpeggio and get a nice sound, yes. When we tried that on Bernhard Stopper's tuning, there was a nice effect and a hint of that pipe organ sound that probably came from the way his partials nicely line up with his approach but there was not that full blown slowly pulsating wave effect that you hear with the EBVT III.
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Rafael:
Instead of discussing what you think I am doing let me ask you a question: Are you of the opinion that you can't tune a good quality ET with tunelab?
Kees
Kees, That is more or less a matter of opinion about what a good ET is. Basically the answer is, "yes" and it is "yes" with the SAT, Tunelab, RCT or Verituner. The users of each have their own reasons why they prefer the device or software they use. Ron Koval clearly thinks the Verituner is superior to all of the others. All of the Chicago area examiners use the Verituner yes when an exam master tuning is constructed, they still spend 4 hours correcting the Verituner generated tuning the same as they do any of the other devices. Aural tuning is great but a great aural tuning also depends on the skills of the aural tuner. Nick Mauel, Rafael and Patrick all do fine jobs but if any one of them did the preliminary tuning for a PTG exam master tuning, the exam committee would still spend four hours improving it the same as they would any ETD generated tuning. Absolute perfection in tuning and model of tuning, ET or non-ET with whatever stretch always gets to a point of diminishing returns for the amount of time it takes to get it from pretty good to almost perfect to damn near perfect but in the end, none really ever reaches an absolute point of perfection.
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