Tunelab has proven to be absolutely invaluable for raising pitch. Greatly reduces fatigue.

When I'm looking at a 100c pitch raise, I usually go the first time through with no overpull at all, which usually gets it around 20-30c flat. Then I do two more passes, one with overpull and then a fine tuning. Works well and I can complete all three passes usually within an hour. 15 minutes for pass 1, 15 for pass 2, then 30 for the tuning.

I agree, and love TuneLab. In my case, I use the 'average' setting without IH measurements for those types of raises, and do a complete two times through process which seems to work well (in most cases on the second pass I do the IH measurement et al)...occasionally a third touch up pass is needed, or if the piano warrants I'll do a no charge followup in a week or two to make sure it didn't drift...

But, two passes is my usual, and that's a HUGE advantage using TL!

RPD

Cool, RPD. I'm always leery about the 30c overpull, especially in the treble, which is why if the level of pitch raise would cause that much overpull, I usually do a quick run through without it. I may give it a shot sometime though!

I gotta tell you though, I used to absolutely despise pitch raises. Now they're effortless.

I don't know if effortless is the right word...but it is WAY better than it once was.

With TL, if it's a massive PR, I still do overpull, but depending on the age of the piano, I'll keep it in the 10% range, with a 5 % increase to 15% in the killer octave. Newer pianos are seldom that flat, so they always get 10-15% in the bass and 25% for the rest except for the high treble.

Some people consider a pitch raise with TL an adequate tuning, especially compared to how the pianos sounded when I arrived...

Dave,

Well, coupled with the CyberHammer, I also get no arm/shoulder fatigue from yanking the pins up to pitch. That's a huge help even without a pitch raise.

Thanks for sharing Loren; I'm a beginning tuner and I have to say, I like raising the pitch because it doesn't have to be accurate, and I don't have to use mutes. I still use the mutes on the initial temperament but once that is set it's just go go go! ps. I heed Art Reblitz' advice- if I don't have much experience do not go above A440.

My downfall when it came to pitch raising is I could never shake the habit of being too careful (trying to be too accurate). I'd forget I was raising pitch and bog down like I was doing a fine tuning. As a result, it just always was very tedious for me, tiring me out either aurally or physically. Now I just plow through it.

@Loren: I know what you're saying. I dwell far too long on first and second passes earlier. Still doing them a bit too carefully (read: slowly), but I'm getting way better.

Bill Bremmer helped me get in the right mindset with his quote ( Defenbaugh, maybe?) "you can tune a piano much easier twice than you can fight it once."

Then there was this other forum poster, too (can't remember who it was) who said something in the line of "try to treat every pass as the former pass in case of speed". That is, do not get stuck in details the closer you get to your desired end result. On that single advice, I cut 30 minutes with negligible loss in tuning quality.

I have wasted time and effort on first passes. Now I just quickly bang up all strings by feel, checking only about one string per octave or so by pitch. Second pass is a quick tune to pitch. Third pass is a fine tune. Old pianos require more care however.