Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum Any Stretch Ideas?On a 4"7' Wurlitzer Grand

Well I have a new curse in life I guess.I have a 4"7' Wurlitzer as well as a Kohler &Cam the same size.Worthless pieces of (oh well).I have tried little stretch lots of stretch etc.I have done by ear with Tunelab as well and it's always the bass strings.Any Advice???? You know, theses pianos have become the new Wurlitzer Spinet !
Zoot

"...and it's always the bass strings"

Is it that the bass strings have so many false beats that you cannot get a clear bass? Or, is it really just getting the octaves to match well not just in the bass, but getting them to match with the very lowest and highest notes?

If it's false beats, you could try things that have been suggested here on this forum before...
Make sure the strings are seated, make sure the hammers are making good contact with both strings, etc.

When tuning aurally, I first expand the temperament downwards for about 2 octaves. Then I start expanding upwards. I use the bass to limit the stretch on the higher notes to prevent overly fast beating on the RBI's.

Also, by tuning into the bass first, I avoid overly stretched treble octaves that I may use for comparison when tuning into the bass. This prevents an overly sharp bass.

However, sometimes you just have to follow where the piano leads you. You have to let the piano tell you. You might need to go with more stretch in the treble and less in the bass.

Good luck!
-Joe

Ideal stretch would be from 4'7" out to about 5'2" or so . . .

If you use a tuning based on acoustically pur eintervals, the flaws of the piano are hidden.

That kind of piano can be the opportunity to test "pure 5th or pure 12th"

I would tune CHAS but it have to be learned and understood.

Tuning pure 5th is relatively easy, because you get rid of the octave tuning rules (octaves can beat) you have more freeness. (and the 5th is a well know interval possible with one hand (not as pure 12)

generally speaking once the mediums are in a good pattern, the basses will flow easily.

An experimented tuner could tune directly M 3ds or 10ths, in the basses, in case the piano is not helping

Joe, it is easier to me tune the basses once the long bridge is tuned (hence more consonant) this is because I listen to consonance , I need upper notes to be exited when I tune below (the same thing happens in the other direction, when I am tuning in the 5th octave , I hear something coming from the notes in the mediums)

The basses can be tensed first in case of pitch raising, but you get more answer from the mediums to tune the basses last (or make a second pass there)

Did you notice that the last notes of the long bridge raise a bit when the basses are tuned(1-3 notes)

I have tuned the basses first for a long time, but I was more in the RBI intervals priority at those times.

That is very strange but I never listen anymore directly to 6:3 8:4 10:5 12:6, etc when tuning basses. 5ths yes , progressiveness,(M3, M10, M6) also, but octaves only may be enough due to the global straightening of the railsback curve.

Not listening long, having a good answer immediately during the initial bump of the hammer on the strings, provide yet justness, care must be taken not to compact too much the octaves then but the process use tone quality directly

Hi Isaac, When I tune by ear, more often than not I re-tune and re-tune until I get everything correct. I try to get a good balance of the close and far octaves when tuning by ear. The thing I need to be careful about is RBI's in the two octaves above the temperament octave. Of course, they need to beat fast. But care is needed (IMO) to find the right balance between energized RBI's and harsh RBI's.



Absolutely! I do notice that the bass bridge will affect the lower notes on the long bridge. Even when I tune by ear, I often will make a first pass by machine to level everything out to try to minimize this.

When I tune by ear, I like to set my initial temperament from D3 to D4, especially on small pianos. This way, some wound strings and both bridges are already considered in the initial temperament.

THe RBI's, the SBI's... It's all about reaching the best compromise possible

When tuning by ear, I'm pretty much the same. The piano will tell you what octave-type it wants to have priority.

In fact, I'm not sure close analysis of octave types are that significant when tuning by ear. I remember being told a theory many years ago that you are not actually listening to matching partials when tuning a piano. You are actually hearing the sum total of the movement of the board, not individual partials. The perception of individual partials is an illusion.

Edit: I "think" the idea is that the string produces partials. But, the soundboard itself merely moves according to the sum total of all the input it receives. We hear the soundboard when we tune, not the strings.

Edit: Basically, you have one very complicated wave coming off the board, not multiple waves.

Edit: This is probably why someone can have a very weak understanding about tuning theory and yet do wonderful work.


The lower the note, the more I care about how it blossoms and sustains. With the very high notes, I care more about the initial impact. I also care about the tail ends of the high notes and will clean them up as much as possible.. But in the very high treble, the initial impact has priority for me.

-Joe

When using Tunelab on smaller pianos, I like to tune the wound strings by ear, and leave the steel strings to Tunelab. If tuning by ear, I'll blend in the wound strings with the treble in an F3-f4 temperament, often stretched quite a bit. With experience, these small grands (and small spinets) become easy to tune. There are plenty of them around as well. Oh, and there are worse pianos to tune than Wurlie spinets. Plenty of those too.

Win! (When I saw the title, I thought that 6' would be a nice number, but ... yea, ... 5'2" is probably more realistic. There's a limit to how far you can stretch cast iron.)

zoot,

Do you need to use ET? If not, you might want to experiment with the Moscow Equal-Beating Pythagorean Temperament.

According the the rollingball.com site:
quote: Charles E Moscow Equal-Beating Pythagorean Temperament of 1895 - Moscow sought the “easiest to tune equal-beating temperament ever devised.” --and had no problem selling this temperament to musicians and calling it equal temperament in 1895.

Edit: Unlike a lot of other UT's, I haven't really noticed much of a change in resonance when using the Moscow EBPT.

This should be a lot easier to expand outward if ET is not necessary. You could try a UT that makes the octaves sound balanced across the keyboard, even when comparing the very low notes to the very high notes, rather than a good ET that sounds incorrect because scaling issues are making it difficult to get octaves that blend well across the keyboard.

You could also try the Zanzibar, unmanaged, tertiary, equidistant, polythematic temperament. I used it by mistake once in a hurried brush-up before a jazz concert. I left the "D" out of the temperament checks. The artist was fascinated. He actually liked it, and that reduced my red face by several shades.

I think there's a way to do this: http://www.finehomebuilding.com/item/22728/how-to-save-a-miscut-board-from-the-scrap-bin

Or, he could actually try this and see for himself.

All 5ths are either pure or beat at the same rate of 1.4 beats per second. Use octaves and 5ths to expand the temperament over the keyboard, and checking with double octaves, triple octaves and so on, as well as octave + 5th, double octave + 5th, etc., to make sure the keyboard balances well. Throw some 4ths in as well as making sure the 3rds don't become obnoxious. What could be easier? And, what other temperament would give more wiggle room to finesse things a bit if necessary?

Tune pure 12ths on the unwound strings. Then expand the temperament down into the wound strings by playing both the octave and the twelfth above the note being tuned That is, play A2, A3 and E4 all at the same time while tuning A2. Go for the most resonant or the "least bad" spot. You will need some kind of spanner to reach the twelfth and then use a finger for the octave.

No, the piano will not sound great, but about the best it can...