Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum Suggestion for tuning kit...

Hi,
can someone suggest a beginners tuning kit??
thanks

Depends on your method:

ETD?

Aural?
- with mute strip?
- single open unisons?
- double open unisons?

Agreeing with Mark, that there are all sorts of possibilities, depending on the direction you intend. What does your teacher/mentor say? Or your textbook or other written resource?

Search the archive for this forum for an offer on the Dan Levitan standard lever then add mutes etc. to your order.

Pianotek will sell the Levitan utility lever to non-professionals. It is a very good high quality lever and only $55. An excellent choice if you're just learning to tune and don't want to invest too much just yet. Throw in some rubber or felt wedge mutes (these can be had cheaply on ebay) and that's all you will likely need to purchase. I would suggest learning with an electronic tuner. Entropy piano tuner software is free, and arguably produces better tunings than many other electronic tuning devices. The onboard microphone in your laptop / ipad / iphone may be good enough to start with, or you may wish to purchase a cheap external USB condenser microphone which will improve the tuning calculation.

I'd say start with the best quality tools you can afford, but this is ultimately a selection that you need to work on yourself. No one but you will know what your ultimate goal in piano work is, and what you prefer for tools, and what your level of commitment is.

At the top of this page on the right is a link to Piano World's online music store. You can find basic tuning tool sets there. It's a place to start. Here's a link - Piano Supplies - Piano World

Thanks everyone!!

heyjb, can you put us in the picture a little more?
Are the tools for you? Or someone else?
Are they with a particular piano in mind to practice on? Upright? (Birdcage??) Grand?
Is it just for touching up the odd faulty unison between professional tunings, or is it for someone hoping eventually to make a career?

As I don't know what part of the world I cannot answer

A good tip for the piano(s) tuning pins you will train on is a necessity.

heyjb it would be much appreciated if you could take the time to tell us a little more about what the intended use of the kit will be.

I'm not sure why you are thanking us. No one has given any specifics re: your method because you haven't told us what it will be.

The suggestions given are incomplete because they all have left out the Papps mutes and the mute strip, if we must list all possible tools, which we must because you have not given us any information re: your method.

Nor is likely to now, I fear.

Sigh, whatever happened to manners?

I would suggest before thinking about the toolkit, study seriously some of the online material about tuning techniques, particularly the handy videos on youtube.

The minimum you can start with would be a decent tuning hammer (lever, key, wrench or whatever else you want to call it), and a couple rubber mutes.

There's a lot of discussion about tuning hammers, mainly along the lines "the dearer the better" but I'd say as a minimum get yourself something with a star rather than a square head.
As to mutes, I like the sort which have wire handles, and suggest you get some string and tie both together, it might just help reduce the possibility of losing them inside a piano. The other sort is like spring loaded tweezers. They can be handy at points of the piano where the strings are short (at top of the keyboard). I also have a temperament strip, which is quite useful, but care has to be taken not to be using a sharp instrument to push it in as the soundboard could too easily get damaged.

As to aural or electronic tuning, if you want your piano to be the same as other instruments used in the home, you will want a way of finding the true A4 or middle C pitch. So that means a tuning fork, or electronics.

So, in summary, the minimum you can get away with, is a proper tuning hammer (NOT a socket set!), a couple of mutes, and your pitch reference! Everything else be it a chormatic tuner, shareware tuning software (I would suggest AP Tuner, or Entropy or Tunelab) or something more elaborate (eg Verituner, Cybertuner etc) which may have considerable cost in view of their capabilities, is optional. But you really do need to know a bit about dealing with inharmonicity if you want to use electronics.

Nobody who knows much about tuning would suggest a £10 or $15 kit off Amazon or eBay will prove satisfactory, you will need to invest rather more than that!

Best luck.

There is little point in our continuing to be generous with out time and information when the original poster has been so miserly with his.

Ray Foster, welcome to this Forum! I am sure you will find it a friendly and helpful place.

Hello David

I agree. And how many people who buy a DIY kit soon end up having to call in a tuner because they get into a worse mess? lol


Hope you've avoided storm Abigail, as I note you are west side of Scotland. (whereas I'm south coast of England).

I had not heard about Abigail! I am typing this in the white-roofed building here:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Layla+Saudi+Arabia/@22.3138435,46.6991518,355m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x3e2253793d63708b:0x95371b0bc37d3752

.... while the OP was miserly with his time, I'm glad all of you were generous with yours; This is exactly the advise/information I am seeking.

My son doesn't have professional tech aspirations. For about 6 years now, he has kept a few uprights playable, and made others (badly out of whack) useful again.
I won't say he "tunes" them, because we know better.
He's currently a 2nd year voice major.

Questions:
Will a Levitan utility lever be adequate for infrequent use on a grand? Specifically M&H BB?

Other lever recommendations?
We're not stuck in the "bargain basement". In fact, I've found when learning something new, folks often benefit the most from good tools. On the other hand, we don't have any Snap-On tools in our tool boxes… (but I do have a class-act welding machine :))

What additional tips should be included?

Are there any reasons Not to use an ETD?
Some time ago, there seemed to be a consensus that one should start tuning aurally before using an ETD, what do you think now?

Here's what we have now:
bunch of mutes, a couple temperament strips, a couple good forks, tone generator, CyberHammer 200 (rubber handle) & weight riser, and the Dreaded 3/8" breaker bar w/extension. Also have an older macbook around

He's had some good experience, including breaking/replacing a couple strings, he would like to do more/better, and Christmas is approaching…

Many Thanks for your time and consideration!

A novice will get better results using high quality tools while a pro can often work around the deficiencies of a cheap tool. I use a Fujan lever but several times, I forgot it and had to use my flexi-heavy piano factory style tuning lever. What was the difference? Very little other than it took me about a third longer to tune the pianos.

The Levitan levers are all highly spoken of, and I am sure the Utility one would be fine for what your son needs, TheBead.

I don't think there is any reason for him not to use an ETD. Actually that acronym is not so relevant now, since we don't use an Electronic Tuning Device as such, but a Digital Tuning Program running on a smartphone. So maybe now it should be DTP!

There are standalone devices of various types, of course; little chromatic tuners and so forth. But you can download a trial version of the excellent Tunelab for free onto a smartphone or tablet or laptop.

I say all the best to your son, and I commend his interest and enterprise. I am sure we will be happy to help with any technical queries that come along. He might think about buying the Haynes Piano Manual, which is unique in being illustrated in full colour throughout, and is not expensive, being aimed at a mass market.

Thank you David!

I will proceed w/the Levitan utility hammer & Haynes Piano Manual.

Son is very tech literate, so I'll suggest he gets Tunelab (free version) running on his old Ipad or phone and Entropy running on an older macbook or an old pc laptop running Ubuntu.

Remaining Question:
The CyberHammer 200 we have came with a 1" Watanabe #1 star tip...

What other tip/s would you suggest I obtain when I order the Levitan utility lever?
(I'm hoping/guessing tips will fit on both levers?)

This really helps, Thanks Again!