Incidentally this is my first post here, so hello everybody. I've been benefiting greatly from some of the very professional information here that I don't have in my correspondance course I am taking with Randy Potter. This is not to say the course isn't good, it is very comprehensive, although some questions need various perspectives as you all must know. So, I have called Randy numerous times to clarify some things about temperament tuning. At first it's easy to listen to the wrong things, and frustration led me to phoning him a few times. Unfortunately, the majority of the time talking with him was spent on him explaning that I need to get an accutuner because otherwise: 1) It's impossible to set a perfect temperment (like the accutuner does) and 2) If I don't buy a $1,300 accutuner from him that I won't be able to get out there and start tuning (and feel ok about my tunings) until I tune 500-1000 pianos. Now I probably only tuned the Potter F-A temperament about 50-100 times, and my complete piano about 15 times but I would like to get out there and at least tune some pianos in a couple of months without an accutuner and for pay with their knowledge that I will come back (as Randy suggests) and do a touch up tuning for free a few months later. Does anybody have any feelings about Randy's above comments? Should I not be tuning people's pianos for pay until I am able to pass the PTG exam? Perhaps someone would be willing to share their initial experience(s) in the field of tuning.

Best,

Jordan

Jordan,

My background is that I learned to tune by ear and did so for well over 25 years, and now I use a Verituner.

I might quibble with some details of what Randy said, but overall I agree with the general concept.

IF you had a real live and very good piano tuning teacher to work with you extensively in person, you could probably get to be a good ear tuner in a much shorter period of time.

But being stuck with a correspondence course and trying to figure it out on your own, it will indeed be a very long time until you are truly good.

Also, you will find most of your tuning jobs are actually pitch corrections (more than 5 cents out of tune), which require you to overshoot the pitch by different amounts in different sections in anticipation of how much it can be expected to fall. Doing a 'regular' tuning by ear is hard enough for a beginner. Overpulling accurately for pitch raises is much worse. And unfair for a customer to pay if you don't know how to do it well. However, it's easy with a machine. Again, this will apply in the majority of jobs you get.

If you go straight in and do a fine tuning on a piano that really needs overspulling, you are going to leave a lousy sounding piano.

If you got a machine, it could also serve as a kind of stand-in teacher, as you check your ear tuning results against the machine. This fast feedback can help you learn ear tuning faster and better. But I feel you shouldn't be charging for ear tuning unless it's darn close to being as good as the machine can resolve it, and you also shouldn't be charging for a machine tuning unless you know enough by ear to judge the tuning and make any necessary ear corrections. Even though I use a Verituner, I do have to switch to ear tuning for various things.

I agree it's not right to take money for your work until you are in control of your craft, however you accomplish it. I very strongly feel that needs to include not only having a good handle on how to deal with tuning pianos in a wide variety of conditions and get predictable results (which sitting home working on one piano will not teach you) but that you also have to have a very good handle on the mechanical end (action, etc). Because the vast majority of pianos I see have issues (small and large) beyond tuning. I can't remember the last time I just tuned a piano and nothing else. These problems often do not conform to 'book learning' scenarios. And we've got way too many 'tooners' out there who just disregard all these other issues, because they thought that they mainly needed to learn how to tune.

I think one should not call ones self a 'pro' until you know how to deal with the whole piano in an effective and predictable way. I don't think the public should have to pay for their pianos to be some beginner's 'learning experience'.

I will add that as your aural tuning skills develop you will find that your ear will tell you where to put the note earlier in the learning process. Making the note stay where you put it is another story and this is where your reputation can take a hit.
Consider that you could rely on an etd to get you out there making money asap. If you are getting called back for touchups or not getting called back because the piano went out of tune within days or weeks - well - your name is on it.
There are many different pianos out there and the feel of the pin in the block is different for most of them. Some of the more challenging aspects of tuning is stability and in my opinion this is much more difficult and time consuming to learn than listening.

Jordan, the CT chapter Piano Technicians Guild is having its next meeting on Wed, Sept 20th, at Shawns Piano (i think i get to help do the technical )

In any case, please consider yourself invited to attend. There are a number of folks in our chapter currently that are in your exact position. The rest have been there, and are just about to a person, happy to share with you whatever insights/experiences they may have.

The Randy Potter course is great by all accounts I have heard. However, there is experience, and guidance that cannot be done through phone/mail alone that will help you put the education you are getting from his course into context, thus helping you to become more proficient.

I wish you all the best, and hope to see you there

Rich

please see www.ptg.org

Jordan, you might consider getting Tunelab - The price is much less than an accu-tuner. Tunelab has a nice overpull program which will teach you the basics of pitch raising and overpull. It can also set a basic temperment that would be useful to help you learn. Joining the PTG and attending meetings and seminars is important so I hope you take Rich up on his invitation. You might find a mentor that can work with you for a few hours. That kind of help is invaluable for the new tuner.

Thank you Rich, Bob, Scutch and Brick for your replies.

Rich, thank you especially for the invitation. I emailed David Geisler for information on this months meeting. I look forward to attending.

Bob I'll have to look into TuneLab. It's good to know there are choices out there concerning the ETDs.

When it comes down to it, I would like to be tuning aurally as much as possible, because I enjoy it. I also didn't want to spend the grand on something I would only want to use as a learning device and later not use when I got good enough aurally. I had read in the course about how accurate you can be with pitch raises using the accutuner, but I didn't know it was something that would be continuously purposeful in practice. I thought that once you learned these things that a device wouldn't be any more conveinient than using your own experience. Thank you all for clarifying that this isn't necessarily true.

Jordan

Bob,

I just visited your home page and noticed that you tune aurally. You also mention that aural tunings sound better. This is also nice to hear considering I too would like to eventually be tuning strictly aurally. What do you think of the idea that ETDs tune perfect temperaments uncomparable to aurally tuned temperaments? Do you use an ETD for pitch raises?

The American School of Piano Tuning is a correspondance course right? Did you learn tuning using an ETD and later abandon it? Also, what was your first couple of years tuning like after graduating? Sorry to pry, I was just happy to see that you took a correspondance course (if im right) as well.

Jordan

Jordan,

An Accutuner or other ETD can give acceptable, professional results, but there's a learning curve for each one, and you still need to do unisons by ear.

We can't really answer your question about your aural tuning without knowing how good it is. That's exactly the purpose of the RPT exams: to test your tuning against a standard, both for quality and for time. How long does it take you to tune a whole piano?

It's quite possible to set an accurate temperament by ear; I often do better than TuneLab does. An ETD is not necessary.

However, I still use TuneLab for pitch raises, because it does such an excellent job of predicting the interaction of the note your tuning on the octave in front of and behind what you've done. Then I go ahead and fine-tune by ear. It's quite possible to pitch raise by ear, but it takes skill and practice.

A good place to start tuning is to do new pianos on a showroom floor for a dealer. You generally don't have repair problems to deal with; you can take as long as you need; and in the worst case, the piano will be tuned again in a month or two anyway.

--Cy--

Cy,

It takes me about three and a half hours (sometimes a bit more) on average to tune my piano. I feel that I do a good job, (maybe need to work on setting strings better, but unisons sound good and progression and digression of beat rates is fairly smooth) but I have no device to test against. I have been practicing and studying for about 4-6 hrs a day on tuning 5 day/week for about 4 months. I know I need to work on speed but I feel that my accuracy is getting decently good. Thanks for the advice on tuning in a showroom, theres one in my town that I've considered applying to once I'm better.

Best,

Jordan

You have two devices to test your tuning: they are on the sides of your head. You can read many of the topics about ETDs here, and you will find that people who use them are no more certain about what they are doing than people who rely on their ears. Listen to a digital instrument, and you may find that you are already hearing and tuning as well or better than one can do with electronics.

Nothing is perfect. There are differences between how well a piano can be tuned, and how well other instruments can be tuned. The quality of your tunings may already surpass what can be done on some instruments. Really, the difficult part of tuning is getting the pins to stay where you want them, to get the strings that you have tuned to stay tuned. That takes more practice than hearing what you are doing. In fact, if you cannot do that well, you limit how well you can tune, no matter whether you tune by ear, or with a device.

I don't think aural tunings sound better. Actually I find it incredible how you can get the same result either way- at least with my VeriTuner. For all the endless arguments back and forth on this subject, that is what I find. Good aural tuning and good ETD tuning yield the same result.

Of course a tuner who is exclusively aural can claim it "sounds" better without defining what that means. And if you don't define what that means, there's no way to argue with it. Plus a lot of consumers are predisposed to believe that, so it's good hype in an ad if aural tuning is what you offer.

However what I am saying is something that can be demonstrated. If I do an aural tuning, then test the tuning with an ETD and find it's within 1 cent of where the ETD would put it, on what basis does it "sound better"?

Less experienced tuners typically get better results with the ETD.

However I find using the ETD makes the work less stressful, and believe me aural tuning can get stressful. If tuning becomes your life, reducing the stress factor is a significant thing. The ETD also frees me up to concentrate more on stability technique thus saving a lot of 'do overs' when I go back and double check the tuning.

I am sure there are going to be some low opinions of this but I have been using the cheap Intelli Tuner - Digital Chromatic Auto Tuner to help me learn to tune. I can already feel the cringes out there but please don't shoot! . It has helped me bring a piano that was below 430 back up to 440. I play a note and it tells me where I am in the scale. Now I would not use this to tune the entire piano. In fact I tried using it for as many notes that it could register but this little device doesn't allow for stretching and all the upper notes sounded flat when I finished. What I use it for now is to set A below middle C to A above and then I tune the octaves aurally. What I have found is that once I did it that way I got pretty nice sound out of the notes, nothing flat. I also believe that learning to set the pins is of higher importance and am concentraing more on that now. I think this is one way to get started. I am slowly buying more expensive items for piano tech work as I get deeper into it but I doubt that I would spend 1300 on a device for tuning simply because tuning is not my major interest.

It sounds to me like Randy wants to sell or rent Accutuners. I took his course and generally liked it but I got much better and more independant advice about ETDs elsewhere. That's his weak point in my opinion.

FYI Randy is indeed an SAT dealer. Obviously it's because he believes in it, but it's good to hear other opinions.

Thanks everyone for your opinions, and Jordan for asking, because this is a big issue for me as well. I had pretty much decided to delay getting an ETD, but I think I'm going to need it for pitch raises, so I may get it sooner than I thought.

Anne

Thanks everyone for your thoughts. BDB, thanks for the thoughts on aural tuning and setting strings and pins; that goes a long way. And yes your'e absolutely right about the two things on the sides of my head being great things to check my tuning against! Nice comment.

On the off topic of pitch raises. The Potter school dosn't have too much to say about aural pitch raising. I noticed a detailed page from Al Sanderson about using a device to calculate the overshoot but how do you do it aurally? Is it just a matter of learning the feel? Or is there a particular method involved? Anne, have you done pitch raises yet?

Jordan

I don't know about the 500-1000 tunings - 500 tunings is a big gap. But JordanE, if you look at some of my posts you will see that I too am a Potter Student (actually completed the course now). I really struggled with the issue of whether or not to get, trust, use, etc a SAT III. I had been using the trial version of TuneLab and was starting to work with client tunings. The laptop was cumbersome and awkward. I started working in a store with a mentor. I used his SAT III for 2 hours and I was hooked.

I too talked with Randy about the meter - the truth is - at this stage I am doing a better job AND training my ears better with the SAT III. I am becoming more and more comfortable hearing with or without looking at the meter. Using it however, does save some time. You get in the ball park with your eyes and then use your ears/eyes together. Then tune your unisons by ear. The unit is so compact and the battery lasts forever (weeks) before recharging. Its not the only way out there - but its working well for me.

I am looking forward to using it to help me prepare for the RPT exams

Interesting subject...I have been using an ETD for close to 2 years now, having never tuned a piano before that....most of you have prob read my posts.

I agree with Brick, I can do a very good job on my grand piano that anyone would be hard pressed to improve upon...they could change the stretch, and that would possibly improve the sound, but it's all subjective.

I have learned to hear, as a result of this ETD, out of tune unisons and octaves. I can now tune those by ear, and when I do check them with the ETD, they are right on the mark....that's been rewarding. So, having an ETD does help train the ear if you know what to listen for.

Good luck Jordan, sounds like you will have a comfortable time with it. Btw, I don't tune professionally, just my own grand piano and a few friends grands.

On another note, who out there uses the Reyburn Cyber Tuner, and if so, how does it compare to say the Sat III or the Veritune, or any of the others. I am thinking about getting a different ETD, as the one I have only replicates good aural tunings and can't take any measurements.


GP

GP, for your purposes, any of the above will bring you far ahead of your current ETD. You may be able to find a used ETD at a significantly reduced $$

Search this forum. ETDs have been discussed a lot here.

--Cy--

Thaks Rich, I am sure I could improve my tunings with a different ETD, hence my question about the Reyburn Cyber Tuner, among others.

Cy, there seems to be very little info about it here on PW after doing a search.

I was curious if anyone here has had any hands on experience with it.

GP

Ok, here goes!

I see 4 current options in the market

1 Sanderson accutuner (SAT)
2 Reyburn Cyber tuner (RCT)
3 Tunelab (TL)
4 Verituner(VT)

The first three are all single-partial tuning machines, though they can be combined, or switched to test in a multi-partial manner. The VT is the only one I'd trust to calculate a tuning to be placed on a piano without aural checks.... it can be THAT good.

That being said....

RCT looks the coolest, and has about the best pitch-adjustment program.

TL allows the user to pitch-raise without muting the piano - way cool!

RCT, TL and VT are all available on the pocket pc platform. VT requires a really fast machine to access all of the available partial measurements.

TL saves the files in a format that allows for easy access via excel.

SAT is the most durable dedicated device with the longest battery life.

VT has a "speedometer" needle, allowing for easy reading of how far flat or sharp a note is.

Pretty much all of them allow for measuring and replicating any existing tuning.

SAT and RCT are probably the clearest to read from end to end of the piano.

The advantage of a software tuner is that if the hardware crashes, it's a snap to get up and running again on another 'puter. (I backed over my pocket pc once!)


Ok, somebody else's turn!

Great info Ron, thanks! Have you tried all the ones you mentioned?

If anyone else chimes in, I would be interested to hear about their hands on experience with the RCT.

Thanks,

GP

Years with RCT and Verituner, A few times with SAT, and sporadic use with different versions of Tunelab.

Maybe the most important question....

What do YOU expect from an electronic tuning device? Answer that, and it will make choosing that much easier.

Let's see... RCT (in the full laptop version)
full support of temperaments, both preloaded and user designed

custom equalizer - kindof a slider approach to adjusting the tuning almost octave by octave. This is where I first started my "setting the A's" approach - then letting the machine fill in all the notes between.

Probably the best sampling routine. 5? (sorry, it has been awhile)notes are pre-selected to be sampled. Each note is sampled three times, with a numeric indicater to show how much difference there was between samples. Obviously, the goal is for the minimum of varience between samples.

A great intuitive display... the spinner both rotates, and moves to the left or right to show larger amounts of out-of-tuneness. In addition, there is a "blush" to indicate a note very close to matching the calculation.

Choice of colors for spinners -

Awesome pitch raise portion - gives you the best chance to match the calculation after a single tuning pass.

Keyboard display shows note being tuned, as well as partial being used to tune. Helps make sure you are in the right place!

RCT lets you select different octave styles for every octave in the piano. TL only has two. RCT is a little more complicated, with the three or four different programs. TL has the tuning curve editor that you have to figure out. RCT does a better job of telling you when your samples are bad. But in my opinion, RCT isn't $600 better than TL. TL has a great pitch raise feature.

Verituner (software) is the easiest to get going out of the box, and gives great results. I prefer the TL user interface, personally, because it's got less motion in it. I don't know what it costs; I think it's over $1,000.

The SAT lights drive me nuts. It doesn't do as good a job of pitch-raising as the others.

I'm very happy with TuneLab Pocket and my $75 used iPaq (3850). That's all I use it for.

--Cy--

Cy's got a good point about the pocket pc's. I've gotten two of them off of Craigslist - I had to spend a bit more for one fast enough to run the pocket verituner, but just a basic one works fine for TL or RCT.

TL also gives you raw data as you sample - it's up to you to watch for varience between samples. You can do the same as RCT, it's just not automated.

Since each platform has different default partials for different parts of the scale, each ends up with a little different tuning.

I never could figure out how to adjust the width of the A3-A4 octave with TL... but I didn't start messing with the Ih constant number either.

Ron,

Here's how you'd set A3-A4 in TL:

- On A3, edit the settings to have a custom offset for this note, say -0.5 cents.

- In the tuning curve editor, choose the option that custom offsets don't move with the tuning curve (they stay fixed). They appear in red.

- Edit the tuning curve so that it goes through the custom A3 offset you want. This may require tweaking the curve up and down, and/or switching to a different octave style.

Another cool use of the tuning curve is when you test your aural tunings. Your measured offsets show up in red against the tuning curve, so it gives you a nice visual of how close you got.

--Cy--

GP, if you're interested in RCT consider ordering the free video and info pack:

http://www.reyburn.com/info.html

I think Verituner Pocket and RCT are priced the same, at $895.00.

Jeff

Ooops. I just saw for the first time that one has to be in the trade to get the video free of charge. I'm in a hurry, so I couldn't look around enough to find what the price is for non-pros. The video is very comprehensive though, telling all about what RCT does and how to use it.

Jeff

Cy,

Thanks for the tip... I think that's what I was trying, but with the arrows, couldn't get the curve to overlap the red offset. I think I needed a narrower octave... I had all of the arrows active, yet no combination would move the A3 sharper.

Hello All,
This is my first post. I would like to sing the praises of the SAT. I have been tuning for about 13 yrs and have used the SAT for most of that time. Consider this, tuning forks are subject to temperature changes and can not always be exact. Using the Sat for setting temperment, then setting the unisons by ear is a very happy medium for tuning. It is very helpful for pitch raises. If the piano is 60 cents flat, you can set the SAT for 30 cents flat then just tune as normal. It takes all the work out of pitch raising. If you begin tuning for a dealer, it is very common to get pianos that are a half step flat right out of the box. Ive had my SAT forever and i only charge the battery about twice a month. As far as the RCT, It is very cool but not neccessary. by the way Randy Potter is the most knowledgable Tech ive ever met and I wouldnt hesitate to trust him.Also, If you do begin tuning for a dealer speed is important.

Aluminum tuning forks vary quite a bit by temperature, but steel forks are quite accurate, certainly well within the tolerances of other musical instruments. One should only use steel forks for anything which requires any degree of accuracy. If you do, it will probably be within the tolerances of even a piano as long as you are within a range of 60-80° F.

The change in steel forks is close to one cent for every 7° F temperature change. (Temperature goes up, pitch goes down.) So a temperature range of 20° produces about 3 cents change in the fork. If you consider 3 cents to be small, then OK. But if you consider 3 cents to be a significant error, then you better keep closer control over the temperature of that fork.

Robert Scott
Ypsilanti, Michigan

Body temperature is pretty stable....

My small steel cheapie gets held under my arm for a bit to warm up - it's stayed constant for decades.