Hi, I know here are a lot of professional technician, any one can pease help me by give advice that if by Peterson 490 ST at abt $580 , is it a better idea than buying Sanderson II abt $1300, ?

and I like to know if Peterson can 100% read all 8 octaves, including high section of the piano ?
From C7 to C8 ?
Any good reason, spent double money to buy Sanderson Accu tuner ? thanks in advance
GF

But the Sanderson SAT 3 not the 2. It is $1700 and worth every penny. You will NOT regret it..............

Hi, thks Thomas, I still like to know if any pro-tuner use Perterson instead of Sanderson SAT ?

I know SAT III is better, however, too expensive
any further comment on actual function compare
between them ( Peterson and sanderson) will only convince me..

B Regards

I have a Peterson collecting dust. I went to Tunelab a year ago and it is far better. Now I'm using the Verituner. Great machine. The Sat 3 I'm sure is very good, but never used one. For the money, Tunelab is hard to beat. Unless you want an expensive paperweight, don't buy the Peterson.

Hi, Ralph, thanks a lot, for your valuable comment, could you also please ive me indiction where to find Tunelab, a/o Verituner ? and about how much cost, if I can know the suppliers web site address to get technical details ?
Sincerely

PV

www.veritune.com You will not find a better machine.

I have not used the Verituner. I have used the SAT 3 for thousands of pianos.. It is sturdy dependeable and absolutely 1st rate. I cannot over emphasize that you really no not need to even consider the Peterson. One other option is the Rayburn Cyber tuner for Pocket PC. You can buy the Pocket PC for about $300 and the program costs $800.. It is a good system. Especially for pitch raises..

I understand that Tunelab has a program f0or Pocket PC for about $395. That is also a good option

You can download a free trial of TuneLab from

www.tunelab-world.com

The price is $340.

Robert Scott
Real-Time Specialties
(TuneLab)

A tiny bit of explaining might help:

The puzzle in tuning a piano is to make the tuning "fit" the instrument, due to both personal preference, and the individual inharmonicity of each pianos strings.

The Peterson (and the Korg MT-1200) uses templates, or generic tuning curves to give the tuner a few options, in hopes of finding one that might come close to matching the piano. Some pianos might work out fine, however, most will require adjustments to the tuning to get the intervals to work properly.

The SAT, Cybertuner, and Tunelab allow for the measurement of the inharmonicity of differing number of notes to predict the inharmonicity of each note of the entire piano. The tuning calculation is based on a lot of research, and each machine has it's strengths, and differing amounts of flexibility and ease of use. Once the inharmonicity has been predicted, the machine will focus (listen) to a single partial to assist in tuning. Jumps in inharmonicity due to stringing changes cause mismatches in tuning, especially with more "challenging" instruments.

The Verituner is a newer technology that seeks to use both more measuring of the inharmonicity, and 'listening' to multiple partials at the same time to assist with a better matching tuning.

There are weight differences, ease-of-use issues, durability concerns, and flexibility benefits that make each of these units valued additions to technicians tool cases.

Ron Koval

Hi, Mr Ron Koval,

Thanks for your very knowelgable input,
it really helpful to me,
The situation here is, I never 100% satisfied
with the result of tuning, either by so many
different tuners ( from local in this business
seems professional , may not PTG...they using SAT, or Cyber, ) and or by my
self, on my own pianos ( new Baldwin grand L, and
old yamaha) may be due to my very sharp ear, and high personal expection as both violinist and piano teacher..
So that make me to think, if with a better Equip
may help, ( I can tuning Piano as good as those Pro with SAT, Cyber.. but I takes more hours without , what I got only Korg MT1200 now, )
The most important concern, to make pinao sweet
smooth sounding with all chords harmony for whole
88 keys, so should I consider SAT or Veritune
( so far I did not see it be used by someone in local..)
meanwhile I did tried Tunelab, feel its program
not very good, eg, detect pitch incorrect.., but I also have good impression of Cybertuner, but
not sure is it durable with pocket PC , battery ?

I get to go... will continue communite with you, thanks.
PV

Hi PV,

What exactly do you notice "wrong" with the tunings that have been done? Unisons, octaves, intervals beating too fast/slow, etc... It will help to diagnose what your ears are trying to find. The battery life is only an issue if you are planning to tune many pianos in a row, without any chance to plug in the unit between tunings.

As to tunelab, if I understand you correctly, it read the pitch wrong? If you are using a windows machine, the soundcard will need to be calibrated before using either Reyburn, or Tunelab. My laptop needed to be adjusted by over 8 cents! I'm pretty sure that there is a full explaination on the tunelab site. It's very possible that your Korg MT-1200 isn't set to exactly A=440 either. I used one of those machines for many years, so I'm familiar with what they can do.

Since you are looking for a machine that will get you (hopefully) closer to "the best" tuning, with the least amount of input from you, I'd recommend the Verituner. Nothing else will get as close. If you do go ahead with it, there is a Forum set up on the Verituner site for owners, feel free to ask for specific help there.

Ron Koval

And I too will join the pro-Verituner chorus having used it now for three years. Prior to that I had an SAT I which admittedly may not match the SAT III in quality but certainly didn't match up to the Verituner. One reason: Tuning the bass and high treble areas involved observing the rotating LED light display so one had to estimate what would be the correct setting for any note. I subsequently discovered after re-tuning pianos with the Verituner that I had previously tuned with the SAT I that all too often the bass was tuned too sharp in pitch.

Mark Mandell
www.pianosource.com

Hi,all professional friend here,
...unisons, and octave are fine , usually no problem to be handled...but intervals that
I always not 100% satisfied with piano tuning,
no matter how, it is still not as acurate as you
can get and play on violin kind string instrument,

I do not know how many person after tuning, try to hear carefully all chords, 3rd, 5th, 6th on every keys of 12 major and 12 minors,
the chance is you will ( if able to detect) find there have some excellent, some good, some Ok, some not-very-good in terms of quality of those
chords, eg, some little bit sharp or flat, may be less than sharp/flat, just do not sound so
accurate as harmony a/o non-harmony chords as they
can produce on strings tro or quartete..
That may be because equal temperament ( used most often)is a compromised arrangement, 8 octace fixed
postion in 88 keys itself , is a fact make it every hard to satisfy every major/minor keys ,
however, with so many good coments and help here and by using both sensitive ear and adv- equip
like I am told here Veritune, , and eveyone know-SAT III, close to perfection can be obtained, and it can takes double times as usual to get that expected result, is it ?

Hi again,

Let me just check to see if we're listening for the same things...

I think you know about the compromises of equal temperament, because all notes on a piano keyboard are shared. (for example Ab = G#)

I was trained as an orchestral player as well, so I'm familiar with the micro-adjusting of pitch that we all do to make the thirds beatless in the orchestra. The piano is a fixed-pitch instrument, meaning that the performer doesn't have any control over the pitch as they play. Try this on a piano for the surprise:

You will tune 4 strings- "stacking" major thirds. For example start with an F. Tune the A above until the beats are gone. Next tune the C# above until the beats are gone. The major third above C#/Db is another F. Tune it to get a beatless third. Now play the F to F octave. Yech! It will be WAY too flat. We prefer the octaves to sound good, so the amount of flatness is spread out over all 12 notes equally, thereby making equal temperament. (forcing the thirds to be wide of pure, by about 14 cents!)

If it is the thirds beating that you object to, no machine will make any difference. BUT, there are other tunings that work withing the structure of Western music. Chords near the top of the circle of fifths will be closer to pure, but the chords near the bottom of the circle will be less pure.

In a proper ET, the speed of the thirds should double each octave, with an even, increasing speed of the thirds within an octave.

Let me know if you'd like to experiment with other tunings. The options loaded into your MT-1200 will most likely be too strong for modern ears, but Tunelab supports any number of temperaments.

Ron Koval

Hi, R K,
very interesting to read again your idea,
only one thing I do not get it----what do you mean "options loaded on MT 1200 too strong ?"
could you please point out ...

As considering the best fit, I sure you may have
sound idea of those special function that if the Veritune make it different,....I like to hear..

By the way ,does this tunner have LED
rotation green/red lights indicting pictch, similiar to that of Sanderson Accu's ...

Veritune made by which Company , location of the Co ?

The VeriTuner has an LCD display, not the red/green lights. It is different from the AccuTuner. VeriTuner is made by VeriTune in Chicago. www.VeriTune.com

Hi PV,

The Korg has 8 temperaments loaded in the machine:
1 et
2 pure major
3 pure minor
4 mean tone
5 pythagorean
6 werckmeister lll
7 kirnberger lll
8 vallotti young

Options 9 and 10 are:

9 programmable octave
10 program 88 notes

These are part of the numbers that flash by as you turn on the unit. The default setting is 1. All the other options are too strong for everyday use by most people. More appropriate for Baroque, or early music.

After the temperament, it will flash which stretch setting you have selected. Remember though, that the accuracy of this unit is +/- 1 cent. Yes, that's right, even though the needle is precise enough to read down to a small level, the electronics are only good to within a cent.

The Verituner uses a combination display, a spinner as well as a needle, similar to your Korg. These are both viewed on a liquid crystal display similar to a palm pilot, only bigger.

Ron Koval

Actually, the beating of any interval in any temperament should double in the next higher octave. However, the beating of a major third, a major third and an octave, and a major third and two octaves should all be the same, because the theoretical pitch at which they correspond is 2 octaves above the major third.

Hi
Yes, quite obviously as what you mean the
temperaments other than ET, they are not very
popular nowadays ,especialy who do not do Baroque
works..

Although, Pythagore was prevalent in Gothic era, it very close to ET, strangly..
However, I do like Kirnberger, by this, it makes good on playing Back 's English suite, or alike..
the 3rd much purer, sacrfied remote 5th less so,
is no big harm.

anyone if one have more than 5 pianos, eg; Bosendorfer,Stenway ,Grotrian, Fazioli, St.& Sohne ,in your own house, I do suggest each piano to be tuned in different temperaments,
it will be wonderful enjoymnet..

PV

What fantasy land are you living in?!

USA. the great country,
and will be better without war, but pianos