Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum Tunelab or Verituner?

Yes, there would be a significant difference.

You are looking for a tool - since you do not have the temperament aural tuning skills, a tool that you want to generate the best tuning calculation as possible - for you to follow. I'd go with the Verituner in a heartbeat.

This may help explain one main difference. No matter how many notes measured, Tunelab, RCT or the SAT find a linear (smooth) tuning curve of a single partial to overlay on the piano to best match those measurements.... Imagine some dots above the line and some below the line, but the average all evens out...

As I understand it, Verituner attempts to adjust each and every note of the curve based on all the measurements taken as well as the strength of the individual sounding partials to determine a tuning. The custom tuning function allows for adjustments using everyday ear skills - such as determining if the single, double, triple and quad octaves are in the right place.

All of the electronic devices measure inharmonicity in some way and generate a smooth tuning curve. Verituner may then adjust the curve on-the-fly as it were or better said continually adjusts the calculated tuning curve but I don't know as I haven't read the computer code. I think the Railsback curve alluded to is interesting but not definitive.

Tunelab and I am sure RCT register all of the partials of a sounding note as well. They do place the partial the user has determined as ideal on a smooth curve. Also if you don't like where the curve is you can change the partial style or even change the style on the wing too thereby creating a different curve. The onus is then on the tuner to listen and determine what sounds best.

If one is tuning-using for instance 4:1 octaves-I wouldn't think it would be advisable to have one note in the middle suddenly using 8:1 or 6:4 or whatever. That wouldn't be a smooth progression at all so I doubt whether Verituner arbitrarily changes tuning partials for a note here or there. And as I said, Tunelab listens to all the partials all the time as well. But you only tune to one partial not all of them-the one you selected in your ratio style.

At any rate this may really be a Coke vs Pepsi or Ford vs Chevy argument-especially for someone who has not been trained yet to set a pin.

"Tunelab and I am sure RCT register all of the partials of a sounding note as well. They do place the partial the user has determined as ideal on a smooth curve"

Nope. Read the manuals again. While they are able to measure a number of partials either during the measuring phase, or during the spectrum analyzer, during tuning, only the targeted partial is driving the spinner, bars, or lights.

Mea culpa. I downloaded and read the manual for the Verituner. I am still happy with my setup. Your mileage may vary.

I also think it's best for Mr. Grant to get a few tuning lessons from someone rather than think purchasing a $1700 machine or $340 program is going to accomplish what he wants.

Can you get the Time or Chaos versions for a laptop? I need a scheduling/bookkeeping program for my tuning business?
Thanks,
JMichael Wilson

I see that the Pocket PC option has been selected by many.

I suggest that if you haven't already examined the netbook option, that you might prefer it. Price is about the same, size is only slightly larger, and it has a useable keyboard.

I'm not suggesting it over the Pocket PC; I'm just encouraging potential users to look at the netbook alternatives before purchase. Netbooks may be more worthwhile for those who do email, scheduling, etc. in addition to tunings.

Hop

I'm a little confused by the previous comments in this thread. The implication seems to be that you cannot purchase Verituner for a Pocket PC. I purchased the software from their website and downloaded it onto one of the recommended HP Pocket PCs. It works incredibly well. I loaded Ron's "All-4-One" and "Concert default" styles and Bill's EBVT III temperament and use them together with terrific results. Each note is individually analyzed, and re-analyzed in each subsequent tuning. I find it helps me most in getting excellent results in the high treble section. Additionally, as new versions of the software are released, you can download them for free.

Yes, my understanding is that Verituner looks at many (all?) the partials and does some sort of averaging. They claim or imply that this more closely emulates aural tuning.

The Tunelab Pro, per my reading of the manual, only looks at one partial, which can be selected and which can be changed on the fly or permanently.

But I do have a question about Tunelab which puzzles me. The program allows various "ocataves" to be set for different parts of the keyboard. For example, one of these is 6:3. I see where many of the lower notes are tuned by the 6th partial (only). But how does that relate to a 6:3 octave?

Hop

Yes, but there are no updates

Gregor

I'm revisiting this question, after all these years!!!
Am I right in thinking that tunelab produces a smooth tuning stretch, whereas verituner is supposed to provide, in addition to the basic stretch (based on IH measurements) more subtle measurements for each note off smooth stretch curve where necesary to achieve a more natural tuning???

JG

That is correct. IMO and from experience the VT box does a better job of this than VT Pocket.

Hi Byron,

Do you have and use both? I'm wondering what you think of the pocket version's display. Is it more stable than the box's?

What kind of differences have you noticed in the tunings you get from each?

Thanks,

Jeff

The ppc has a smoothing function for the spinner and seems to react a little quicker. Even though it is smaller, it seems clearer to me. I use both. The box stays at school and the ppc travels to all my outside tunings.

Honestly, I prefer the ppc with the ease of file function and screen taps over the buttons on the box. I haven't spent a lot of time trying to see if they calculate the same tunings. I do remember Dave Carpenter telling me he was trying to decide what to leave out in the ppc version because it couldn't quite do everything the box did... I did try a slower ppc first and it wasn't up to the task (dell x5) It left a lot of partials out - and that's one of the big reasons to use Verituner - the multi-partial approach to tuning! Any machine that runs at 624Mhz (I think) does just fine.


Ron Koval
chicagoland

I started with the box years ago and have always been very very happy with the tunings. I bought a SAT III several years ago as a back up but loved it so much that I started to use it more. A year or so ago I bought VT Pocket thinking it would be as good as the box but soon realized that I didn't like the results as much as the box.

I've found the display to be the same as the VT100 but the VT100 for me does a much better, more accurate tuning. I actually use the SAT III most of the time now anyway. I love the speed of the SAT III, the durability and long battery life. I use the VT100 once in a while for certain situations like where a one pass tuning is necessary.

Why should the VT box bring other results than the ppc version - aside from using an underpowerd ppc?

I downloaded the tunelab demo version and compared the results with the VT ppc version. I like the Verituner results much more. With Tunelab even the octave A3-A4 was too narrow for my ears and for the VT as well with 2 pianos (a Kawai CX5 and a Wendl & Lung 122). Within the temperament the differences between both systems were up to 1.8 cents. On a Grotrian upright (110 cm) both systems were quite identical in the temperament.

Gregor

How is the customer service of VT ?

Do they normally reply to emails ? After more than 48 hours, I'm still waiting for VT to reply my email.

The customer service has always been very good when I've needed it in the past.

Another thought.... I wonder whether or not Tunelab can be used (by the novice one-piano-tuner who just wants to keep his own piano in perfect tune ALL the time) in a manner that emulates Verituner? Inotherwords, I wonder whether by taking inharmonicity measurments for each note just prior to tuning it (just an example of a potential methodology) one could, in effect, produce individualized tunings for each note using Tunelab?

So Bill...I just realized I'm reading this from wayyyyy back in 2004.

What platform are you using today??

RPD

johngrant,

For what I know, Tunelab uses information of measured iH to calculate a tuning curve. It is necessary to measure four notes to give the program the needed information and if you measure more than four notes the curve will be basically the same. So it is useless to measure more than a few notes.

Maybe Robert Scott can enlighten us about this.


About the PPC version of Verituner, I regret that "interval tuning" is not included in PPCVT. I have sent several mails to Dave Carpenter and it seems he's not going to include "interval tuning" for PPC version because he says "it is seldom used on VT100"