Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum Does anyone know of a free decent ETD for Checking Tuning

My tech uses TuneLab when tuning my piano (I am on a 6 month rotation.) Between tunings I would like to check the tuning from time to time to see if I need a "freshen up" when I am having a party. Does anyone know of a decent free (or very low cost) ETD software program to use on an iPhone that can help me out?

I know I will not be able to check unisons, but at least I would have an idea if I am still close to being in tune.

Thanks,

Jonathan

Yes. Your ears. If it is sour to your ears, get it tuned, if not, wait until your six month tuning. Tunelab 97 is available for free, but you will have to teach yourself how to use it.... probably not worth the effort.

I agree.. you are most probably already equipped with the best thing to check a tuning with.

And it's ... FREE!

Tunelab has a shareware version for laptops that is fully functional. It will briefly time out every few minutes to remind you to think about buying the software.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Jonathan

nTrack Tuner is a free iPhone app. It measures frequencies to two decimal places and shows you the strength of the partials. Just note down the frequencies of each key immediately after a tuning and you will be able to tell how much any note has moved. There may be other such apps.

There is a free trial version of Tunelab, though I don't know if the free trial version is available in the iPhone version.

But if it's jsut for between tunings, your ear should tell you if any unisons are a bit out.

Check it out on the website, tunelab-world.com

What is the advantage of Tunelab 97 to the pianist for checking a tuning over an app that measures the frequencies?

How would the the pianist's version know exactly how the piano had been tuned?

That is not accurate at all. The only known quantity is the note you tune to (i.e. usually the A above middle C). For every other note, there will be a discrepancy between theoretical and practical tuning.

Neither TuneLab nor nTrack Tuner would be very good at "checking" if the piano needs tuning, except grossly. As others have said the very best way to check if a tuning has drifted out of tune is to listen to the unisons and train yourself to hear beats. Unisons are the first thing to go out of tune noticeably. If the absolute pitch does change it is quite likely due to seasonal changes in humidity, and it might be a waste of time to chase those variations, unless you are running a recording studio or a concert hall. A two cent overall seasonal change would hardly be noticeable. But a two cent change in just one string of a unison will sound quite bad.

I agree with Robert, but could there be a place for an electronic tuning checking device?

For example for piano owners who are aware that some of their friends are better at detecting when a piano is drifting out of tune.

As far as this thread goes, B986 is absolutely correct in saying that there is no point in using a theoretical tuning as the basis for comparison.

What one must do is measure the actual frequencies of the notes you wrote down immediately after tuning and compare them with the actual frequencies some time later. That was the proposed method of using the nTrackTuner on the iPhone.

PS In the next post Kamin mentions Dirk's tuner. That uses a theoretical tuning for comparison but one that is based on the actual sounds of each key. It is not available on iPhone as far as I know.

you could use the evaluation version of Dirk software, and compare the tuning with the curve computed which is really neat, beat wise.

The first sequence make you record all the notes, then the software compute with an optimized pattern using Hz(beats). So what you see at the screen is how the actual tuning relates to that (supposed optimal) tuning curve.

No need to use parameters or to tweak a "flat" curve, and that is how that software can be used by non tuners.

They may learn then to correlate what the graph show and what they hear. I am not so unsure a pianist cannot hear too compressed intervals or the opposite, if a graph is showing that at that moment.

I don't really understand that question. All tuning apps work by measuring frequencies.

What you can do is ask your tech for the tuning file that he used on your piano.

ETDs do more than measure frequencies but the OP only needs to measure frequencies. A free iPhone app is all that is necessary.

"an app that only measures frequencies" would have been clearer.

Based on the replies, I seem to be in way over my head. This sounds like the simpliest thing to do except that I have no idea what to do with the file when I get it.

Jonathan

If you download tunelab, you should be able to open the tuning file. It is basically a record of the template that the tuner used to tune your piano. You'll need to take some time to read the help files and tutorial that come with the software - so there is a learning curve.

Before ETD, musicians used a fork and tested pitch of the A440-42 (or the C in anglo saxon world I suppose)

Knowing that the pitch fluctuates and that at some point it is too low for the instrument to sound well..

But those where old methods, and we know today that once the wire have settle after enough tunings, the give of the metal is only due to brutal playing and excessive motion up and down of the pitch due to soundboard motion and temperature changes.

So a seasoned piano will keep its pitch (anyway enough to be unnoticed without precise testing) it may take 5 to 10 years most probably.

Then, on the opposite, old strings have lost too much springiness and will begin to deform under heavy playing. lest say strings in the 30-40 years range to simplify.

Meantime, maintenance tunings could well be done without pitch corrections (maximum difference between the pitch wanted and existing pitch about 1 Hz.

Most of the motion happening in the instrument is in the mediums and the high bass, the high treble rarely fluctuates, as the first basses, SOme of my tunings are mostly a temperament correction, a few notes that moved out of range, and unison "warming" This allow for some hammer to string mating work, screw checking/tightening, evening of the tone by needling, some regulation corretcions (as raising a few keys that need a silk paper punching), so even if the real tuning time I spend is often not long, my price is higher than for a real tuning, but I leave the piano with a magnified tone, not only a piano "tuned".

With that simple and just a little longer work, non asked comments are that the piano is "magnificent" with often phone calls and mails a few days later, so it is worth the trouble for the customer as for me (more tools, the bag is heavier)

Due to time constrains or rough technique I notice that many tuners dont set the pin strong enough to hold in time or do not aim for long term stability. As the customer ask for them on a regular basis I suspect that the tuner himself is not aware of the instability, the piano is known to be tuned at last each year and that is all.


Also, the more the pin is manipulated the more the block wears, so limiting those moves is a guarantee to keep the pinblock in condition years after years (a lot of little motions with much pressure on a side of the hole is making it oblong sooner, and make the inside slippery more than slow well mastered motion)

To go back to the original question, testing pitch of all A's with Tunelab, after the tuning, writing the numbers on a paper, and testing them on a regular basis will show the pianist how his tuning evolve.
Indeed he may learn to recognise moaning unissons, beats (false and reals) they even can be seen in the Tunelab display as different peaks.

I am a little not at ease with such questions : I want something that do a professional check for me and that for free ! You may explayn the software developper that, I never was given a pitch fork or a tool for free (in fact yes but usually ...)

Nothing is free, even the time I spend writing here I could use to do more useful things for my famil, me or my customers !

I agree: use your ears! Or just call me, and play your piano over the phone. I'll measure it for you! (If you're already a customer of mine! :-)

On most pianos, the octave below middle C changes the most with humidity changes. If you play the A above middle C (A440) with the A an octave below it, that's usually an octave that sounds bad first.

Another easy test is to play octaves of the same note in both hands, and go up and down chromatically. For example, play middle C and the C above it in the right hand, and the two C's just below middle C in the left hand. Then go up to C# in both hands, and so on. Compare the sound of the octaves, and listen for "wavering" or "watery" sounds (beats) as opposed to clean, steady sounds. This exposes problems with individual notes as well as octaves and double and triple octaves.

You can use any guitar tuner app to measure notes for about an octave on either side of middle C. After that, offsets will vary too much to be useful. Cleartune is one chromatic tuning app that will let you enter offsets for each note, so that I could give you offsets for all the A's, for example, after I calculate a tuning for your piano.

--Cy--