Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum What think technicians about of max's temperament?

A "live" unison still doesn't beat, it swishes, in my opinion. Max, please listen to as many properly tuned pianos as you can. Get some classical recordings. Look at some videos. Your tunings still need improvement.

Pianos I've tuned three years ago sound better than that upright you just tuned. Oh, when using a vacuum, wear ear protection. I agree with others comments on the grand.

Roger E. Kirk, "Tuning preferences for Piano Unison Groups", J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 31 (1959): 1644-48.

Reviewed in Arthur H. Benade, "Fundamentals of Musical Acoustics", 2nd ed. pp.335-336.

Kees

I agree with you Bob. I shall improve myself in my tuning. It is arguable that there is a pure unison without beats. What is this? or an easy waves between the three strings is?

I glad for your piano tuning after 3 years ago. But Max and many tech. wanted listen it's. Is it possible?

Max, the unisons will couple together when they get close enough to each other. A very slight difference in frequency will average out between two or 3 strings so it is important to listen to the overall sound in the end. Many tuners have different methods to tune them. Although some tuners believe the reason for multiple strings on a note is to provide richness to the tone, its primary purpose is to boost the amplitude to similar levels as the lower single bass strings. To this effect, try and get the two and 3 string unisons to sound as one good string sounding by itself.

The first noticable thing to go out of tune on pianos are the unisons. They will get swishy unisons in short order if they are played regularly so I don't feel the need to speed up the process by tuning them that way to begin with. Besides, there is no predictable way to determine which string will drift which way so an purposeful deviation sharp or flat may turn ito a compound error if that string continues to drift in that direction. Doesn't take much to go from slow and swishy to what others would call clearly out of tune.

Max, how many pianos do you tune in a day? To practice and improve, tune at least four pianos a day - or tune the same piano four times a day (change the pitch 5 cents up and down each time). Tune four pianos a day, five days a week for two months, then post another video. During that time compare your tunings to recordings and try to find someone to spend an hour teaching you.

I would expect to hear a significant improvement in two months in your tunings if you practice like that.

I know things are difficult where you live - but difficult means work harder and overcome. Looking forward to a video in 2 months from you with audible improvements.

Max, if someone has a cell phone around you there are many free apps for them that shows the tuning of notes in HZ. Have someone with a phone check your tuning fork or whatever your using for its accuracy. There is really no excuse for a tuned piano to be that far off from referance pitch.

Probably more in appropriate in a unison tuning thread, but I uploaded the Kirk (a Baldwin employee btw) paper here. Hope it's legal and I won't end up like Aaron Swartz.

Kees

Thank,Bob. If don't see this grand piano, then my main job is to try to restore the junk vertical. Which ultimately should resound. So before you start to tuning the "Belarus" I must first install the broken strings and put cardboard shim under pins. I'm must configure a semitone lower, otherwise there will be failure. I have not a possibility the tuning (2-3 piano) on the day .

I'm try do it now

Well, Kees, just look at Kirk's first two conclusions (highlights are mine).



In the article, a mean of 1.6 to 1.7 cents is given. That is essentially still a beat-free unison, and results in a better sustain.

It is nothing like the unisons in Max's video. In fact, Kirk found that a 6 cent deviation was the least preferred.

So Kirk's article can certainly not be used to condone a tuning such as Max's.

Why? have Max's a more of these cents in clip?

A 2 cent deviation on A440 would result in a noticable beat every two seconds. Unisons don't couple this far away from each other either. I hardly consider this as "essentially" clean or swishy or something to pursue for a slight increase in sustain. Its a "fail" as far as a unison goes....in my humble opinion anyways. (added) I know some customers of mine would call me to touch up a piano that displays this amount of disparity on unisons, or, stop using a tech that can do no better.

*Sigh*. Nobody has said that.

The fourth rule for replying is:

4) Reply to what the poster wrote, not to what you imagine the poster was thinking.

Kees

The most aggressive the tone is the most decoupling can help to lower the abrupness of the attack .

Then the level of ih of a piano allow more or less of this "opening" without the tone audibly beating.

The 2 cts difference is probably not always producing the beat level according to theory

I guess there are both musicians and tuners who differ in their opinions of what a good unison should sound like. For the latter, it never used to be like this in the past. Some regard perfect unison clarity much like they do the state of pregnancy, it either exists, or it doesn't. Some consider the slight disparity of inharmonicity in the full spectrum of each string enough of a richness to the tone by itself and it requires no additional help with deliberate detuning. To the same effect, some regard the amount of sustain on the piano as sufficient, without the need for trying to induce more. Most likely of all, some tuners who can't tune nice clear unisons try and cover their tracks by suggesting the shortcoming is intentional or by design.

Why will there be failure??? Because of your cardboard fix??? Then, fix it correctly, with larger tuning pins.

I wonder how much longer this thread will continue. It's so full of crap it isn't even funny.

Emmery is right. 2 cents off is a LOT. Bad tuners can't hear it. That's why the bad tuners continue arguing with the good tuners that can hear it.

Bad tuners, tune pianos 1/4 tone flat on purpose, thinking nothing of it and then make all sorts of excuses for why it has to be flat instead of fixing the problem and putting the piano on pitch.

Bad tuners make excuses for why unisons are horribly out of tune but, refuse to listen to good technicians advice on what to do to correct it. This is nuts!

The thing is in the efficient use of the energy provided by the attack .

I feel that at some point there is only a huge "crack" full of aggressive noise.

This mean a lot of energy loss if that noise is allowed to keep its explisive behaviour , which is not really natural to the piano. If it where it would stay put, and the piano would not sound better a few hours later.

Comon, an actual tuner can tune a piano so it stay in tune for a few hours, I presume !

What I regret is that, among top experienced tuners, so little oc them have an analytic mind. Many have a good analytic ear, but the analyse is done whithout conscious thinking nor comparaison.

Many tuners I know tune with 3 different strings, so to have a maximum brillancy; I am way quieter when compared.

For some time I tuned "absolute" , as a result, too hard tone and "too clear" comments , from time to time.

I believe that the ETD s did a lot of harm to the unison tuning, strangely.

But in the end it is as much a voicing question than a tuning question, that is why there are so much differences, the spectrum is supposed to vary with power level, if it does not, or not enough, the tuner can be pushed in the wrong direction.

In the end, the piano is out of tune.

In the end, the piano is off from pitch by at least 1/4 of a tone.

In the end, the voicing is terrible.

We have at least 3 different things going on here at the same time. An out of tune piano. An off from pitch piano, and bad voicing.

Either way you look at it. The piano is out of tune!

Good technicians can hear if a piano is out of tune immediately, or, if the note is held down for 30 seconds, or if the note is struck 2 or 3 times in a row, it does not matter. If a good tuner has a good ear, there is no room for argument. Only a bad tuner argues.

I tune with whatever method I so choose that brings me, the most satisfaction but, that method always, I repeat, always, has pure unisons. Impure unisons are not satisfactory. How many times must this be repeated in here?

Energy/shhmenergy. If the pianist wants more energy in the sound, they simply add some downweight/speed in their touch. The attack is such a short period of time that few people even make notice of it, much like the thunk you hear from the key a few thousandths of a second before you hear the note....we tune it out because we tend to focus on the actual tone that follows. There is a nice fine balance of energy a properly sized piano for its environment will produce. With the way inverse square law of sound and distance works, there is no way to make everybody in an audience hear the same thing anyways. If I hear the opening single Db note of Liszt's Consolation 3 carried over several bars and its clean it gives depth to the RH pattern. If it wobbles even slightly, it interferes in an incredibly annoying way with the tempo of the right hand. It adds nothing energy/sustain wise that a little heavier touch could not produce without the swishy annoyance.