Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum Tuning A4

Do you tune it against a tone or just by directly measuring it?

And why do you prefer your method over the other?

Directly measuring it with an ETD is probably the most common method. Orthodox aural tuners insisting on the ancient tuning fork shouldn't just ping the fork and make A4 beatless as that is not accurate enough and use interferometry against the 5th partial of F2 or the 7th of B1.Aurally my method (to pass the PTG test in case I ever want to) is to use two tuning forks, one at 444Hz and one at 436Hz and tune A4 equal beating (at 4bps) to both forks. I prefer that because it's easier.

Kees

I measure it with my laser guided digital metric tape measure with false beat offset calibration, custom stretch scale compensation, simultaneous back scale harmonic tuning, floating aliquot pitch meter, 657 temperment reference template including reverse well and Quantz/Handel Enharmonic Baroque VI temperament.

(Must be suffering from turkey overdosing)

What, you are still working with that antiquated stuff????
Maybe you are just too much of a Luddite to embrace the neutron beam, carbon nano-tube technology for setting A4...

I set A4 with two hair dryers and a weed wacker.

I set A4 between G#4 and Bb4.

Sorry, I hadn't thought it would be such a scaring question.

It's a pointless question. How does it matter to you, so long as A4 is accurately at the pitch you require (most likely 440Hz in North America).

For what it's worth, I tuned an old console that had been in storage for 8 years last weekend and set it using my brain's internal pitch reference. When I tested it against a real 440Hz reference, it was bang on the money. Luck? Probably, but very satisfying nevertheless.

Yet, it is still scaring enough that you can't provide a real answer.

I told you how I did it - I just used my sense of where it should be and then found that I was correct. Otherwise I would have either used a fork (which I didn't have to hand) or Tunelab on my laptop which was not running at the time. Later, when I booted it up, it was right on the money.

Yeah, but the question is about your preferred method, and why you prefer that method.
Still you didn't answer that.

Here we go again.

Not me! I'm not going there. 'No sir! 'Give away my trade secrets? Not on your life! Get your own neutron beam thingie like Jurgen uses and struggle with that. I'll be light years ahead of you and laughing all the way.

'Sorry, Jurgen. You set me up.

Not quite.

We are rather "stuck".

Hakki,

In case you haven't figured it out, very few people are taking you seriously because of your history on the forums.

I PMed you about piano tuning and why you were interested, and you made it clear that you were not interested in learning piano tuning (after a few more cryptic PM's) and that you are a staunch advocate of electronic tuning devices.

You even said ETD's "have outgrown aural tuners in every practical way.", which I'm sorry to tell you, says more about your current understanding of piano tuning than you are aware.

And BTW, I posted some pretty specific questions to you about the limitations of ETD's, which you neglected to answer.

Now all your cryptic questions about aural tuning techniques makes sense to me (and others now) as it seems you are setting traps to try and make aural tuners look stupid. Sorry, that's just the way it looks to me.

But, I'm always ready to be corrected.

Let's keep it friendly.

Mark, thank you for being outspoken.

You know why I am here?

Yes, you are correct I don't have any plans to learn how to tune. That is both unpractical and risky.

OTOH, you are also correct that your assessment needs corrections.

Contrary to what you have perceived, I am both interested in aural and ETD tuning.

In fact, I sought for an aural tuner to retune my piano after it was experimentally tuned with the Ultratune software.

Unfortunately, the tuner whom I expected to tune my piano aurally insisted to tune with Tunelab to my dismay. Well, as I said earlier, he was a senior person and I did not want to argue with him.

I still want my piano to be tuned aurally. Unfortunately none of the available tuners here tune aurally.

There is one tuner, who has tuned my brother's piano aurally 10 years ago. But he has moved to another city since then. Even then, I am not sure whether he is still tuning aurally after 10 years.

As you might have guessed, since the purchase of my dream grand piano in 2005, I could not get a solid, stable, nice sounding tuning yet.

So, in a way I am here to commiserate with.

Hakki

Here's a diversion for you. The BBC broadcast it this week. Pianists show up around 18.30.

BTW, why I asked this question?

I still have my hopes that I can persuade one of the tuners here to tune aurally.

Also, with all my courage I will try to present them the translations of both the Steinway temperament and the contiguous thirds temperament (from Bill Bremmer's article).

Since the Steinway temperament seems more prone to cumulative errors, I will suggest the tuner to tune with the contiguous thirds method.

I understand that, the PTG exam requires the tuning of A4 within 3 cents against a tone.
But these tuners in my town are accustomed to using their ETDs for setting the A4.
So, I thought it would be appropriate to skip the aural tuning of A4 for an aural tuning using the contiguous thirds method.

But I am not sure.
Maybe there is a reason as to why the PTG is still requiring it.
Hence my question about the tuning of A4.

So, please everybody, don't seek for any concealed thoughts behind my questions.

We had played that with my brother with an amateur orchestra.
It was even broadcast on the national TV, with explanations narrated for the kids.

Allemande left with the old left hand, honey turn right with a right and left grand.................I have NO idea why I just thought of that now...must be the lack of turkey today......