Just tuned my piano with Derk's software.
Bellow is chromatic major 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th.

I WILL NOT BE OFFENDED IF SOMEONE SAYS IT SOUNDS AWEFUL!

http://www.henselt.org/mp3/dirkspianotuner.mp3


Also a few bars from brahms rhapsodie Gm. This piece never sounds good unless the piano is in perfect tune, and it seems to sound pretty darn good to me after tuning with Dirk's.

http://www.henselt.org/mp3/brahms.mp3

(i might be offended if you say my brahms is aweful though hahaha)

Sounds satisfactory, but not perfect of course. Depends also on how the piano was before your tuning. About how much shift were you making, on average? A follow-up tuning will refine what is there already. A quick unison check at this stage and it should be fine.
Are you a professional tuner?
Why did you use Dirk's software?

Sounds like a good ET tuning to me. Interested to hear what the pro's think. Your playing sounds good, as well as a nice sounding grand!

Btw, I have Dirk's software. but have not had the time to re-tune the piano with it. Here is what the software showed when it analyzed my M&H BB....the green line is what Dirk's suggested, the red line is the tuning the piano had on it. I will give it a try after the holidays.

Pretty darn progressive.
Did you do unisons by ear?

M3

F3A 6.3
F#A# 6.9
GB 7.5
G#C 7.5
AC# 8.3
A#D 9.3
BD# 9.8
CE 9.9
C#F 12.1

DF# 13.2
D#G 12.9
EG# 13.1
F4A 14.5
F#A# 13.3
GB 13.3
G#C 17.5
AC# 15.2
A#D 24.3
BD# 22.5
CE 19.6
C#F 23.3
DF# ?

M6

C3A 6.5
C#A# 7.0
DB 7.3
D#C 7.2
EC# 6.4

FD 7.6
F#D# 7.6
GE 8.4
G#F 9.2

AF# 10.6
A#G 10.4
BG# 10.8
C4A 12.8
C#A# 14.5
DB 11.0
D#C 14.9
EC# 13.9
FD ?
F#D# 14.5
GE 17.8
G#F 19.3
AF# 20.0

Kees

Thanks for the reply Chris

1) I have never touched a tuning pin before 2 days ago in my life!
2) I just got a tuning hammer in the mail 2 days ago
3) bought Dirk's Piano Tuner 6 days ago online because 2 weeks ago I had my piano (which is new) tuned professional and it already went out of tune.

I figured this software will help me fix some unisons when they go out, sort of like in between pro tunings.

When I ran diagnostics the piano was at 440 not 442 like I requested!
So I tuned the whole piano which took about 1.5 hours.

what does it mean "how much shifts I was making"? It was about 2-4hz too low and the stretch analyzed by the software had a total different "idea" of what the tuner 2 weeks ago had in mind. He had the piano stretch quite a bit, but the software did not suggest that. Maybe because it's 9 foot grand?


DoelKees, I cannot tune by ear. I don't have the experience for it. All unisons were tuned by the software. I literaly went string by string from bottom to top, and voila - that's what you are hearing. I never compared relationships between notes, or re-tested the unisons.

what did you mean by "pretty darn progressive"?

And you wrote a bunch of stuff under it that looks like computer language can you explain?

Here is a video I made today on tuning my A5

[video:youtube]wWhmruJUN2Y[/video]

Those are the beat rates. It means your tuning, as far as the temperament is concerned, was better than any that has been posted here by anyone before. (See "should there be standard" thread for details.)

I'm sure having a half-decent piano like yours helps.

Kees

Ok, so I assume you used software to analyze his
interval samples, and that's how you got the beat rates,
right?

Well, there you go, the computer wins!

Again, I'd like to see how the human tuners
compare with the computers in terms of repeatability.

noahmbenhamou, if you achieved that on a nine foot grand two days after getting a tuning lever, I'd suggest you have a considerable natural aptitude for the physical process of tuning.

I'm sure that you could easily master how to tune clean unisons by ear, which doesn't depend on beat rates but on eliminating beats.

That's much too kind David. I assure you it's all the software. I'm not listening for anything, just watching that red bar go up and down as i'm tuning and making sure i'm as close to 0 as possible

I am getting the hand of sensing when the pin is twisting by metal stretch vs. twisting inside the wood. I guess the trick is that there is even amount of metal twit left or right of the ZERO, if not, gotta go sharp a little to get a new "center".

If that makes sense.

Also I'm having a funny suspicion that the pin block is flexing a little. so when I tune the 1st unison, by the time I get to the 3rd, it could effect the 1st unison pin and also the neighboring pins as well. Am I imagining this?


So I'm totally not appreciating my piano tune. Can someone explain what you guys are hearing on that recording someone TOLD me to make of chromatic major 3rd 4th 5th etc???

I assume you are hearing beats? What do they tell you about the tuning that Dirk's program recommends?

Thanks again for the compliment, but really - i'm not worthy

Sounds wonderful! It seems to me that you are a personality type, as I am, that feels very at home with a tool in your hand. It doesn't seem like anything "special" to you because it is so natural. You're doing things like setting the pin naturally because it just makes sense. You've got good software and following closely so the tuning is fine. It helps that you've got a nice instrument to tune. I would say the next step for you would be to try tuning unisons by ear. Tune the middle string to the software and then tune the outside strings to the middle string one at a time. You want them to sound pleasant or as we say "beatless". Like one string. Nice job!

Thanks Scott


I would love to do unions by ear and I can certainly hear the beats -wow wow wow and the slow deceleration of the oscillation as it gets closer.

I love tools and tinkering with stuff. Need to be careful with this

I'm left a message for my tuner to come give me a lesson so I don't hurt my piano. Yesterday I did something very naughty to my piano.

Not wanting to take more chances.

I'm very happy this software wasn't a waste of money.

Noam.
I have a colleague who is now a professional concert tuner, tuning aurally after only a very short time. He too is a fine player.

Some people have the aptitude immediately.

Repair, action tone and regulation and experience with older pianos that work against you as you tune them will take longer. I have known a few excellent pianists who have been drawn towards and been successful in piano technology.

Your graph is interesting to me. It shows a combination of ETD tuning and aural. Also how fine pianos go out of tune.

Aural concert tuners tend to not stretch so much going toward the bass out of the temperament octave. (the temperament octave is usually F3-F4).

They can do this because they see the pianos very often. It is dangerous on a tuning that may not be retuned for hours or weeks because that region that we call the long steels for readily apparent reasons, also has a tendency to go sharp, seemingly more than they go flat. They cross the bridge on one of the more flexible parts of the soundboard. Just one of the reasons a really fine tuning on a really fine piano needs constant upkeep.

Similarly, it is surprising how much some notes, often alternate notes in the top section can go extremely sharp or flat all by themselves in a matter of days or hours sometimes. This is mostly only noticed by tuners who see the same pianos daily. Others, who have no understanding of this phenomenon are fond of blaming other tuners.

It is therefor difficult, nay, impossible to judge or compare a two week old tuning or even a two day old tuning if the piano has been moved from one atmosphere to another either before or after one of the tunings. Something that happens a lot in concert halls where pianos are stored off or under the stage.

Anyway, good job. Keep it up and gradually use more aural checks until you can do a complete aural tuning. I never use electronics in the lower half of the piano.

Ok, so now that we have verified Dirk's software works
well, what freeware software comes closest to
the accuracy of Dirk's program?

I read somewhere that many of the other
freeware programs estimate inharmonicity by
sampling at a few notes, but do any of them
sample ALL the notes like Dirk's program?

I have to agree with the others. For your first tuning, it's spectacular. Very usable... Nice job!

Noam,

What a great start! If you listen to what you're doing while using the software, I think the aural skill will develop, and you may also develop more of a perfectionist sense of what you're doing.

If I may ask, which lever did you buy?

Thank you. I bought this.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/120578461027?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649

Looks like a good, middle-of-the-road lever. Good choice.

Hahaha. Yeah I opted out on the 24k solid gold hammer with diamond covering since the recent purchase of my piano just broke the bank hahaha. I'm happy with this hammer, I don't know any different.

If you find you're really into this tuning stuff, you'll begin to want to know different. My first lever that I bought in 1976 is a Hale extension lever, much like yours. After researching it for a couple of years, I bought myself a $380 Fujan last year, and it may as well be diamond-encrusted gold; it's that amazing. It has cut my tuning time in half.

These newer super-stiff tuning hammers are quite an eye-opener. I figured a Faulk hammer would be an improvement, but I wasn't prepared for the real improvement in speed, precision, and the confidence it engendered. My older hammers feel like nerf tools in comparison.