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Are electronic pianos/organs tuned to ET..or what?

Lance

Electric pianos should already be set at A=440. Considering the organ is also a C instrument, I would imagine the same goes for them as well.

Honestly dont know what you mean by ET

I know that the new Rogers electric organs have a built in control that varies the temp automatically each time the instrument is played. This is the give the sound a more pipe organ effect.

Electronic instruments of one sort or another would be tuned to A440 which is the international ISO 16. That is all that is important.
This is mainstream, appeals to the majority of the purchasing public, and would result in the widest market share capture.

A lot of electronic pianos allow you to chose different temperaments. Some even allow you to make your own. The only problem is that the unisons often sound a little off and unevenly so, like a sloppy tuning.
Tim

Unisons out on a digital piano! So much for "never needs tuning". It should be "always needs tuning and can't be!". Or you could say they "can't hold a tune".

Lchauvin,

You might get more complete answers in the Digital Forum. Available features, such as selectable temperament, are discussed in depth in that forum.

I've sampled several different brands of digital pianos with my ETD and can verify that the default temperament is indeed ET....in fact, the fundamental is more close to clinical perfect ET than most acoustic pianos end up after tuning. Of the Yamaha and Kawai DP's I've checked, they were all adjustable on the pitch and were within 1 cent on A440 default.

The spectrum of partials (overtones)on DP's is quite incomplete on the ones I have sampled. There are partials on the ladder which are missing and the natural inharmonicity found on higher partials is not programmed as severe, or at all in some cases, compared to accoustic pianos. One can play some very wide intervals which would bring out some beating coincident partials on an accoustic, and on the DP's that beating is often not there. On the more prevelant intervals like M3rds, Fifths etc..the beat rates can be very precise with small anomolies which tuners compensate for being non existant.

Because these modern DP's have no actual strings, there is no "unison" per se. I did not detect any wavers or beats on single notes on the ones I checked so I cannot comment if all DP's are like this, but I assume they are since I think it would be costly, impractical and unneccesary to design and impliment a sound which would otherwise be cleaned up or removed on an accoustic piano by a tuner.

The sound which culminates from all this is very clean and selective tone structure of partials is often percieved by knowledgeable listeners as unnatural, too perfect and somewhat thin. Changes is the spectrum due to amplitude variation (when the DP reacts to touch sensitivity) is also very predictable, very linear and offers less dynamics than most accoustic pianos. High end DP's seem to have this covered better an will have more sampled "steps" to give increased dynamics effects.

There is a programmed "stretch" on these DP's out at the extents of the keyboard but they do not correspond or tie in well with coincident partials from lower/higher octaves....they are very linear and sort of nestle into a spot that creates a bit of equally spaced tension. This conservative approach will leave a bass that often lacks any depth or any realistic complex structure on its spectrum. Very wide intervals with higher notes often will not produce comparative tone structure to an accoustic piano...its like the sounds are there but they refuse to work with each other harmonically.

This is the first time I've seen anyone listen with trained ears to a DP. Very interesting.

My gripe with DPs is they attempt to emulate the acoustic even when it's not useful. In the very low range where the average acoustic gets growly, the DP does too. There is no reason an inexpensive DP couldn't play much lower than all but the finest large grands (and higher without getting tinkly.)

I use a Roland K series digital grand at my church. I think the limitations to which Tim refers are due to the quality, or lack thereof, of the amplification system.

Our Roland has several tuning options, but the default tuning is Equal. Within that I can choose to have a stretched ET as well. It also offers Kimberger, Werkmeister, Just, 1/4 comma meantone, and others. I'd have to investigate further to be sure, but I don't think I can change any offsets within the various temperaments.

As an aside, this one is unique to me, as it actually has a solid spruce soundboard surrounding the speakers; i.e. you open the lid and see the soundboard instead of strings.

Happy Weekend,
jw

Most decent digital pianos are sampled from real grand pianos and so exhibit the same inharmonicity and timbre as the piano they were sampled from. Problem is, if you don't like the tone of the original piano they used, you're stuck with it. This is why many people use external sample libraries - then you're free to use whatever you want and are only limited by how much memory your system has. The really good sample libraries sample each not at many different velocities so they don't suffer from the odd shift in timbre that plagues those instruments that use the same samples for several notes. Of course the quality of the tuning is only as good as the instrument they sampled from so it's perfectly possible that the unisons aren't perfect. With pianos that use physical modelling, then unison tuning is usually controllable (and often stretch as well) plus some allow arbitrary tuning of each note.

I have an old Yamaha P120 and it's definitely possible to hear the beats on all the intervals as well as some less than perfect unisons in the upper registers (though part of this is the looping if the sample playback). It is definitely stretched as the ET tuning on the piano preset is sharper in the treble than the organ preset, for example.

Paul.

Sorry but those are not tuning options; those are temperament options, of which any could be chosen without complaint from any member of the congregation, as nobody would notice the difference.

The mistake is between tuning to A440 and setting a mathematical temperament in the pitch of A440.

One is completely different than the other.

Quite right, of course. Pardon me! I just meant to point out that some digitals can be set to a different temperament than ET.

Why wouldn't a choice of temperament be considered a "tuning option?" After all, any temperament is the choice of interval spacing to create the intonation (tuning) of the piano.

The OP didn't ask about the pitch of A, but of the temperament used on non-acoustic keyboard instruments (thingies).

No problem. This is often a mistake made. Most music we hear today, radio, TV, CD’s, records, whatever is all at the international standard frequency of A440.

This is the mainstream frequency used by the majority and was agreed to in ISO 1936 and then later in 1955 with ISO 16.

Once the instrument is at that pitch frequency then a decision is made of which mathematical equation is chosen to best represent the music played.

Again most use the mainstream commonality of Equal Temperament.

I often check the tuning of digital pianos, using standard tuning checks. No matter how expensive the digital piano, they always fail miserably; uneven thirds, inconsistent octaves that have some narrow 2:1's even, always some narrow fourths and wide fifths.

I don't know, but I have a theory that, if a digital piano had a more even tuning, the sound would be lifeless because there is no cross resonance between strings, soundboard, etc.

It's just a theory, but why else would an instrument that has been designed by high priced electro acoustic engineers have such horrible tuning quality?

That's not my experience at all. The thirds are progressive and the 4ths / 5ths are pretty good. Not so much the 10ths from the low to high tenor though (not enough stretch I reckon). Decent digitals sample all the cross-resonance anyway as they have samples both pedal-up and pedal-down (and some have half pedal samples too). Things have come a long way in the past few years.

Paul.

Interesting...
I am not qualified to argue, or support what you said.
I would be interested to know if you ever check the tuning of virtual pianos, i.e. "sample players" and modeled piano programs such as Pianoteq.

Hi all, I can vouch for tuning accuracy in Pianoteq. Since it is synthesized mathematically, they can plug in any curve, stretch, octave size, temperament, you name it. Their stock ET that comes pre-loaded is right on the money (using aural tuner's interval checks).

I can't say the same for sampled piano software such as Synthogy's American Concert D and Galaxy's Vintage D, because I do not own them or have access to them.

I'm with Mark on finding sub-standard (sometimes bad) tuning on stock DP's. The best to my knowledge is Yamaha's flagship line. The thirds are pretty darn even (taking into account that they 'stretch samples' over a couple of chromatic neighboring keys on some models). I think somewhere Yamaha said that they hired a piano technician to oversee the sampling of the original Yamaha CFIII, and to be ready to touch it up if things go astray during the pounding of all individual 88 notes, times however many velocity layers (ppp to fff) that they advertise per note. That's a lot of recording!

Coming in behind Yamaha is Roland, Casio, and the rest. Mixed results from those, especially Roland (who supposedly samples different Steinways for each register of your DP!). That's an exercise in futility trying to get that DP in tune with itself!

I would bet that the software sampled pianos that I mentioned above fall into the same category as Roland, Casio, etc., unless they hired a technician to be on site during the sampling like Yamaha did.

The best of both worlds, and possibly the future is hybrid modelling/sampling so they can dial in a note accurately like Pianoteq's synth engine can, AND at the same time have a realistic piano tone when you press a key.

I have a small desktop keyboard which I bought 30 years ago for $10 in a thrift store. The beat rates starting at C3 are as follows:

Beat frequencies of 3/2 5/4 5/3
C 0: 0.000: -1.1329 4.1829 5.6883
1: 102.350: -0.7580 3.7925 4.5526
D 2: 203.450: -1.5410 4.5334 6.0549
3: 298.850: -0.7470 5.3099 7.5757
E 4: 397.350: 0.7691 8.3529 9.8690
F 5: 498.100: -0.0166 7.5567 10.6388
6: 600.400: -0.0016 6.0674 7.5613
G 7: 696.950: 1.5430 10.6448 9.1065
8: 801.150: -1.5302 7.5506 7.5839
A 9: 899.350: -1.5055 10.6495 10.6527
10: 998.030: -0.7601 12.9182 9.8323
B11: 1102.000: -1.5214 7.5461 10.6065

Note the pure P5 on F and F# and the wide GD P5.

I kind of like the sound of this bizarre temperament, though this requires a very positive attitude.

Even more bizarre temperaments can be found on things like the "singing candles" or birthday cards, you'll hear they are quite out of tune.

The reason is that all tones are made by circuits that modify a single base tone generator (such as a square wave) and these circuits produce rational intervals with simple ratios like 3/2 using less circuits than complicated ones like 9/8 so they find the cheapest way to get an approximate ET. The cheaper the device, the rougher the tuning.

On half-decent sampling keyboards this is no longer an issue nowadays.

Kees

True. I've even been fooled at a dealer once.

But the cross resonance is not there. It can't be, because that is an analog thing.

What I'm more interested in is, why do I hear such poor tunings on DP's. Is it that I am too picky or just unlucky.

I think I will take the opportunity to record some DPs I find and post the results. It would be a good excercise to get some confirmation on what I am hearing.

(OK, I read some other posts after mine. So I'm not crazy. I would like to check some modeling software for fun.)