Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum 3-part tuning of TuneLab Pro - revolution in ETD?

A new version of June 24 has appeared on the site of the TuneLab Pro for MS Windows application. Next - the original language https://tunelab-world.com/threeparttuning.html Who has already tried this feature?

Question for Robert Scott. When will this feature appear in TuneLab versions for other platforms?

It's already available in beta for Android devices. I've tried it and liked it. A definite improvement over the classic tuning curve editor. Great job Robert Scott!

As another ride around the merry-go-round, this comment illustrates both the good and bad of electronic tuning aids.. What it was replacing was the "latest and greatest" but.... if it was truly so great, why the need for improvement?

So... we have a situation where there is continual improvement to a product (which has already become quite good in many ways) but it's not "there" yet. Way better than a beginning aural tuner, to be sure. But still approaching the ideal of someone with a trained and experienced hearing. (As the hearing aid companies are now saying, we hear with our brains. not our ears.)

So, kudos to those who keep pushing the technical boundaries of ETAs. And, you users of ETAs, go out and buy all the iterations and updates that characterize the ETA products. But consider developing your hearing, as well.

Keith,

👍👍

The human brain is the the most awesome supercomputer creation in the universe...and we all have one. Technology though is slowly, slowly degrading people's ability to harness it's power (if they allow themselves to become dependent on it). Amazingly, the more we challenge it (the brain) the better and faster it gets! Relinquish decision making to a device and it "shrinks"...not good.

Unfortunately many remain unconvinced of this fact.

Pwg

So true!
And for so many different areas of thinking...
Especially in the area of The supreme of all minds: relinquish the decision-making role from that Authority, and Truth in our world shrivels up and dies very quickly; abililty to reason out reality, and make proper judgements as to what 'sounds good' and 'is right' (a lot like our unison and octave tuning- turns out the created thing is not capable of determining the truth in the end due to its inadequacies)...
Eventually, it comes to a point of, "What is truth?" (if I may quote a ruler of long ago).

An interesting and astute observation, Peter.

Edit: The point I suppose is that The Ears are 'the truth-decider', when it comes tuning...The created things (ETD's in this instance) are still quite inadequate at making the truth come to fruition.

It is very interesting to read philosophical reflections, but ... Is there anything on the subject of a 3-part tuning? I look forward to Robert Scott for clarification of details.

I'm bothered that this thread was taken in a direction that is divisive and rather rude.

Here's one thing I'm "hearing" you people say: Unlike electronic software that is improving and evolving, your hearing doesn't do that. It is fully developed and no longer needs to be improved.

If that's what you're telling us, I reject that notion. You yourselves tell us that you are continually learning and improving what you do. Why should computers not imitate the ultimate computer? Aren't they fulfilling their purpose in that respect? The created should aspire to imitate it's creator. Possibly that's something people could embrace and celebrate?

Scott,

Yes, in that sense you are correct. The computer designers (for ETD's) are continually striving to more closely imitate the "ultimate computer". Frankly, I think it's pretty amazing what they can do.

Nonetheless, still the virtually most important part of tuning is accomplished by ear...unisons. The ETD can split the octave into ET better than the ear, and micro-manage the octaves better than the ear (on paper, so to speak). Whether that micromanagement is actually better than a slightly 'imperfect' aural tuning is not something answerable in this thread (or possibly at all).

The above is an opinion only (and subject to change).

What is not an opinion anymore is that an aural tuner that brings in an ETD will gradually become dependent on it and slowly degrade (though not lose) aural abilities. Al Sanderson freely admitted this. This is the primary reason I do not use an ETD. THAT MAY CHANGE, as hearing abilities change, and I am open to this.

At present though I choose to keep honed what I've got and keep trying to hone it further.

I do not know whether an ETD user from day one (such as yourself) is affected similarly. Somehow I suspect not. And I will admit that if the ETD's of today we're available when I was learning, I probably would have taken it up that way (98.6% sure).

Sorry if I came across offensively. Not intended. Please let it pass.

☺

Pwg

I'm sorry if what I have said comes across as though human hearing is complete and fully developed without need for training or improvement. Far from it. Aside from the physical input equipment of the inner ear, which will only degrade with use, hearing actually happens in the brain -- just as seeing also happens in the brain. And, just as a visual artist that has worked with colors can literally "see" and discriminate more color variation than a young child (that's why primary colors are used with children) so also people with trained hearing can discriminate more than those who haven't made the effort. And, at this point, the trained ear is still better at tuning than devices. (With continued improvement, maybe in the future that won't be true, but it is now). Hearing is something that can continually improve with usage whereas devices require ongoing engineering and investment of money.

The big term -- for anyone who wants to use it -- is "neuroplasticity". It means that your brain is actually an amazing computer which can repair itself, create new programs and refine and upgrade automatically. Recent experiments with IBM's "Big Blue" supercomputer in winning a chess game against a human grand master illustrates the amazing capacity of the human brain: It took hundreds of millions of dollars, decades of refinement, investment of zilliions of man-hours by many people, expensive hardware and software development and actually being taught by multiple human chess grand masters for Big Blue to win for the first time against a far smaller "device" with far smaller power input. So... that's what it takes for one computer to excel over one human brain.

Research in Great Britain has shown that brains of aural tuners have much more complex and highly-developed neural pathways in the hearing areas than normal people. But brains are like muscle-- they must be exercised. So that's the catch-22 of learning to tune: electronic tuning aids are able to indicate appropriate pitch for a given note more precisely than a beginning aural tuner. But if the brain isn't exercised through listening to the sounds of intervals being tuned, the capability to excel the current state of tuning aids will not develop. That's why I said earlier that if you use a tuning aid to go ahead and buy the "latest and greatest" as these aids continue to improve. But I also encourage you to listen and allow your brain to learn to really hear, as well. If you give it a chance, you can train your brain to hear better and better.

So can we now continue this thread with regard to the latest update to TuneLab? No ill will is assumed for tne digression regarding the aural versus ETA discussion. Tnere are threads for that ongoing discussion.

I'm anxious to hear how other TuneLab users are using the features in the new version!

Yes. Anyone wanting to comment about aural vs. ETA tuning can go to a new thread I started so we no longer hijack this thread: Worn Out Aural vs. ETA Tuning Discussion

This new feature should help with those pianos (or tuners) that like to have more control over the width of the temperament octave. It was one of my frustrations when I worked with Tunelab. (I've tried just about everything out there) I often ran into more challenging scales that worked better with a narrower temperament octave and I was unable in the past to control that part of the curve well enough...

Good job Robert!

Ron Koval

That was kind of the problem I had. I seemed to be locked in to certain octave widths. A main reason I did not keep using it. I am certainly interested in seeing how this feature performs.

Pwg

Is there any place where imperfections in the composition of harmonics of a single string are discussed? As much as I like fiddling around with ETDs, it drives me nuts to hear that even between the three strings of one note there are distinct differences in that composition of harmonics and I am still trying to figure out how to deal with it. I understand that this is not an issue with new ianos, but my really old Steinway with 40 years old strings is a beast to une by ear.

How does different software deal with this and can you recommend something to make this easier?

That's a tough one!

There are two common issues I see all the time.
1. Single strings with an audible beat (often termed "false beats")
2. Unison strings that should match, but don't

For #1, tuning another string first and bringing the "false" string to the "best", or "least bad" is the best that can be done with the tuning lever. (Others may speak to termination or string issues that can be addressed)
You can try tuning each string to a display - but it takes gear that is really precise - yet with enough damping to make the display stable. Often it will show the initial pitch at one location and then shift over time, or even show the flat and sharp beating...

For #2, I find it helpful to move through a bit flat to a bit sharp against the first string tuned to find the "least bad" location for the unison. Remember that most ETDs are only driving the display by comparing a single partial to the calculated curve for that note. The Verituner may be the only one that calculates multiple partial targets for each note and then drives the spinner by comparing all of those targets based on the loudness of those sounding partials. You may or may not find it helpful in these situations to tune each string to the display.

www.pitchlock.com sells string coupling "clips" that can help in both of these situations...

Ron Koval

Great advice from Ron. As he said, I'd also recommend PitchLock. Not a magic cure necessarily but can really help, especially in the V-bar duplex section.

I have found that once the unison is as "good" as you think you can get it, go back to the middle string only and carefully manipulate it to find a "sweet spot" that will often improve it little more.

I have not found this to be true with any other string in the unison as a rule. The middle string "splits the difference" it seems between whatever difference exists between the left and right.

This technique also works well when all you need to do is slightly tweak a bunch of unisons. Stay with the middle string (unless of course you determine that another is just too far out). They all have to be within about .5 cent for this to work.

Try it. Report success or failure.

Pwg

Looking forward to trying out the new 3-part tuning feature of tune-lab, I presume when starting a new tuning you first measure 5 or 6 notes across the piano as per usual ?

I have tried something else first: Tune down the same string connected to the center string by almost a half tone and fiddle around with the center string a couple of times, up and down. Re-tune the outer part of the string back to roughly normal and then go for the center string.

Instant success, way clearer. I don't think it's esoterics, I believe its the tension distribution in the bridge that one can influence by this and maybe get to an equilibrium. I believe this is what the true masters like Knüpfer, Hübsch or Salisbury do intuitively.