Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum PiaTuner: my initial impressions ...

PianoMeter's interface is no better or worse than any other app. The "deciding factor," as it were, really depends on what matters to you, as a tuner!

I have found the constantly moving circles (never really stopping) to be confusing and stressful. I suggested a different UI to Anthony but he seemed to feel it either was not reasonably possible and/or not worth the effort. (I will not divulge what I suggested).

Since I am still an analog tuner I have little need (none really) for a program to tell me what to do. However, I am always on the lookout for a machine that thinks the way I do and operates fast and helps me rather than hinders me.

Peter Grey Piano Doctor

I appreciate what you’re saying about what I’ll call the tuning “read outs”. Some of them are difficult to use. I like PiaTune’s because the needle or pointer combined with the strobe-like indicator clearly show how close you are to the tuning target both on the initial strike or attack and as the note decays.

Got around to checking PiaTune’s M3 beat rate calculations for my piano against IC PianoTuner’s. They are identical.

I get eye fatigue from the erratically moving circles and the many cramped tiny markings. I even get dizzy sometimes while trying to focus in the small area with so much going on and on top of that in the highest contrasting colors, who knows why. The black circles should be in a lighter color such as grey. The area showing 0 to 5 cents should be expanded. And more, but this is not the place to have this discussion. Anyways, despite this, I have rated PianoMeter with the highest rating on Google Play because I know how much effort Anthony has put into developing it.

PiaTune seems to have a nice interface although I haven't spent too much time with it yet.

Hi,

I am planning to make the indicator style selectable between the current needle and a triangle. Also the needle now touches the border of the dial circle.

Here is a very short video demonstrating the planned change. The default is planned to be the needle style, but the selection is system wide and remains until you change it back.

Please let me know your thoughts.



Also, I am planning to add 8:2 and 3:1 stretches to bass and treble respectively.
Revisions to the user manual as suggested by johnlewisgrant will also take place.

Thank you.

Hello Hakki,

Are there any plans for a translation into German?

No, it will be in English only.

I recently bought a used iPhone 7 (My first Apple product!) and purchased PiaTune. Haven't been able to spend a whole lot of time with it yet, but I like the readout on the main screen. As far as the needle compared to the triangle, I don't think it's that big of a difference but I'm all for options. So, having the option to change it seems to me to be a good thing.

Question: Do you have plans for a pure 12th temperament? I haven't seen an option for that, unless I'm missing it. That's the one I've been using exclusively with my other apps and I like it.

The coming version will have an option to set 3:1 for the treble stretch.

I like the needle. But no harm in providing a triangle option.

Hi,

There was a suggestion by johnlewisgrant to show beat rates calculated by PiaTune on the Measure Beats screen besides measured values.

All inharmonicity values between G#2 and A4 have to be measured beforehand for this feature to work.

The values in parenthesis are the calculated values. That is if the piano is tuned to PiaTune targets these are the expected beat rates for M3, M6 and M10.

Below is a short video demonstrating this feature.

Please let me know your thoughts, suggestions about this feature.

Thank you.

I've just noticed this thread and looked at this app for the first time and I instantly like it. As other's have said, it 'thinks' like an aural tuner.
As someone trying to learn to tune aurally, having an app that adopts the same approach is fantastic and I can see this will help my journey a lot. So I offer a big 'thank you'.

I really like the efficiency of the user interface and the amount of information that is available on the same screen. I also like the idea of displaying the calculated beat rates. I think most people venturing onto the Measure Beats screen won't mind the slightly more cluttered display in return for extra useful information.

(As an aside I was taught to try and get F3-A3 beating marginally slower than F3-A4 but the values above are making me ponder if this was actually the best advice...)

Tim Howard:

I am glad that you are interested in PiaTune.

Here are the calculated beats for the same piano when temperament octave is set to 6:3/4:2.
For this piano 6:3/4:2 setting produces excellent results too.
PiaTune default is 6:3/4:2. But depending on the piano, 4:2 or 4:2/2:1 setting might need to be used.

I have released PiaTune version 4.4 today.

8:2, 3:1 stretch options, calculated beat rates and indicator style selection are newly added features.

I have plans to include an inharmonicity graph for the next release.

Do you think such a graph would be needed?

I haven't used the app enough to know the specifics, but an inharmonicity graph is the quickest way to visually look for measurements that may not be correct. That gives the tech an opportunity to remeasure specific notes to either verify the jump in the scale or correct a faulty reading.

Ron Koval

Thank you Ron. I will post a video or screenshot when ready.

BTW, I had to release PiaTune version 4.5 to fix a bug in version 4.4 which caused some features being disabled before 200 note changes.

I have released PiaTune version 4.6 .

This version includes the inharmonicity graph screen that can be opened from the main screen.
You can drag the red line to read current inharmonicity measurements.
A4 is next to the black line.

Thanks!

If I was tuning that piano, I would revisit those jumps above A4. If after remeasuring a couple of those notes, the graph remained the same, I would consider the scale verified. If it changed to be more smooth, I would still remeasure it again until I got two readings that were about the same.

Depending on the software, correcting those small differences can make tiny improvements to the tuning calculation - at least that's been my experience with other apps. Most often, I'll notice an improvement in the quality/stillness of the octaves with the involved note.

Ron Koval

You are welcome Ron.

There are of course pianos with worse IH graph than this piano.

This is where measuring inharmonicity values benefit compared to modeling the scale from a few samples.