Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum electronic tuners- any recommendations?

I see that electronic tuners can be very expensive. Are there certain ones which are more trouble free who take you through the sequence of tuning as it would normally be done by an experienced tuner? Are there ones which give options of different ways to tune, different ways to tune, such as european or american preferences? [LIST]

I just purchased a Peterson AutoStrobe 490ST. Haven't received it yet, but it'll be here in a few days. The main reason I bought it, was because that's what the school highly recommended.

I have looked over the Peterson tuner owned by a local (new) tuner who also go it from his tuning course. It is possibly the worst tuning machine I'v encoutered.

Do not get this one, even though it is cheap.

I have no experience with the Verituner.

I have used the Sanderson Acutuners for 6+ years and find no problems with them at all. Ther are built heavy duty and can create some vey nice tunings, which can be stored (up to 200 I think on SAT-III).
I know other Techs who use and are thrilled with the Reyburn Cybertuner (which can be used on a laptop or pocket-PC). My personal favourite is the SAT (Sanderson Acu Tuner) for its ease of use, reliability. It does incorporate enhanced functions in the SAT-III for stretching octaves and overlaying hisorical temperaments upon new and saved tunings.

Quit fooling around and get a SAT 3

PP- there is nothing inherently wrong with the Peterson, just be prepared to do A LOT of aural correction that you would not have to do with a VeriTuner or other top ETD.......Sam

So, what would the purpose of having an ETD be if I still have to aurally correct it? That seems rather pointless to me. What should I get instead, and how much more will it cost? I thought it was gonna break me getting the Peterson at $700. Kind of confuses me why the school would "highly recommend" that I purchase a Peterson AutoStrobe 490 or 490 ST. That kind of irks me.
I haven't begun tuning yet. I'm actually waiting for the Peterson to arrive and allow me time to get used to using it before I begin my servicing. Please don't tell me this means I have to wait another few weeks to start...? Man, oh man. I'm REALLY excited about getting started. I'm already having results like crazy from people in the area wanting a local Technician.
Should I forget about it and use the Peterson for now, and then upgrade later on down the road? You know, start small, grow big?

If you can't cancel your Peterson order, when it arrives put it on ebay and in the meantime buy Tunelab. For about $385 you can't go wrong, but you do need a laptop or pocket computer.

Perspective: I started 29 years ago with a Peterson that was undoubtedly not as advanced as the one you ordered. Used it until about 1992 (17 years, and it still works; I use it from time to time for chipping), then I got my first SAT. A couple years later, I got the next generation SAT. Then the SAT III. Then, the VeriTuner caught my eye. I read the reviews, bought one, and have finally found a machine that needs little if any aural correction, it is that good.

I am a very big advocate of starting small, paying cash as you go, and growing with little or no debt. That is a choice only you can make.

As far as the school highly recommending the Peterson, I would call them and point blank ask them. Then, please let us know the answer. I am sure interested.........Sam

If I were you, I'd concentrate on perfecting my aural tuning skills first. Using an ETD too early in your development will most likely cause you to become dependent on it. You may never develop a truly keen ear and may not be able to become an RPT because you can't pass the aural tuning portion of the PTG Tuning Exam. It happens to a lot of people these days.

I mentioned that I started with the same course you did and I hate to break the news to you but I think it is important that I do: The information in that course about how to tune is woefully incomplete and seriously obsolete. Following those instructions alone, you'll never be able to tune a piano up to today's standards. You will need an ETD and you'll always be and feel inferior because you can't hear what other people do and you can't do what they do.

I have no idea why the person who offers that course has never provided more complete and up to date information or why he recommends an ETD that will forever keep you in second or third class categories as a technician. You are entirely correct in wondering what the point of having an ETD would be if you have to correct the results by ear anyway.

The other ETD's mentioned here are much better and yes, they cost much more. Your rudimentary tuning fork is all you really need except that if you were issued a C fork, you'll need to get an A fork. The $10 fork you can buy at a music store is all you need, however. If all you have for a tuning hammer is the gooseneck style that I was provided when I was your age, you'll need to get something better too. Again, I have no idea why that course issues tools and instructions which I, after 35 years in the business full time, could not and would not use to attempt to tune a piano.

If your tuning instructions only were a pattern of 4ths and 5ths as they were when I was your age, with no instruction on how to listen to 3rds & 6ths, you have a big hurdle to overcome in your set of knowledge and skills. There really aren't any good tuning books out there right now but I actually am working on the problem but it will still take some years for that to happen.

What there is, are some very good study materials available from PTG called the Professionals Advance through Continuing Education (PACE) program. If I were you, I'd contact PTG, get a membership application and order the PACE tuning program first. There are also programs for grand and vertical regulation.

Additionally, I recently wrote a 10 page article to help people who have learned to tune with an ETD but can't tune the middle of the piano by ear which is what is required to become an RPT. It is far too long to post here but you may request a copy by e-mail that would be sent as an attached file in the WordPad format. It describes in every detail how to tune the midrange of the piano with the highest standards of accuracy and entirely by ear.

You may have seen other discussion about tuning on this forum which used terms and made references to things which are way over your head. This should tell you something right away. Why would you not be able to understand what professional piano technicians are talking about when you have just been "certified" by a piano tuning school?

You are not alone and you can increase your knowledge and skill if you have the ambition to do so. Send the Peterson Strobe tuner back unopened and get a refund. When you have enough business and a set of skills that would justify buying a sophisticated ETD, do it then. You need to tune by ear for at least a year, would be my recommendation.

I completely understand. Let me ask this... I was wondering if since the 490 ST requires aural correction, would this not help me develop my ear tuning skills at the same time? My main problem is just that I've always had an ear for intonation, not to listen for beats. So it's extremely difficult for me to listen for 3 beats every 5 seconds, instead of listening to how close in tune the unisons/intervals are.

Did you read through the previous thread on this same topic?

http://www.pianoworld.com/ubb/ubb/ultimatebb.php?/topic/3/727.html

(topic heading is something about Petersen vs SAT)
There is a lot of good information there...

Ron Koval

Yeah I read that one too. I think what I'll do is send the Peterson back (definitely) and purchase Tunelab to start out with. I was going to buy a pocket PC anyway, so that'll be great. So, what pocket PC is recommended to use with the Tunelab? This time, I'm getting the advice and recommendations FIRST. :rolleyes:

Robert Scott, the invertor of Tunelab, posts here once in a while. Search the archives or go to http://www.tunelab-world.com/ and give him a call. You can download a free sample of the software that can be used a few times before it shuts down.

Well, part of the problem is that "3 beats in 5 seconds" is the wrong information. I had just as much trouble with that as you do and wondered why my temperament virtually never worked out as it was supposed to.

Again, I would suggest you study the article I wrote about this. I have now spent 12 years as one of PTG's Certified Tuning Examiners. When my second term was up, I had to prove knowledge and skill in administering the whole affair. I reexamined the way the "Master" or reference tuning is set up. It is the model to which the applicants work is compared.

It will not be easy but the method I came up with is designed to help people who thought they *couldn't* hear beat rates properly and therefore are forced to *depend* on the ETD. I have no argument with the Tunelab system but I still urge you, at this point, to spend what time and money you have wisely by perfecting your aural skills first.

Just send your request to Billbrpt@aol.com

So, pretty much that school was a waste of my time? Oh well. I emailed you from scoobydude63@hotmail.com. Thanks a lot!

I have and use Virgil Smith's instruction on aural tuning. He wrote an article for churches and the PTG back in 1972-74.
He explains very well a grea many tuning checks and how to set the correct bps in different areas of piano.
Maybe browse through the Oooold PTG archives and find his article on tuning/temperament.

Oh,Ryan, I got your e-mail, you asked about the EBVT which is a different topic altogether. After Virgil Smith saw my article in the PTG Journal, he wrote to me and also sent his equal temperament idea. While it is good, I still feel the initial temperament octave being constructed in the F3-F4 area rather than his less conventional D3-D4 area is best. My article explains all about how to tune the entire span from C3-C5, including minor thirds.

Ryan, I do not mean to take the wind out of your sails nor to outrightly condemn the info in the American school course. After all, I and others in this forum started there too. To be successful in this business, you have to be the curious and self motivated type, always seeking perfection while always knowing you'll never quite attain it.

All methodology eventually becomes obsolete. I gave a presentation on my method last month and brought a large stack of books I have on the subject of tuning, including the American school course manual. There has been a great deal of advancement in the science of tuning within the last 30 years which makes all of them obsolete, including the works of the highly esteemed authors, William Braide White and John Travis.

I think you'll agree that in your tuning course, you never saw the words, "equal temperament", just the word, "temperament". But in this forum and on Pianotech, you'll often see the acronym for equal temperament, "ET" (not extra terrestrial, lol) because people are trying to distinguish between a temperament in which all intervals, 4ths, 5ths, 3rds and 6ths (also minor 3rds) all receive exactly the same amount of tempering and other ideas where some intervals are deliberately and purposefully favored over others.

There has been much hot debate over just when the almighty ET came into common practice. I personally believe that it is actually still rarely achieved today and moreover, when it is finally perfected, many of those who can do it realize there are other ideas which simply make the piano sound better. The information in the American course is what was being taught over 100 years ago. It is not quite accurate and incomplete. Yet people who used that method back then and now believe that what they are doing is ET without questioning it.

I liken the material which is presented to that of Charles Darwin or Sigmund Freud. It's not that they were wrong, it's just that they didn't understand the whole, vast amount of knowledge there was to the subject they were studying. The American course is so crude and simplistic that it would be next to impossible for you to tune a piano to today's expectations and standards using that knowledge alone. The same goes for the ETD which is "highly recommended". It does not provide enough nor precise enough information. The best you could get from using it would be a crude and flawed tuning and you'd just never understand why.

Equal Temperament is the very most difficult arrangement to achieve that there is. The word itself imposes this unequivocal standard. It's like the word, "perfect", any imperfection whatsoever, makes it "imperfect". Any inequality whatsoever makes a temperament unequal. You will see discussion about "Quasi Equal Temperaments" ("quasi" means "almost").

You simply cannot get an accurate ET by using what your course method taught but it did teach you some useful things and it got you to this point so I would not say that you were a victim of any kind. I believe that my Equal Beating Victorian Temperament (EBVT) is far easier to get correct by ear but even it is not what you should really start with. It would be better to start with an 18th Century style temperament where you make some of the 4ths and 5ths pure and others, you make beat the same as each other. It's not "counting beats". It's not the nearly impossible "3 beats in 5 seconds". It's more of a listening and comparing process.

Therefore, I will send you my article on creating a perfect ET by ear but I strongly suggest you study my 18th Century Well Tempered Tuning (also called "well temperament") plan first. It will really get you listening and hearing beats in a logical and manageable way. You can use it to do the first church tunings, old upright, spinet or whatever tunings you get to do and will probably yield results far more pleasing than you would ever get out of trying to tune the American school way.

You should read the articles on my website about "Key Color", "The True Meaning of Well Tempered Tuning" and "What the heck is Reverse Well?". They will enlighten you tremendously. It will all be a process. Take one thing and one day at a time. I recommend all of the current ETD's *except* the Peterson. But whichever one you choose, let it be an extension of your mind that has already developed a keen sense of what sounds good. I have heard of success from people who learned aural tuning with the help of an ETD but I still recommend the aural approach first and learning to do a well temperament perfectly first before progressing to the almighty ET.

You can expect the 18th Century Well Temperament first in your e-mail, then the very detailed study of how to tune a perfect ET.

Please let us all know how you're doing.

Wow, I'm impressed. I think it's awesome how I don't get bashed and trashed for my ignorance. I mean, really, I think it's awesome you guys are willing to help me out here. This is great. I just checked my email, and received the files. Since it's already 11:43 pm for me, I'll have to wait until tomorrow to start crackin' on the 18th Century method stuff. This is great. I think it's awesome how there's so much more to learn, and how complex it all really is. Good stuff, good stuff.

Oh, I was wondering about something. In order for me to go ahead and get my foot in the door and begin gaining clients, should I offer an "introductory fee" in order to be able to get some pianos to tune, and make sure they understand I'm just starting out? Or should I just do it for free, and do it for the experience? The local Music Store is a Baldwin dealer, and want to endorse me to all inquiries for piano tunings in the area. I think they'd be happy to allow me to tinker on their pianos they have sitting around (they're all out of tune at the moment). Obviously, I'd do it for free in order to have the experience. What do you think?

Sure, those are all reasonable ideas. Offer introductory fees, do some volunteer work such as for a church. One deal you could make with the store is to get a commission when an old piano you fix up sells rather than getting a fee up front. You'll need to get experience taking actions in and out of pianos, tightening screws, cleaning keybeds, lubricating, adjusting capstans & let off, etc.

One point I'd like to make about tuning pianos which are way out of tune is one I learned early on which I never forgot and always keep in mind:

"You can tune a piano a lot faster and easier twice than you can fight with it once."

There are a lot of reasons for this but if you accept the fact that you can't do a fine tuning unless you've already got it almost in tune, your whole life will go easier. Just get things close on your first pass, go just a little sharp when raising the pitch, just a little flat when lowering pitch of a drastically sharp piano (this happens mostly in summer). Pianos which are between 20 and 50 cents flat will take 3 passes. A half step pitch raise will take 4 passes. Don't struggle on your rough or course tunings and you won't have to struggle on you fine tuning. If you try to skip a step you know is necessary, you'll fight with it the whole way and end up with poor results.

Good luck, post your questions and experiences daily.

Well, my Peterson came in today. Now I just hope it won't take forever and a day to get the refund and receive my pocket pc and tunelab.