Stretch

Matching The Verituner ‘Box’ To The Piano

A simple method to pre-test and adjust your Verituner to the piano presented in a short presentation, in Chicago land by Dr Woodwind

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you’re an electronic tuner how do you know that the electronic tuning you have calculated fits the piano in front of you?

Let’s consider for a moment how we tune a unison. Pick any note here in the middle we are going to mute off one string till we are satisfied with it. Pick the next string,we may go over we may go below and we try to find the best place for that unison.

I’m going to apologize for competing with the percussionists today, this is like practice room row!

We’re going to look at tuning octaves the same way we tune a unison, so the idea is you go ahead however your machine asks you to do it calculate the tuner to the best of your ability, taking your samples, we are gonna tune A4 of course. Now we have muted off so we only have one string to clear the string you can set that string as best you can allow that string will let you tune in it on the piano in front of you and then lets go down and see A3 where the machine wants us to set A3 which will be our temperment octave, again tune that as well as you can, and then just play it as you can, and just play it as an octave.

That’s pretty good but let’s see if we can do a little better. I want you to just treat that as a unison we are gonna go a little lower and then a little higher and try to find the pocket.

So we’re not gonna worry about 4/2 octave or 6/3 octave 2/1 octave just how does it sound the best place where it sounds this is about the best I can make it.

So now we are using the Verituner as a bookmark now. You notice that I have my ear has told me, one, two, three cents sharper that what the machine says.

What you need to do is understand your own machine well enough to know how to change the tuning parameters.

Um, these are

stretch parameters

style parameters

OTS parameters

these are different things you can do to alter the tuning on your Verituner you match what the tuning is on your ear. Now on the Verituner I’ve gotta go find a different style that will match, more closely. I have them all numbered so seven is a fairly wide styleI need to go up closer, um, to find something closer that might work for this piano and once you have pianos under your belt you’ll know before hand you know if I see a Baldwin upright I know what style to pick that will work for it.

And again A4 just double check it, that’s good. Drop down to A3, and there we go we are right on the money. Go ahead and go down to A2, tune it the way the machine says, and drop down the octave and then check it, thats got a roll to it, don’t really like that either (more tuning) that’s a little better. We need to go a little flater, we need to find a style that will have a little lower section in that part of the piano, there we go and then just work your way, as far as you feel comfortable as far as you (pause, more tuning)

So basically what we are doing is setting up bookmarks, setting up a roadmap for the machine to fit the tuning in between, because if you give it endpoints it can calculate in between fairly well. And then it’s up to you to find out how to manipulate your own machine. There are forums on line that can help you, you can ask questions on line of people how to set that.

But, the key concept here is to know you can tune a unison and tune two strings together simply by ear with no checks, you can also do two strings an octave apart by ear, double check with the double octave or triple octave as you work your way up to find the pocket so you can build a good ladder an appropriate ladder for this particular instrument

If you really want to get picky you may check Eb which is half way between the A’s, and also check some of those.

Again it is a trade off between how much time you want to spend before you actually start tuning the piano.

Hopefully this will help you, this approach as you work with it, will help you shorten the tune time so that you don’t have the entire piano tuned and then say well- I need to change this, I need to change that, I need to change that.

It should start you off with a tuning that should at least fit your A’s and that everything in between should be a lot closer than if you just picked an average tuning or the default tuning that comes with the box

(starts tuning again)

end

STRETCH is a post from: Piano Tuning Master Piano Tuner Registered Master USA USA Established Registered Professional National Capital Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Virginia & Maryland Area

Veritune…a better way…

This is a terrific series presented from Chicago land by Drwoodwind

Part six (six of six) is a video usng the Verituner to tune a piano in the confines of a practice room somewhere in Chicagoland

Click here to view the embedded video.

Drwoodwind starts tuning the treble and says

next time I do one of these (Mason & Hamilton) I want to over pull the treble a little bit more than I did last time

looks like just this first section

Looks like I really missed the overpull up here even more than when I gave it the first pass

thats better…

you have to taper way at the top…

on the first pass

theres a correlation to jump you know to the next…

looks like I beat an hour…55 minutes or so

(plays chords)

You could always go over it again, some voicing, or check out some of the action problems

buzzing etc

(plays a song)

end of this series

VERITUNE …A BETTER WAY… is a post from: Piano Tuning Master Piano Tuner Registered Master USA USA Established Registered Professional National Capital Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Virginia & Maryland Area

Veritune…a better way…

This is a terrific series presented by Drwoodwind from Chicagoland

Part five (five of six)is a video using the verituner to tune a piano in the confines of a practice room somwhere is Chicago land

Click here to view the embedded video.

Part five begins tuning the middle section of the piano.

Then Drwoodwind says

now that we’ve got the middle section

lets go ahead and get the bass strings (begins the bass)

I go ahead and force a ‘recalc’ if I hit something new and I know alot of people just like to go ahead and do the bass strings.

(some chords at the end of tuning the base)

Then up to the treble

Drwoodwind mutters….

if your still with me

VERITUNE …A BETTER WAY… is a post from: Piano Tuning Master Piano Tuner Registered Master USA USA Established Registered Professional National Capital Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Virginia & Maryland Area

Veritune…a better way…

This is a terriffic series presented from Chicago land by Drwoodwind

Part four (four of six) is a video using the Verituner to tune a piano in the confines of a practice room some where in Chicagoland

Click here to view the embedded video.

During more tuning we hear a couple of coughs probably from dust flying off the piano hammers

a rough test playing of the Mason & Hamilton

then Drwoodwind says

well…we’re closer lets go ahead and switch to fine tune, lets see where we ended up

You can actually use the over-pull here if you want to and mark where you missed

VERITUNE …A BETTER WAY… is a post from: Piano Tuning Master Piano Tuner Registered Master USA USA Established Registered Professional National Capital Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Virginia & Maryland Area

Veritune…a better way…

This is a terrific series presented from Chicago land by Drwoodwind

Part three (three of six) is a video using the Verituner to tune a piano in the confines of a practice room

Click here to view the embedded video.

Drwoodwind only tunes and makes no comments on this section

VERITUNE …A BETTER WAY… is a post from: Piano Tuning Master Piano Tuner Registered Master USA USA Established Registered Professional National Capital Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Virginia & Maryland Area

Veritune…a better way…

This is a terrific series presented from Chicago land by Drwoodwind

Part two (two of six) is a video using the Verituner to tune a piano in the confines of a practice room somewhere in ‘Chicagoland’.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Drwoodwind said now we’re gonna press and hold …clear all our markers so we’re starting fresh

We’re ten minutes in so far. Sometimes you’ll get better measurements if you move the unit around.

I’m trying to keep it here so you can see it.

And again

because we’ve over-pulled one note already

we only need to…

need less overpulling

If you need to reset zero over-pull

(come over here…) [Drwoodwind talking to the device]

VERITUNE …A BETTER WAY… is a post from: Piano Tuning Master Piano Tuner Registered Master USA USA Established Registered Professional National Capital Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Virginia & Maryland Area

VERITUNE …a better way…

This is a terrific series presented from Chicago land by Drwoodwind

Part one (one of six) is a video using the Verituner to tune a piano in the confines of a practice room somewhere in ‘Chicagoland’.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Drwoodwind said it’s January outside of Chicago, it’s a Mason & Hamilton upright, indoor humidity is 21% so naturally it’s pretty flat

Today I’m going to try and pitch raise and fine tune as efficiently as possible using the Verituner. I will display all three over pulls, so it’s roughly 10% in this area, 25% in this area and 35% overpull in this area

The goal is to, after the first pass, be as close to a fine tuning as we can be so there is minimum adjustment left to be done for that final pass

The Verituner needs to get some information, it will update it’s information as we go (in real time)

so…..

it’s about 20 % err- 20 cents flat, I’m working to fill the [ I ] (Inharmonicity) I’m on the medium ‘zoom’ right now and I’m actually going to start these about half way between the first two arrows. I only have the needle displayed A3 A4 is in the ‘bracket’ for the temperment. I’ll go ahead and give it A5 so it knows about what (Inharmonicity) is there

And now it’s a matter of going through the piano giving it the information it needs to fill those [ I's ]

Notice how I sound the note first to let the VERITUNER start calculating before I even move the hammer

starting at about twelve o’clock over here taking my time in this temperment section to try and fill the [ I ]

This should work for any style even the built in styles or one of my custom styles (one for all)

I’m measuring the right string, when I come back and tune this piano for good, I’ll be working on the left string over-pull

Again

this isn’t so much a ‘tuning’ pass as a ‘measuring’ pass until we reach the bass strings, just while I’m working I might as well get something done.

If you are ‘close’ you can use the ‘ zoom ‘

I’ll go ahead and pull the unisons for these three strings (in the bass section) here

Notice it was a miss measure over-pull but I know that I was just over pulling the previous note less than a cent.

VERITUNE …A BETTER WAY… is a post from: Piano Tuning Master Piano Tuner Registered Master USA USA Established Registered Professional National Capital Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Virginia & Maryland Area