4/10/2023 0 Comments Tune lab piano tuner![]() Limits are set into the mode to prevent any strings from being raised sharp enough to break. Also available is an "Overpull Mode" that calculates the amount that each string must be raised over the target pitch during a pitch raise in order to be left with an approximately in-tune piano after the pitch raise is finished. Tunelab can also be used to record "test notes" along the length of the keyboard, calculate an instrument's inharmonicity, and produce "tuning curves" that the tuner can manually customize to produce any desired result. A "Phase Bar" as well as a frequency graph are displayed to give the tuner multiple ways to view the same information. This program can be installed on any computer or mobile device and will use a device's built in microphone to provide visual feedback during tuning. Today, these bulky machines have been widely replaced by software products like TuneLab. These tuners provided remarkable accuracy and allowed for extremely minute adjustments of pitch. The first benchmark in electronic tuning was the development of the "strobe tuner" which was made famous by Peterson Strobe Tuners in 1967. If you are not familiar with this phenomenon, take a peek at my previous blog post. This is due to the fact that these tuners do not account for the inharmonicity present in the strings of a piano. Even more sophisticated orchestral tuners are all but useless for range of pitches encompassed by an 88-note piano. Many guitar tuners only provide a reference for the 6 pitches that comprise the "open strings" of the instrument. When it comes to pianos, however, these units are completely inadequate. These days, simple electronic tuners are extremely common in the form of small battery powered units used mainly by guitarists, violinists, and players of other string instruments. ETDs have been around for a long time ( about 80 years!). Historically, they have been very bulky and inconvenient to use in field work, not to mention expensive. The reason for this is the development and refinement of Electronic Tuning Devices (ETDs). Today, in the modern age of piano-technology, it has become commonplace to encounter successful piano tuners who don't carry a tuning fork with them. In fact, these tuning forks were so precise that they later became key components in quartz clocks and watches. The tuning fork solved all of these problems by providing tuners a means to produce a consistently accurate pitch that was practically unaffected by temperature or humidity. The brass reeds in them were subject to varying temperatures, humidity levels, and air pressure which caused significant inconsistencies in the tones produced by the single pipe. Although they were adequate for vocal purposes, these pitch pipes had many undesirable characteristics for use in piano tuning. Prior to the tuning fork, pitch pipes were used by singers to produce a reference pitch before starting to sing in a specific key. The first great leap forward was the creation of the first tuning fork in 1711. ![]() ![]() Tuning technology has become more and more sophisticated in the past 300 years. When this rolling beat has been achieved, the tuner can move on to the next interval, whether it be another fifth, or any other interval with a known desired outcome. In common terms, a piano tuner knows that if an A note has already been tuned to an outside reference, the next higher E (an interval known as a "fifth") needs to be tuned so that only a slow rolling beat can be heard when the A and E are played together. Historically, pianos have always been "tuned by ear." This means that a single reference pitch is tuned to an outside source, then the entire rest of the piano is tuned from that pitch using specific predetermined intervals with known desired outcomes. ![]()
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