Happy holidays (?) Stretch tuning data for Steinway D and M

I wish I knew how to create a Scala file--that would have been the simplest route, but I've somehow avoided learning.

I did finish the basic tuning, but I've had to guess at many of the exact freqs for the fundamentals, since we can't see 10ths of herz on the Spectral NE pane or the Detuning pane. I had to move the strike positions around near the center and shorten the upper treble strings, etc. I was surprised by just how much did change with these tuning changes. Does have an interesting, big, old, imperfect sound, though. (A little more imperfect, at the moment, than it should be.)

But you're right. Hm...I could almost try to determine the original partials by seeing which partials in the octaves the fundamentals appear to be  tuned to, and then stretch the strings to make the fundamental more in tune with the other note's partial. But since I had to guess at the exact freqs for many notes when tuning...I'll spend another hour on it tomorrow and then throw up my hands and ask for help. I'm hoping Philippe and company will weigh in. At the very least, it needs to be a group project, ideally involving someone who has a model D sitting nearby... I'll post it tomorrow and we'll have a preset to load into all of the pianos to see what happens, and what can be done to make it sound better in each one.

Nice set of on-line tools here, by the way, for working with freqs in herz and subtracting or adding by cents. (For when you start working on the Steinway M that's on that site.)

http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-centsratio.htm

And here's the regular, unstretched piano tuning using an equal temperament. Be sure to use these values instead of subtracting from PTeq's default stretch tuning... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_key_frequencies

I'm not sure I understand the need for calculations here. The note edit detune pane is already in cents so it is rather straightforward to draw the given smoothed curve fitted over the data with 4 or 5 control points. I don't think fractions of cents are that important, so even entering each value rounded to the integer doesn't imply any math and is not very time consuming? or is there something I just don't see...

You probably have better (or younger) ears than me because if I use the calculator site you gave, adding 1 cent everywhere for example is equivalent to tuning to 440.25 instead of 440 Hz, and I can't hear that difference, try as I may...

The fact that the diapason field displays only 2 decimals and the detune pane is limited to integer values probably means higher resolution is not very important.

Blowing up the pane indeed shows a graphical display change while the value stays within an integer cent, but I don't think any decimal cent value is calculated in the model, it could be rounded to the integer(but I might be wrong of course...)

If there is, well I just don't hear it.

Yes if, with the C3 solo recording preset, I move note C3 up a cent and E3 down a cent (and put reverb off) and play both notes together, I hear a very slight difference in spectrum color, but not a difference in frequency.

But this a 2 cents difference. I just found this site: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/HB...ts.html#c4
which speaks of a JND (just noticeable difference) being 5 cents on average. The frequency differences between two tones moving up the scale corresponding to this JND vary a lot of course.

I recall some years ago using this test :
http://tonometric.com/adaptivepitch/
which uses pure tones of varying frequencies (I don't recall what was the final frequency but probably in the 1-2 kHz range) where I found out I could discriminate pitch down to 1 Hz if I remember well (if the test frequency is 1 kHz that would give a JND of 1.73 cents)

Maybe you could try this test to see what your JND is. The test is longer if you have good discrimination, so I won't redo it now, but it is interesting.

By the way, don't worry about your worrying...I just wanted to save you some time if possible.

Another thought, I find it funny having to discriminate between the preset C3 and the same note...maybe as the model improves and we get beyond the (Y)C7 no more precautions will have to be taken.

I should just use other keys in the meantime...

Skip:

I at first tried to work with the string length, but gave up. Partly because I'm not sure of the default settings: Clearly, not all of the strings are by default the same length. The numeral for the default setting must be for the longest string. So each change we make in the NE pane appears to be relative to an unknown setting per string? Not a rant--I just wish the NE pane reflected the length of each string...However, we can of course see the pitches of each partial in the spectrum profile, so we can check the results of stretching the strings there.

Do you know anything about Scala files?

Sorry this is a bit late - only saw this question just now for the first time. But - no, I do not.

Regarding string length, even if it were possible to match them very accurately, even then I suppose there's no guarantee that the inharmonicity would exactly match, because that also depends on the string material and how their wound etc etc, AFAIK. 

I am only very loosely following this thread, but perhaps what might be interesting is for Pianoteq to have an automatic tuning mode, where for a given piano/string length, it will be tuned as if a real piano tuner had tuned the piano by beat tuning - does that make any sense? If some piano tuners use slightly different methods of tuning, perhaps Pianoteq could even incorporate these as well.  Note that I have not attempted to comprehend Joe's recent post on tuning yet.

Greg.

Yes it does, and this is exactly how the piano tuning is programmed inside Pianoteq for all temperaments except the flat temperament.

When octave stretching = 1, it corresponds to a "standard" tuning taking into account the inharmonicity, "standard" in the sense that it maximizes the consonance (equivalently minimizes the beatings). Above, it gives a slight exaggeration.

Hi all.

Every now and then I get a referral from this forum regarding tunings I have on my site for downloading.   I wanted to update that information.

I know this forum's 'thread' has been inactive for a while, but I want to let whoever might be interested know that I now have over 160 tunings available for downloading from my site.  These tunings are available in both the Excel format and the .SAT format.

Here is the link to the download page:  http://pianotuningtucson.com/pianotuning/tunings/   (You will need to fill out a little form before downloading, but otherwise, the  download is free.)

An accompanying  README file will be downloaded with the tunings, with some notes and suggestion as to how to use these tunings, what the information contained on the header line (title) is, and how it can be used to pick a tuning to match the piano being tuned. 

Another bit of info which might be of interest is the partials used in these tunings:
A0 - G#2 use the 6th partial
A2 - A4 use the 4th partial
A#4 - C8 use the 1st partial (fundamental)

This partial arrangement has a few significant advantages:  One of the most notable is that now there is a double octave from A2-A4 with both notes using the same partial.   The other significant change is using the fundamental from A#4 - C8.   

These tunings of course, are intended to be starting points, and were derived from measurements made on real pianos.   Since I use an AccuTuner III, these tunings are particularly suited to the SAT III or SAT IV, since these 2 models of AccuTuner have the Double Octave Beat (DOB) feature.   (This DOB feature allows the memory tuning to be stretched or contracted wherever needed to most accurately fit the tuning to the piano.)

Again, thanks for the referrals, and your interest.

I look forward to following this forum in the future.

Bob Conrad
Tucson, AZ
http://pianotuningtucson.com/