Pitch raise vs fine tune thoughts 💭

Henry

Hello all,

I’m steadily getting more familiar and used to pianoscope after a few weeks and lots of tunings.

I’m starting to get much better results with the pitch raise mode, new software takes practice!

I did a 3hz pitch raise on a restored Blüthner style vi today. After a 30 minute blast on pitch raise mode the whole piano seemed to settle nicely and the overpull calculations were spot on. It still took me another hour or so to fine tune it…took me a while to figure out how the pins wanted to be set on that piano.

Measuring the pitch for all keys chromatically before starting was well worth the extra minute or so.

I also tuned a Blüthner model C, and did a more modest pitch raise of about 10 cents.

It’s so nice to be able to do very small overpulls when needed, even for very close to pitch pianos which might have the odd outlier which needs more overpull.

When do other pianoscopers decide to just fine tune, 5 cents? More? Depends?

Is there any drawback I’ve not thought of when tuning on pitch raise mode when fine tuning?

Frank Illenberger

Henry The only drawback of always using pitch-raise mode is that you need to tune in fixed ascending order and that you have to pre-measure the pitches. If you have to measure the IH anyway, the latter does not matter.

JBrasell

Henry
I used to only use pitch raise function for 10¢ or more, and then making another fine tuning pass. But, I was finding that my pitch raise tunings were turning out superior to tunings where the pitch was “close enough”.
After talking about it with my mentor and finding out that he always makes 2 passes when he tunes, I adopted the same method. So now, with very very few exceptions (that I usually regret), I always take my measurements for pitch raise and then work from low to high and tune unisons as I go. I use two mutes and try my best to work fast and not get caught up trying to make the unisons perfect. It takes me about 30-45 minutes for the pitch raise. On the next pass, I use temperament strips and take fresh IH readings. I tune all of the middle strings from the bass break through the extreme treble. I do some checks at this time. If my ear hears it, Pianoscope will verify it. Then I tune all of those unisons. Then I tune the bass from the break down to A0.
At this point I listen for stray unisons and play my test pieces.
I’ve really enjoyed the results by working this way. By working quickly through the pitch raise, being really close with the center strings and loose with the unisons, I find there’s only very small adjustments that need to be made on the fine tuning pass.

I hope I articulated that well.

So… Always. My answer is always make 2 passes. Use pitch raise on first pass. Not on the second pass.

Rick

5¢ is my limit. Anymore than that is pitch raise mode. Keep up the good work.

MilanDka

Even my limit is around 5 cents. Anything beyond this limit, I use the pitch-raising mode. Only when I need to lower the pitch, my limit is 10 cents—but only for brand-new instruments, where it can naturally drop by about 5 Hz within 2–3 days.

Henry

Good to know thanks both!

My previous software could do small overpull calculations, but it would take time on every note to calculate the overpull. And it only remembered the last 10 notes you’ve tuned so you could end up in situations where you want to revisit a section and it will start calculating a new smaller overpull.

You can make it work but it became inefficient for very small pitch raises/lowering.

I much prefer the pianoscope system!

Henry

JBrasell
Hi there!

Sounds very similar to my process when time permits.

I always aim to have two passes even for very fine tuning, there’s always something to improve on the second pass - sometimes lots!!!

For big pitch corrections I add a 20 minute rough pass (or less if it’s one or two sections) before the normal 2x tuning passes, this seems to help stability by the end.

I also do unisons as I go with two mutes for the first normal pass 30-40 mins, then generally one mute pass either through the whole aural sequence (pianoscope auto note switching is great for this) or mute strip in the scale octave and then aural sequence, or if pushed for time just going over the unisons again with some octave checks to make sure things are where I expect.

Unfortunately a lot of the commercial work I do has to be within an hour, so mute stripping tends to be a luxury I can’t afford…slightly wide octaves and good solid unisons is better than not finishing the piano before the next student comes in and starts hammering away at Prokofiev 😝.

Mute stripping large sections of the piano has led me a cropper a couple of times, where if I’m kicked out of a room 10 or 20 mins early important unisons have to be rushed.

Tbh for modern piano’s I’ve gone back to cybertuner for pitch correcting…it gives such a stable reading for high treble pitch that it can shave 10 mins off my tuning and also means me and my mentor will be tuning very similarly on the pianos tuned weekly.

I still prefer pianoscope for fine tuning and domestic customers. It works so well as an aural tuning aid.

Maybe I’ll do a video of a side by side comparison of treble tuning on pianoscope and cybertuner and see if I can convince frank to work some of his magic so I can have my cake and eat it 🪄 🎂, or someone can point out if I’m doing something silly and need to change pianoscope settings…