Beta test of pianoscope v2.5

FloydG

I have not yet pursued the Freeze tuning, since my aim is in a completely different direction. I have a young protégé whom I am preparing to induct into the world of aural tuning.

Ed Sutton's post on the Pianotech Forum captured my imagination

https://my.ptg.org/discussion/a-new-way-to-learn-to-tune-a-piano

I understand the Freeze tuning to be a technique that allows for the very accurate visual tuning of unisons within a specific time window after the onset of attack, perhaps most helpfully applicable in the high treble.

The first time I got any real momentum in the field of piano tuning, I embarked on a path that made me over-reliant on visual feedback. I passed my RPT exam aurally, but that dimension of my skill set remains weaker than it ought to be. The thought of using a tuning app to tune the budding technician, rather than simply to tune the piano, is very appealing to me. Pianoscope is offering features that appear to support such an endeavor in a fresh and innovative way.

[deleted]

Today I found a very helpful use of the Freeze to clean up a unison wobble. On my B3, the left string had a little wobble by itself, tending to wobble flat back and forth from zero, coming off the attack phase, while the center and right strings were more steady. When I played them all together, the attack sounded great but the left string was contributing to a group wobble about 1 second later. So I tuned the B3 left string about 0.5 cents sharper off the Freeze attack indicator while leaving the center and right strings tuned at zero on their Freeze indicator. The result was all three strings in unison had very little wobble after the attack and were more in tune on the attack as well. So, Freeze to the rescue! I was not anticipating this benefit for using it as a solution in this way.

[deleted]

Before I had Frank implement the Freeze indicator, I used PianoScope in a pseudo-freeze mode by tuning each individual string a few tenths of a cent sharp on the attack and letting it settle a few tenths of a cent flat, then when the unisons were unmuted and played together they would typically strike the attack at zero and settle nearly a cent flat. The degree of overshoot and undershoot would vary, of course, depending on the register of the piano. The higher the register, the more variance. Now with Frank's Freeze indicator, this can be done with a far greater degree of precision. If I find one string of the unisons with more variance than the others (typical), then I tend to tune that one a little sharper on the attack than the others. Then it washes out in unison.

Johnny

I would like to see some video demonstrations using the audio feature. I see it useful for learning...any practical application, i.e. pitch raise.lower? Curious how others are using this.

FloydG

Johnny,

This is not a video, obviously, but yes, the audio feature can be used for pitch raising and lowering. I've outlined one limitation I have experienced above, but beyond that, it does provide some practical utility. Once measurements have been taken for inharmonicity and existing pitch levels, the generated tone can be activated as a reference pitch to which each note can be tuned. I'm not sure how accurately I can tune monochord unisons -- I made use of the visual display there -- but given a decent set of headphones, it is possible to correct pitch pretty accurately using aural targets that reflect the idealized tuning curve and the existing inharmonicity characteristics for the instrument at hand. Certainly useful in a situation where there is a desire to minimize visual dependence and cultivate aural skills.

[deleted]

I went back and re-tuned my Fazioli F308 to ensure that unmuted unisons as an ensemble did two things:
1) Hit the Freeze indicator to within 0.2-cent
2) Slow wobbles (as seen in the red indicator and heard audibly) should be minimal coming off the attack. The wobbles are not to be confused with the natural decay in pitch (as amplitude decays off the attack) which occurs in all pianos, especially in the mid and upper registers. This is not the wobble but the FM decay as amplitude decays. I tune out the wobble by taking the single string that moves the most coming off the attack and over compensate for it by stretching its tuning a 0.2-0.3 cents in the opposite direction of the wobble range. This usually works well. If that does not do the trick, then I check string leveling for any phasing that may be happening. I also check any string termination issues at the bridge and A-graf. This is well worth the time spent to get the most stable unisons possible.

I then play parallel 12ths through the whole range, esp. low-mid and mid-upper, and listened for a beatless clean sound that is clear and brilliant on the attack and sustains well as both amplitude and pitch decay. I was able to find one 12th which I perceived as just a little bit less than perfect, and it led me to one of the 6 six strings that was just a little off by a few tenths of a cent. This '12th Test' is what I call it, and it is a really great 'acid test' of achieving near perfection.

Then I played the ‘chorale’ section of the Chopin Nocturne Op. 48 / No. 1. It is full of a very rich ensemble of chord combinations and some of which greatly expose anything that is even the slightest bit off in the piano.

FloydG

MilanDka proposes a different approach for tuning unisons-on-the-go that does not seem to involve the kind of backtracking I described above. Even in that case, if hitting the note below the active note (or any note below it) turned off the tone generator, that would constitute a very simple switch enabling the pulling in of the unisons without interference. Striking the next note above for which a tone has not yet been generated could serve as a simple “on” switch.

Frank Illenberger

FloydG This is an interesting idea. Let me think about this.

Frank Illenberger

FloydG I've implemented your idea in build 1116. There's now a new option under Settings > Audio > Tone Generation > Semitone Down To Pause
If you activate it and you are using a headset to tune, the tone generation is paused when you switch to the note one semitone below the currently tuned note. By playing any other than the last two notes, the tone generation is resumed.

FloydG

I like it!

MilanDka

"Freeze" is an absolutely great feature. As I wrote in another discussion, I would add an enable/disable "Freeze" button to the status bar, as it's not as important in Pitch Raise since the capabilities of the indicator are not such that significant differences are visible.
Therefore, it would be good to have this quick option in plain sight.

Frank Illenberger

MilanDka Thank you for the feedback. I will be thinking about it.

I see two other possibilities for solving this:

Having an option for automatically switching off freeze during pitch raises. (Rick suggested this).
Having an option for the pitch raises to choose between two display modes:
a) The current mode: Using a linear indicator scale with overpull marker triangles
b) A new mode: Using a non-linear indicator scale with the overpull target being in the middle at zero, and marking the original tuning target with a thin line.

Mode b) would have the advantage of having more precision and the freeze would work nicely. You would not have to switch it off. A downside would be that it would be not as intuitive to grasp how much you are overpulling.

What do you think?

Burkhard

Frank Illenberger Mode b) would have the advantage of having more precision and the freeze would work nicely. You would not have to switch it off. A downside would be that it would be not as intuitive to grasp how much you are overpulling.

Moin Frank,
have you already implemented this option?

MilanDka

Automatic unfreeze on Pitch raise - maybe . But it does show differences in the high notes.

Probably a better choice would be B . It would be worth trying both options.

MilanDka

Hi Frank,
on May 20 there will be an open door day at Bechstein Hradec Králové (Czech Rep.). If you are interested, I would be very happy to see you there. This offer also applies to other interested parties.
I would specify the time, but the assumption is 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Frank Illenberger

MilanDka Hello Milan, thank you for the invitation. Let me check if I can arrange to visit.

The Don

Hi Frank,

The signup payment page and in the beta app indicates that the beta test is 5 days long. Does it finish in five days or longer? Also after the beta test, will we still be able to use v2.5 if we wish or do we need to revert the the previous purchases version? I just got v2.5 and would love more that 5 days to go through it as thoroughly as possible. I’m really looking forward to checking out the coincidental partial function. I’ve paid the one off full price last year for PianoScope. Danke!

Frank Illenberger

The Don The latest TestFlight build 1123 of v2.5 will run for the next 14 days. I will regularly provide new free TestFlight builds until I will have officially released the v2.5 to the App Store. Then you can simply use the AppStore app to update to the final release. The update will be free for all existing pianoscope customers.

Frank Illenberger

Burkhard Moin, no but I will.

The Don

Just did my first test on a piano I pitch raised 13 cents to 440 and tuned yesterday, but it still did not land at pitch over the whole piano (possibly more than 25 years since last time). Having AirPods today was such a game changer. I preferred the sine wave generation reference note over the harmonic stack but will try them again tomorrow. The microphone on my AirPods did not pickup the note anywhere as well as the phone microphone so I switched back to inbuilt. Didn’t use the coincidental partials function yet, will report back on that soon. The piano today came up incredibly. Thanks so much for these upgrades! Ear training whilst on the job. My ears felt more relaxed instead of guarding from test blows, with the reference volume turned down fairly low I felt very comfortable and could hear the partials much easier that previously.

Frank Illenberger

The Don Thank you for the feedback. Using the device microphone for tone generator tuning is indeed much better than using the AirPod mic.

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