which tuning style to use for Bill Bremmer's EBVT III temperament?

navindra

I'm not sure I understand the relationship between temperaments and tuning styles. Is there a particular tuning style that might be more appropriate for a particular temperament?

Bill Bremmer's EBVT III temperament is described here:
https://www.billbremmer.com/ebvt/
https://www.billbremmer.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/EBVT-2017.pdf

Based on this description, is there any tuning style that would be best suited for it... or is Balanced a safe bet?

Thanks!

Frank Illenberger

navindra For non-equal temperaments, it is best to use the "Octaves Pure" style.

Kris

navindra

Bill Bremmers EBVT is already listed under the temperaments in Pianoscope in the Pro version (plus many others). I’ve used it a couple times and I just used the Hummel quasi-equal temperament yesterday for an antique piano with oval tuning pins from about 1830.

Just click: Instrument>Temperament

Search for Bremmer

The only difference between the one in Pianoscope and the 1997 version is the D#.

You could add this new version by hitting the + and adding a new temperament.

Bill Bremmer EBVT3 (2017)

A. 0
A#. 2.86
B. -.03
C. 3.80
C#. -1.29
D. 0.86
D#. 2.86
E. -.41
F 1.84
F# -.28
G 3.11
G# .67

Johnymac

Frank Illenberger What if you would like a slightly larger stretch that twelfths pure would give you.

navindra

Kris oh, I didn't even know that the version in Pianoscope was out of date. Thanks for pointing that out.

How do you like those temperaments? Did you use Octaves Pure for EBVT III?

navindra

Kris I think your numbers may be off?

C: +3.80 +3.8
C#: -1.29 -1.3
D: +0.86 +0.9
D#: +1.59 +1.6
E: -0.41 -0.4
F: +1.84 +1.8
F#: -0.28 -0.3
G: +3.11 +3.1
G#: +0.67 +0.7
A: 0.0 0.0
A#: +2.86 +2.9
B: -0.03 0.0

ChuckCorbis

The EBVT III with the tuning numbers Navindra listed above is labeled as EBVT 1992 in Pianoscope as of May 20th, 2025. Which tuning style is best for that? Octaves pure?

Frank Illenberger

ChuckCorbis I recommend the octaves pure style for non-equal temperaments. This is because the temperament offsets are also octave-based and are similarly repeated for every octave.

Jacob L

Frank Illenberger

Frank, I understand your logic about using the octaves pure style to maintain the interval relationships across the scale. This makes sense in general for unequal temperaments if the goal is to maintain the same interval relationships across the scale.

Actually though, Bill's instructions for tuning EBVT tell you to expand the temperament through the midrange and high bass(from around F2 to F5) by making the P4, P5 and 8ve "sound the same", i.e. equal beating. Up from F5, tune an equal-beating P15 (double octave) and P12. High treble, balance with the pure octave.

So to achieve what Bill intends, for this temperament in particular, "octaves pure" may not be entirely the best. I'm guessing "balanced" would get you closer, but probably ETD math would never exactly calculate Bill's aural scheme. Perhaps a custom style could be devised that comes closer to these aural instructions?

[https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/6587f7b6-61cc-4b24-a183-4b30ba4ca10f/EBVT-2017.pdf]

Frank Illenberger

Jacob L Bill's instructions indeed sound similar to what the balanced style is doing. Have you already tried it with EBVT?

navindra

Jacob L Interesting point, but in my opinion Octaves Pure still works better and oozes resonance with EBVT III.

Frank Illenberger It would be great if someone could figure out how to translate Bill's instructions perfectly to pianoscope!

Jacob L

No I haven't! Can you elaborate on what the "balanced" style is doing in terms of interval priorities? It seems to come out pretty close to a pure P12 tuning in most cases but I assume it's giving more priority to the smaller pure intervals as well?

Frank Illenberger

The Balanced style is a compromise between pure octaves and pure twelfths with a bit more weight on pure twelfths. In the deviation curves panel of pianoscope pro, you can easily compare the effects of the different tuning curves and see how pure certain tuning intervals will be in certain regions of an instrument.