Tuning Software - IC Piano Tuner: Focusing on Beats!

[funpiano]

The "IC Piano Tuner" Turn your computer into a tuner -- View Pitch & Beat Real Time!
It comes with affordable price. It revolutionizes the approach in traditional tuning software by focusing on beating, the key task for tuners.

(1) It covers all keys from A0 to C8 for a standard piano keyboard. (Most other tuners & software have difficulties in identifying lowest keys such as A0).

(2) Beat counting is a major task in tuning. Did you ever have problem with it? IC Piano Tuner transforms the beat into visual result, no need for a metronome.

(3) In "Pitch" Running Mode, it can also provide partial-by-partial beatings between two strings (e.g., 4:3 & 8:6 beatings for F3 & A#4).

(4) In a noisy background while working with your piano? IC Piano Tuner allows you to set the cutoff level for the noise.

The latest version includes even more powerful features such as,

(i)    In Pitch mode, user can play two strings at once for a quick checkup of partial beatings for, e.g., perfect fifth.
(ii)    In Beat Viewing mode, higher partial beatings (such as 3:2 of perfect fifth) which are usually obscured by the first (or lower) partials can be enhanced by a  simple click.
(iii)   User is provided with an option to reduce the impact of the piano hammer knocking noise to achieve better tuning accuracy.
(iv)   User can choose different keys for higher pitch or higher partials beating enhancement.
(v)   Reference marks of equal temperament beatings are provided real time on the beating graph in Pitch mode to assist tuning practice so one does not have to memorize the equal temperament beating values, e.g., 0.89 Hz (Narrow) 3:2 of perfect fifth beating between C4 and G4.

It is expected this forum will be able to allow the user to post questions and exchange experience so we can improve the software to serve the tuning community.

Bill

https://www.cc-ast.com/icpianotuner.html


Reply on April 11, 2015 for comments below:

I am glad to hear comments coming back, as most users are too busy in tuning . I hope authors from other tuning software can post their comments too regarding their software, since they are those most familiar with their products. Then we will be able to have fair view while comparing pros and cons of each other.

Regarding to comments of "sk8nfool",

I don't know what you expect from "real time". For IC Piano Tuner, it needs time to listen to the sound as all other software as well as a technician. As long as it finishes listening (recording), the results should come out almost immediately, since the analysis is a simple process compared to other computer engineering tasks and does not consume a lot of computer calculating power. If there is a significant delay, it is more likely your computer has other time consuming tasks running on the background. In this regard, The pitch results are regarded as "real time", since you see the result right after you play a string, not after you click something else (to save, to analyze,...). I expect most other tuning software follow the same way. The major difference IC Piano Tuner brings in compared to most of the others is, it provides time (when button color at green) to allow a user to reads and digests the results, and notify (the button at yellow) the user when it is ready to take next play.  I have tried some other software which appears to have continuous sampling function (which typically use a shorter time and has poorer resolution) and noticed I have to keep knocking the key several times, since sometimes it does not pick up the play and it seems to have some delay so I am not sure when the sound is picked up. I have been considering to allow user to define their time for listening (red button), reading (green button), waiting (yellow) in the future release (which is a little bit against my original goal to make it as simple as possible).

For "real time" beating, it is more straight forward in Beat viewing mode, since the display shows you the visual beating with the sound curve going up-and-down while you are listening to the beat (It seems to me "sk8nfool" is expecting number(s) for the beatings which are available in Pitch mode for two string beatings). The beating value can be seen easily within each one-second division (how many times the curve goes up-and-down). The sampling is continuous, so it can even show your voice beating when you are talking. A special feature here is it can enhance higher partial beating (e.g., 3:2 beating) so to reduce the impact from the 1st partials which are usually the loudest. So far I have not seen any other tuning software providing beating functions as above. For the "Audacity" software mentioned by "pristinepiano" below, I spent 5 minutes trying to figure out what it is for, I have to say I am not smart enough to connect it with piano tuning so quickly. It is likely "Audacity" is not specifically targeted to piano tuning. According to the description by "pristinepiano", apparently you will need to spend significant amount of time on configuration just to get the simplest beating result. It may be helpful if "pristinepiano" can post further detail about how it works.

You can get more information by clicking the "help" button when you run IC Piano Tuner.

For beginners, I would suggest tuning steps as,

(1) Mute all strings (or as much as possible) except one for all keys;
(2) Tune A4 to the standard;
(3) Tune other keys within one octave (e.g., from C3 to C4) according to perfect fifth and perfect fourth;
(4) Tune other octaves according to tuned keys in (3);
(5) Tune 2nd unison (keep 3rd string muted if presented);
(6) Tune 3rd unison.

You may need to iterate more as needed, since tuning one string may off-tune the others. From time to time compromises are required (i.e., impossible to achieve perfect tuning) due to special conditions.


It seems to me people are trying to push me to increase the price for whatever reasons among which the main argument is cheap means low quality. In general they are correct, but for IC Piano Tuner it does not apply (well maybe one day it could come true if we skyrocket the price). At current stage, we are trying to make it affordable for many of the tuning amateurs.
 

[sk8nfool]

I just purchased this tool and am a little disappointed. As it turns out there is NO realtime display of either pitch or beats that I can find. This is not mentioned anywhere in the publicly available documentation.

Apparently this tool records sound for 1-2 seconds and then processes the recording as described in the documentation. This process (record, analyze, display) repeats every 5 or so seconds. The button allows the user to pause this cycle. There isn't any obvious mechanism to control when the tool starts recording although the "button" turns various colors (green yellow and red) to indicate what it's doing. This makes using this tool to assist the tuning process nearly impossible although it is effective in analyzing the final result.

However the price is very reasonable. Too bad the product falls short of expectation.

[pristinepiano]

There are apparantly different versions of the software, the most recent being 3.0.1  Is it possible you got the older Beta version and its not a full program?

I have RCT which is over $1K with all my add ons and I use it proffesionally to augment my two ears.  I would have high doubts about any tuning software that is asking 5-10$ for a download.  (Tunelab being the exception)

If you want a very decent piano tuning software for free, get Tunelab download.  Nothing will bet that or the price of "free".  

If your interested in beat rates, learn to use Audacity software.  It too is also free.  A bit of learning curve but you can specifically target a frequency range in the viewer, sample/record an interval, and then expand the period to high resolution and you can count the beats between the 1 second marker ends.  I figured out a way to reverse the process a bit and with a bit of math conversion, I get the beats per second without having to actually count the amplitude peaks. (Tips) Sample at the highest rate supported by your hardware.  Expand the sensitivety of the field to discern miliseconds.

[johnlewisgrant]

I used TuneLab for a few years, then forked out for Verituner on the advice of several professional tuners.

The tuners were right.  Tunelab measures 6 notes up and down the piano and creates, on that basis, an idealized curve for your individual instrument.  The unisons were perfect, but the idealized (smooth) curve did not produce the kind of precise compromise you HAVE to get to produce a really beautiful tuning.

That's were Verituner comes in.  It's the only tuning software that calculates the relative position of every note on the piano relative to every other, exactly as a tuner would.   Once you get the hang of using it, it produces what I can only call "spectacular" tunings.    

It's expensive, but if you spend a lot of time at the piano, as I do, if you want the piano ALWAYS in tune, if you don't always like the way the piano sounds after you've paid to have it tuned, and if you just want to save money in the end,..... then it's well worth the initial outlay.

The learning curve for tuning is also (in my non-professional experience!) about learning how to use the tuning hammer.   The program is more accurate than your ears will ever be, but, depending on your piano, moving the tuning pins can be tricky.  It's hard to "bend" them, which is to be avoided; but still, you want to get used to using the hammer properly so that the instrument, once tuned, stays in tune.  

My experience, for what it's worth.  (I use it on my Hailun 218 Grand, which I really like.)

[pristinepiano]

If you spent a great number of years as myself, tuning by ear, you would understand that there is a flaw in the Verituner concept of it adjusting the tuning as you move along.  In real life tuning anomolies, usually incurred by highly variable iH, an aural tuner who lays out a somewhat centralized temperament and then stretches the tuning out to bass/treble extents from it, a process occurs where previously tuned notes need to be readjusted sometimes to make a fit.  This is impossible for any ETD to emulate on a tuning based from left to right (or vice versa) chromatic tuning progressions (as most all ETD tuners do it).  It will make the best of what its got, but thats about it.  

At a seminar 4 years ago, we tuned a Yamaha C5 and a Kawai RX2 using 3 different ETD's.  Sanderson, RCT and Verituner using predetermined tweaked templates which matched the overall stretch (highest/lowest notes).  Unisons were all tuned by ear. All three produced near identical tunings less than +/- .5 cents deviation on any note.  This was pretty well an average/good case scenario as far as piano type was concerned but it was quite clear that the ETD's pretty well work very much the same in the end results.  The tunings were considered acceptable by all of us, but not perfect.  They certainly would have passed an RPT exam requirement.

Interestingly enough, 2 P5's in the temperament on the Kawai were all tuned a little wider than our ears prefered and when aurally adjusted, two M3rd intervals were slightly compromised to be out of line with their progressive beat rate.  Essentially, the deviation error was split (we argued about this a bit), something none of the ETD's could do.  You understand the issue which ETD builders face...they have yet to devise software which sends you back to previously tuned notes to do compromises when the puzzle pieces fit worse later on.  

The only way to get around this is to have software which reads the entire piano (ie. samples every note) before the first note is even tuned.  (Dirk's does this, unfortunately the algorythms don't do much more than the other ETD's with the information)  Then it needs to have a very precisely set bunch of rules and controls which give priority to some intervals over others, and also has the flexibility to make compromises when anomolies as shown above exist.  Another issue is that it is very rare that two aural tuners will always agree on compromises (like we fortunately did after some arguing).  Some techs will abandon precise M3rds or other RBI's over cleaner more consistant SBI's like 4ths and 5ths....or vice versa.  A decision would have to be made by the software programmer as far as taste goes, and you know what they say about "there is no accounting for taste".

[pristinepiano]

If you spent a great number of years as myself, tuning by ear, you would understand that there is a flaw in the Verituner concept of it adjusting the tuning as you move along.  In real life tuning anomolies, usually incurred by highly variable iH, an aural tuner who lays out a somewhat centralized temperament and then stretches the tuning out to bass/treble extents from it, a process occurs where previously tuned notes need to be readjusted sometimes to make a fit.  This is impossible for any ETD to emulate on a tuning based from left to right (or vice versa) chromatic tuning progressions (as most all ETD tuners do it).  It will make the best of what its got, but thats about it.  

At a seminar 4 years ago, we tuned a Yamaha C5 and a Kawai RX2 using 3 different ETD's.  Sanderson, RCT and Verituner using predetermined tweaked templates which matched the overall stretch (highest/lowest notes).  Unisons were all tuned by ear. partial maching was manually set to correspond for all ETD's in the same ranges of the keyboard.  All three produced near identical tunings less than +/- .5 cents deviation on any note.  This was pretty well an average/good case scenario as far as piano type was concerned but it was quite clear that the ETD's pretty well work very much the same in the end results. This type of measurement comparison is called "absolute precision" ...we were looking at each note individually as far as its deviancy on absolute frequency, not beat rate comparison.  Clarity was fine for single/double octaves on all the tunings.  The tunings were considered acceptable by all of us, but not perfect, when we eventually went over it with a fine tooth comb.  They certainly would have passed an RPT exam requirement and satisfied all but a highly discerning concert or recording studio setting.

Interestingly enough, 2 P5's in the temperament on the Kawai were all tuned a little wider than our ears prefered and when aurally adjusted, two M3rd intervals were slightly compromised to be out of line with their progressive beat rate.  Essentially, the deviation error was split (we argued about this a bit), something none of the ETD's could do.   A small adjustment was made in the treble also in the killer octave since our previous adjustment when expanded out created a new problem there.  You understand the issue which ETD builders face...they have yet to devise software which sends you back to previously tuned notes to do compromises when the adjusted intervals/notes fit worse elsewhere later on.  

The only way to get around this is to have software which reads the entire piano (ie. samples every note) before the first note is even tuned.  (Dirk's does this, unfortunately the algorythms don't do much more than the other ETD's with the information)  Then it needs to have a very precisely set bunch of rules and controls which give priority to some intervals over others, and also has the flexibility to make compromises when anomolies as shown above exist.  Another issue is that it is very rare that two aural tuners will always agree on compromises (like we fortunately did after some arguing).  Some techs will abandon precise M3rds or other RBI's over cleaner more consistant SBI's like 4ths and 5ths....or vice versa.  A decision would have to be made by the software programmer as far as taste goes, and you know what they say about "there is no accounting for taste".

[funpiano]

See Reply at the end of the first message .

[vanrameyen]

"Language" to read a choice of image curate they produce permission to read more! Many more respect, faith and helps to underscore the influence to impress! Do you have the Internet when you can!

[pristinepiano]

I read the reply...Sorry, I missed it earlier.  I may give IC a try just to get an idea of how it performs as end result.  I have some customers of mine who have asked about ETD's to help them tweak their pianos or keep them in tune between longer tuning intervals. They are a bit hesitant on anything with a big learning curve.  Even with RCT, I rely on making many choices of octave tuning style based on my aural skills, and I always still tune unisons by ear.  I believe there is an ETD which reads the whole tone and all its partials to allow unison tuning (Stopper's Pure 12's), Tunic onlypure, but most other ETD's will only target one partial for the spinner.

Audacity was not made for piano tuners, it actually is used by sound/recording engineers and audiophiles for analyzing and modifying recordings.  Its just that it is used by many tuners now when discussing tunings and beat rates on internet forums.  Yes, it is not easy to first navigate, but it is a powerfully accurate tool once you learn it.  

Professional tuners who were first trained in aural tuning to a high degree almost all have some reservations about ETD's.  Initially, the tunings take longer...and that means loss of money.  Familiarity with the software and tweaking the way in which you tune can eventually eliminate this.  ETD's allow you to navigate the keyboard anywhere and in any order compared to aural tuning.  ETD's allow you to immediatly see if a close to target frequency is a tiny bit sharp or flat of an absolute frequency, without the need of a comparison note...aural tuners need to swing the pitch through to find that comparatively, a little more wear and tear on the piano and a bit of time loss.  

One drawback of ETD's when they are sampling is that by default, they are regulated to listen to a certain part of the attack/sustain/decay envelope.  Not all pianos/notes are stable for the entire duration and quite often we will see a frequency roll flat, or even sharp after the initial attack, or on the latter part of the decay.  RCT will show the listening "ear" about 1 second after the attack and will cut out at a certain amplitude of the decay...other ETD's are likely to be different.   This listening period and its location is also something not all aural tuners are in agreement with.  Some tend to veer towards the initial attack, others tend not to.  

[funpiano]

Correction:

Step (3) in the Reply on April 11, 2015 of the first post above should be

"Tune other keys within one octave (e.g., from C4 to B4) according to perfect fifth and perfect fourth", (it was C3 to C4).

Latest update on IC Piano Tuner v4.0.0, Beating Viewing Mode and Pitch Mode become Continuous Mode and Interval Mode, aimed to speed up the tuning process, with new updates as,

(1) In Continuous mode, pitch data are provided continuously. A new C4->B4 stretch tuning function is added to allow user to stretch tuning the middle octave quickly by strike single string at a time (without playing two strings together).

(2) User can save preferred default parameters such as A4 frequency, noise level cutoff, and the duration of the beating curve (beating history), as well as the stretch tuning results of C4->B4 which provides one kind of "fingerprint" associated with the piano quality.

(3) In Continuous mode an automatic higher partials beating enhancement is provided to automatically suppress impact from the lowest partial(s).

(4) Noise cutoff range is increased to accommodate low sensitivity of some computer microphones.

Bill
https://www.cc-ast.com/icpianotuner.html

[johnlewisgrant]

Correction:

Step (3) in the Reply on April 11, 2015 of the first post above should be

"Tune other keys within one octave (e.g., from C4 to B4) according to perfect fifth and perfect fourth", (it was C3 to C4).

Latest update on IC Piano Tuner v4.0.0, Beating Viewing Mode and Pitch Mode become Continuous Mode and Interval Mode, aimed to speed up the tuning process, with new updates as,

(1) In Continuous mode, pitch data are provided continuously. A new C4->B4 stretch tuning function is added to allow user to stretch tuning the middle octave quickly by strike single string at a time (without playing two strings together).

(2) User can save preferred default parameters such as A4 frequency, noise level cutoff, and the duration of the beating curve (beating history), as well as the stretch tuning results of C4->B4 which provides one kind of "fingerprint" associated with the piano quality.

(3) In Continuous mode an automatic higher partials beating enhancement is provided to automatically suppress impact from the lowest partial(s).

(4) Noise cutoff range is increased to accommodate low sensitivity of some computer microphones.

Bill
https://www.cc-ast.com/icpianotuner.html

Still trying to make this program work for me.   Not easy.  Nothing at all in the manual about WHERE the program counts beats.  Is the user supposed to EXAMINE the wave pic that appears when a key is struck and try to figure out how many visible wavelengths there are in 1 second?  Is that it?

And why does the information re partials flash for less than a second and then just DISAPPEAR?  No time to READ the partial information.

And why does that bit button continually flash "red," "yellow," and "green" for no obvious reason, all on its own, uncontrollably, with no rhyme or reason?

In fact, what is that button for?

This program is mysterious.

[johnlewisgrant]

I just purchased this tool and am a little disappointed. As it turns out there is NO realtime display of either pitch or beats that I can find. This is not mentioned anywhere in the publicly available documentation.

Apparently this tool records sound for 1-2 seconds and then processes the recording as described in the documentation. This process (record, analyze, display) repeats every 5 or so seconds. The button allows the user to pause this cycle. There isn't any obvious mechanism to control when the tool starts recording although the "button" turns various colors (green yellow and red) to indicate what it's doing. This makes using this tool to assist the tuning process nearly impossible although it is effective in analyzing the final result.

However the price is very reasonable. Too bad the product falls short of expectation.

I paid $50 US ($72 Can)..... seems a little expensive for what you get (which I haven't figured out yet.)

Entropy Piano Tuner, by contrast, is free; and it is exceptionally easy, fun, and rewarding to use.  (Doesn't count beats, mind you; it tunes the piano based on non-idealized IH curves... Verituner is the only other program to do that.)

[johnlewisgrant]

I read the reply...Sorry, I missed it earlier.  I may give IC a try just to get an idea of how it performs as end result.  I have some customers of mine who have asked about ETD's to help them tweak their pianos or keep them in tune between longer tuning intervals. They are a bit hesitant on anything with a big learning curve.  Even with RCT, I rely on making many choices of octave tuning style based on my aural skills, and I always still tune unisons by ear.  I believe there is an ETD which reads the whole tone and all its partials to allow unison tuning (Stopper's Pure 12's), Tunic onlypure, but most other ETD's will only target one partial for the spinner.

Audacity was not made for piano tuners, it actually is used by sound/recording engineers and audiophiles for analyzing and modifying recordings.  Its just that it is used by many tuners now when discussing tunings and beat rates on internet forums.  Yes, it is not easy to first navigate, but it is a powerfully accurate tool once you learn it.  

Professional tuners who were first trained in aural tuning to a high degree almost all have some reservations about ETD's.  Initially, the tunings take longer...and that means loss of money.  Familiarity with the software and tweaking the way in which you tune can eventually eliminate this.  ETD's allow you to navigate the keyboard anywhere and in any order compared to aural tuning.  ETD's allow you to immediatly see if a close to target frequency is a tiny bit sharp or flat of an absolute frequency, without the need of a comparison note...aural tuners need to swing the pitch through to find that comparatively, a little more wear and tear on the piano and a bit of time loss.  

One drawback of ETD's when they are sampling is that by default, they are regulated to listen to a certain part of the attack/sustain/decay envelope.  Not all pianos/notes are stable for the entire duration and quite often we will see a frequency roll flat, or even sharp after the initial attack, or on the latter part of the decay.  RCT will show the listening "ear" about 1 second after the attack and will cut out at a certain amplitude of the decay...other ETD's are likely to be different.   This listening period and its location is also something not all aural tuners are in agreement with.  Some tend to veer towards the initial attack, others tend not to.  

Interesting points.   I've run Verituner and Tunelab simultaneously on my piano and I get COMPLETELY different results.  Verituner does measure every note, and produces tuning targets for each note which are in no way on smooth curve.  Tunelab's results always fit a smooth, idealized curve, because that's what Tunelab is supposed to do.... just provide a kind of ballpark tuning.   In my experience, these are completely different programs.  But I'm not a professional tuner; so I'm making a layman's observation simply based on my own experience with both over the years.

"Entropy Piano Tuner" is very new.   I wonder whether it addresses the concerns you raise above?

[funpiano]

Still trying to make this program work for me.   Not easy.  Nothing at all in the manual about WHERE the program counts beats.  Is the user supposed to EXAMINE the wave pic that appears when a key is struck and try to figure out how many visible wavelengths there are in 1 second?  Is that it?

And why does the information re partials flash for less than a second and then just DISAPPEAR?  No time to READ the partial information.

And why does that bit button continually flash "red," "yellow," and "green" for no obvious reason, all on its own, uncontrollably, with no rhyme or reason?

In fact, what is that button for?

This program is mysterious.

Any program has a learning curve. First thing you need to do is to read the manual carefully, e.g., here is one of the sections regarding the beating in the manual (for continuous mode),

"When two or more strings (such as unisons) are played, and the sound
beat (due to the difference in frequencies of the strings) can be observed
in the sweep graph. Not all oscillations in the waveform are due to the beat.
For practical reason, one should watch slow oscillation (<20 Hz, alernating peak and trough)
in the waveform amplitude for indication of beat existence."

Here the variation of the sound intensity creates oscillation in the sound waveform, that is why you hear the beating. It may be obvious to say one beat per second means one complete oscillation per second, but in case you don't know. Although the beating number can be shown as digits, but it will be harder to read for user than observing the oscillation. If you prefer to read the beating more accurately, you should use "interval mode" and read the beating according to the bar graph. Again take a little more time to read the manual and be patient before you jump to conclusion.

Here is another section in the manual regarding the button you questioned,

"(1) Round Button "PAUSE":

Press this button to pause or resume sound recording.

Color:

Green  - Program idle for a few seconds to allow user to view results.
Yellow - Program paused or ready to record next sound data.
Red    - Program in the sound recording progress."

So if you are not clear about what a special section in the manual talks about, please ask more specifically, rather than just saying nothing there.

Regarding your comment about the price, it will be interesting if you can name a second software which can perform the beating task, the key task in piano tuning. It is well known some other commercial softwares cost 10, 20 or more times than "IC Piano Tuner", but fail to provide any beating information.

Thank you for your comments, which help us improve in the future.

Bill

[funpiano]

New upgraded version v5.0.0 just out. New features are described in the website,
https://www.cc-ast.com/icpianotuner.html

to mention a few, adjustable frequency resolution, stretch tuning optimization of C4->B4, special beating enhancement, manually selectable pitch, convenient reference pitch marks, pitch tuning tracing history, a ~40 page extensive user manual with string-by-string stretch tuning examples for beginners, quick beating references between strings, etc.

For FAQ about beat counting, there are three ways to see it instead of hear it,

(1) Watch the sound tracing profile real time (synchronized with your ear) goes from peak to trough and back to peak, which is one beat. For every beat you hear, you can see it at the same time. The graph shown as of today (Dec. 1, 2017) in the website is about 3 beats per second (the division is 1 second);
(2) The program calculates the beating between two played strings at a pitch and shows the beating results, e.g., C4&G4 has 3:2 & 6:4 beating at G5 & G6 pitches;
(3) watch the peak frequency difference in a partial frequency graph where two strings has a common pitch (such as G5 in (2) above for C4&G4), where each Hz make one beat. The cent value difference can also be used to calculate the beat, just remember if the frequency is doubled (an octave difference), the same cent value at the lower pitch only makes half of the beat at the high pitch.

Some comment about tuning without watching/listening the beating effect,

some tuning software offers a prescription for pitches of all the strings by only asking one play for each string, which overlooks the complexity of pianos. Due to the echo from the environment and the piano itself, the pitch of a string may undergo from being amplified at a cent position to being suppressed at a nearby cent position. Unexpected beatings or voicing will appear from time to time. Not to mention the interference effects among unison strings. Some software provides function to mimic the stretch of a good piano, the problem is, a crappy piano will never sound close to a Steinway no matter how you mimic it. A piano may sound different in different rooms, or even at different locations in a room. It is the effects of sound echo (resonance effects in physics term), and most pianos do not have the luxury to receive mitigation.

[funpiano]

An introduction video for the beat-based tuning with IC Piano Tuner can be accessed from the top of the website,
https://www.cc-ast.com/icpianotuner.html

or use the following link, www.youtube.com/watch?v=O81leupEp4I

[funpiano]

Youtube video for C4->B4 stretch tuning,

[perfect_pitch]

So far the interest in this thread seems to have died a slow death. Maybe it's time to let this thread fade into oblivion.

Your posts (all 9 of them) have been about this software over the years, and nothing else - which I consider to be nothing but spam.

[keys60]

I just use the Tunelab from F3 to F4 and then test my temperament aurally to save a little time or set it aurally and test myself in comparison. I like my own octave stretches a little better. Digital may claim perfect, but an artistic value comes from the ear.

[funpiano]

Youtube video: Beating between F3 and A3 strings,

www.youtube.com/embed/BACt71n9PVo

[j_tour]

That's pretty helpful information, throughout this thread. 

I should put the Rhodes piano back in tuning, as well as use some DeOxxit on various places.  it got pretty beat up when I was carrying it around on a handtruck on sidewalks and all that.  Not that it's super critical for it to be perfectly in tune for playing funk or jazz tunes, but it does better, of course..

It can be done pretty easily by ear, but it's still a hassle to get it perfect for some mechanical reasons having to do with moving the "harp" constantly to get to the guts more easily.

Easier with some good software.

[funpiano]

Automatic beat progression measurement when playing two strings together,

[j_tour]

Yeah, I kind of prefer this, after some consideration.

Tunelab was a useful bit of software, but after a while, the idiosyncracies of one's own instrument (including degrees of how difficult it might be to reseat the instrument after a tuning), lead me to think that it's not worth the effort to try more little gadgets.

If one needs to compute stretch, there's always the standard tables, but I think it doesn't need to be very complicated.

And for the Rhodes piano, obviously one can just take the signal off the harp when tuning to hear better.  And there's always Tunelab for the really muffled bass notes.