"Tuning" a digital piano

[bernadette60614]

We have the Roland home digital piano (the 3k model.)

Our son, who has very acute hearing, has detected a higher pitchiness (I'm think I'm making this word up) in one of the keys.  DS is a whiz at playing by ear, BTW, so it seems that hearing is one of his innate skills.

The instruction manual says that digital pianos never need tuning, but is there some way to remove that slightly off sound?

[krzyzowski]

Very interesting! Some KB (Roland) have an adjustment for A440. A piano tuner always tunes the A5 to 440 using a fork or a digital tuner. Once that is done all the other keyes beat off that.
Pianos are generally "equal tempermant" so oddly no KB instrument is in perfect tune at any point (see "Well Tempered Clavier" courtesy of Mr Bach) This is so a KB can play in all keys.
Enter: Pure Tuning. The ear, the voice, (opera) fretless instruments, and some KB like the V Piano can be changed to pure tuning. However your stuck in one key.
It is well known that one should not learn to sing from a piano, because you will be flat or sharp forever. Ask any Barbershopper. He is fortunate to have such a good ear.
The concept of "tuning" is complex and is a study in acoustics. Google "tempered tuning".

[krzyzowski]

What is a 3k Roland?

[michael_c]

We have the Roland home digital piano (the 3k model.)

Our son, who has very acute hearing, has detected a higher pitchiness (I'm think I'm making this word up) in one of the keys.  DS is a whiz at playing by ear, BTW, so it seems that hearing is one of his innate skills.

The instruction manual says that digital pianos never need tuning, but is there some way to remove that slightly off sound?

You can only edit a single note if the DP permits this. Some do. I don't know if this is the case for your Roland: you'll have to look in the instruction manual.

One thing is sure: as DP does not go out of tune like an acoustic piano does. If one note is bothering your son, either it's something inherent in the original sample, or this note has somehow become corrupted. You could try a factory reset: you should find instructions for that somewhere in the manual.

[dcstudio]

If it's the whole piano that's out of tune it's most likely not getting adequate power -- check to make sure the power chord you are using was meant for this keyboard.  If you bought this used it may not be. Move the keyboard to another outlet and see if it's still got a problem.  a chromatic tuner will tell you for sure where the "pitchiness"  is.  If it's one key than it's been broken or something. Check the owners manual for troubleshooting....  it's online if you don't have it...  I doubt that re-initializing the keyboard will help but try it anyway.  Plug in a set of headphones and see if the problem is still present---if it isn't than there is an issue with the on-board speakers or that connection.   

It may be a twang in the speakers or the amp...

Roland is generally a very trustworthy brand...  that is odd.  I am leaning toward bad outlet or wrong power chord...

Let us know...  I am quite curious.

[timothy42b]

It may be a twang in the speakers or the amp...

Let us know...  I am quite curious.

I am curious too.

I'm wondering about a resonance in the room somewhere.

My Yamaha P500 can tweak individual notes, or it can shift entire voices.  I have one voice set a step low, for when my daughter practiced her trumpet music.  Many models also can shift to various historical temperaments. 

It's also possible that for a particular chord, equal temperament grates on his ear, but I'd think that would be true for many notes. 

[dcstudio]

one other thought...  if he is leaving the sustain pedal down and playing large amounts of notes without releasing it he may be overloading the keyboards ability to keep up--its
 polyphonic capacity is not unlimited.   I have heard some keyboards loose their tonality when this happens especially in the decay..

[timothy42b]

Couple thoughts.

Record that note and several in the octave above and below it.

Look it in the spectrum analyzer on Audacity.  See how the overtones vary from the other notes (assuming the  note is actually in tune.)

Download tunelab evaluation copy and use it to check tuning.  Maybe the note really is out of tune.  If so, use tunelab's inharmonicity measurement to decide what the pitch should be.  (you can't just tune to the nominal equal temperament frequency without knowing a little more). 

Post the recording here for us.  Say the note in question is C6, give us quarter note quarter rest pattern C5 E5 G5 C6 E6 G6.  Maybe we'll hear something wrong, maybe we'll tell you he's nuts.  Politely of course. 

[CC]

There's probably nothing wrong with the Roland tuning, but any piano can have strange harmonics, so even if you could tune it, that will probably not help.  Have you tested another same model Roland at a store? Best solution is to get Pianoteq, where you can do practically anything you want, and its not that expensive.