Tuners under 50?

[ralphbsz]

The TM50/TM40 works fine, at least down to the low F (4 ledger lines below the staff), even without microphone clip. It's inexpensive, and doesn't require a smart phone, which is why it lives at my son's school (in the locker). His band teacher requires all students to have a tuner (he is very adamant about intonation, which is good, but requiring the students to have an electronic tuner with them at all times is a bit over the top).

The WR01 with the clip works great. I don't know how low we have gone with it, but I think it works down into the pedal tone range. The clip comes in very handy if you have to tune one instrument while everyone else is making noise. I've used it very effectively right before middle school band concerts: While everyone is warming up, I walk from instrument to instrument, put the clip on, and check that they're in tune.

[TubaTodd]

I have various FREE iPhone apps that are great tuners including a strobe. For Christmas I bought a couple of Tascam TC-1S solar powered tuners. They are only $9.99 and have several modes including strobe. It's a pretty sweet deal.

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/accessor ... atic-tuner

[ghmerrill]

Just did a quick test of the Tascam PT-7 vs. the Korg TM50. A bit surprising.

On my wife's piano (which was professionally tuned less than a week ago) the TM50 sees the bottom note as an A (which it is). The PT-7 sees it as an out-of-tune C#. The TM50 thinks the Bb above it is a Bb, but the Tascam thinks it's an F. They both get the B (and subsequent pitches) right.

Maybe it's an overtone thing? Maybe it's an algorithm thing. Whatever.

[ralphbsz]

Pianos are tuned weird. The very bottom is tuned too flat, the very top too sharp. This actually does sound better, because piano strings are actually not perfectly harmonic: their overtones tend to be somewhat sharp. Because a piano string is not a perfectly flexible string (the unrealistic example you learn about in physics class), instead it has considerable stiffness. So what the (human) piano tuner does is to make the octaves a little too sharp, so the overtone of the lower note doesn't beat too much against the upper note in the octave. The smaller the piano is, the more the stiffness of the string matters, so this effect is less pronounced for huge concert grands. This can amount to a quarter quarter tone between the very bottom and the middle, and another quarter tone between the middle and the very top.

In general, humans tuning a piano are better at doing this by ear than when just blindly using a tuning machine, because they more correctly compensate for this effect. You say that a professional tuner just did the piano, so it is probably quite accurately done, and the low notes are probably pretty flat, when measured with an electronic tuner.

The other effect of the sharp harmonics is that the microphone in the Tascam tuner may very well be unable to pick up the fundamental of the lowest note, and relies on overtones. If those overtones aren't where they're supposed to be (and where they are for wind instruments, and bowed string instruments), the tuner gets confused.

I just checked my piano with the Korg WR01: The lowest C is 12 cents flat, and the tuner is unable to pick up anything below that. But even by ear I can hear how the lowest A is incredibly flat when played alone, yet is sounds pleasant when played together with the A one octave above.

[royjohn]

ralphbsz,

That's a great summary of some of the arcane stuff about piano tuning that almost no one understands. I thought that you must be imagining the flatness of that low A, but I looked up some stretch tuning charts and the stretch for the whole piano is about 70 cents (minus 40 in the bass and plus 30 in the treble) and 30 of that is taken up between the lowest A and the octave above it, so it really could be something that you hear. The funny thing about cents deviation in these really low notes is that they aren't much in terms of Herz (cps). 100 cents from that low A to the Bb a half tone above is 1.64 Hz, so 30 cents would be 0.49 Hz, which would be a barely rolling beat. You can get an exaggerated idea of how far off you are when looking at cents on your tuner for low notes. However, you do have to be pretty close on your fundamental, or you'll hear all kinds of beats between your overtones and what the clarinets are playing ...

I experience the same problems noted about the Tascam on some tuners. I think it's a question of them locking in on a prominent overtone or perhaps getting more overtone than fundamental because of microphone [lack of] response. One tuner app consistently gave me the F one and a half octaves above for the Bb below the bass clef on my 20J. But others get it right on the same phone, so there must be a way to overcome this with circuitry ...

[royjohn]

Bloke,

Not having a spectral analyzer and a $400 microphone, I don't know how much fundamental is in my low tones. I never said anything about how much fundamental there was in the sound. I just have this idea that if we hear the note as low Bb (below the bass clef) because its lowest pitch is that Bb, then our tuner should hear it as that, too. Also, since we're usually using a tempered scale, you can't tune to the overtone if it is in the natural harmonic series. Another issue is that in some horns, overtones are displaced, so it is anybody's guess what the relation of the frequency of the second harmonic F would be to the frequency of the "fundamental" of Bb. In a time when we can analyze rocks on Mars, I don't think it's too much to ask of a tuner that it tune to the fundamental, even if there's more energy in all the harmonics.

[royjohn]

Hey, Bloke,

Yes, you and I are fine and it's probably better when you don't read my posts . . . LOL . . .

I spend some time in the organ world, and there you can produce a 32 foot tone (~34 cps for rhe low C) by using the resultant of a 16 foot C and the G above that. Uses a whole lot less real estate and materials and gets about the same result in a room that will allow the sound to develop. So I'm certainly familiar with hearing a whole lot of fundamental when that impression is created mostly by overtones.