Recalibrate A=440 (long -- was Re: Tuning questions..)

[haandruss@xxxxxxx (Harvey Andruss)]

At  9:09 PM 3/27/95 -0800, Robert Neville wrote:
>Third question:  I am studying Steve Baker's book.  The advice he give on
>tuning systems now seems to me to be very hard to follow.  He evidently is
>able to tune to within accuracies of 1-2 Hz and sometimes even .5 hz.
>Using the Korg AT-12, which is very similar to the tuner illustrated in
>the book, I find that it is not very easy to get that close.  For one
>thing, the natural variation in the pitch of the harp seems to be close to
>1 hz. For another, the meter is pretty hard to read to that degree of
>accuracy.  It has a very small scale.  Does anyone else find these
>suggested tunings unrealistic?

Lots of good replies on tuning, but none deal with your core question: I
think the method to get down to the 1 or 2 Hz you speak of, if I'm not
mistaken, is to hit the recalibrate button for the "A=440", and then tune
to the center of the pitch of interest, that is, in the case of a C harp ,
if you wanted to bring the blow 2 E down by 2 hz as Baker suggests, you go
to calibrate mode, hit your buttons to A = 438  then tune the E to center
(mine, a Korg DT1, goes A=438 to 445, which equates to - 2 Hz to + 5 Hz. I
believe your AT-12 also does this).

If I wanted to go all the way back to what the manufacturer does, that is,
tune blow 2 E down by 3 Hz, I'd have to start using the cents since the
recalibrate is only good to - 2 Hz per above.  Stated accuracy of this
tuner is + / - 2 cents, which is great, however converting ~cents to Hz~
gets a little tricky, depending on which octave you're in (for the C1 - C2
octave it averages about 0.04 Hz per cent; yet for C7 - C8 it averages
1.744 Hz per cent).  There are 1200 cents per octave or 100 per half step,
yet there are 32 Hz per octave C1-C2 and 2093 Hz per octave C7-C8. Note the
C and the 1 refer to specific notes on a piano and this octave includes the
lowest notes of bass instruments.  Middle C on a piano is C4. The A=440 Hz
is A4. Piccolos and violins can do C8. The 88 key piano goes from C0-E8.

Winslow Yerxa had a nice post on cents and intervals a few months back that
I think also touched on pythagorean, equal and just tunings (all a little
bit different -- try searching ~cents~).  Music dictionaries at your local
library or Barnes and Noble also have tables of this stuff (Harvard,
Oxford).

A few comments on tuners' capabilities :  I think the Seiko, Korg and other
analog units are great, but the Korg DT-1 is a little less expensive,
emulates the analog read-out well, and has a fast *and* slow response --
~fast~ being similar to what an analog meter does (not real fast, but jumps
around a bit for harp), and ~slow~ being specifically designed for wind
instruments and "the natural variation" associated with them. Seiko offers
a model 1200 that is similar (digital emulation of analog meter) that has a
larger range than the Korg, probably has all the features of the 1000, but
it's a bit more money. The Korg is the size of two 10 hole harps out of the
case (small), listens to 7 octaves and generates 4 to a 1/4" female jack.

Sorry for the length of the post and any inaccuracies.  I'm actually a
novice at this and although I did tweak most of my harps a month ago for
the first time, I think most of what's here is OK. No spanish fly or
country tuning yet :-) Comments welcome.

Harv <HAAndruss@xxxxxxx> -- opinions mine