180 cents sharp means a full retune?

[chriswarren]

Hi,

Further to my post recently about my new Kawai RX3 being a bit sharp on delivery... after a first tuning by a local tuner, I've rechecked the temperament octave and the average is about 180 cents above concert pitch. A49 for instance is reading about 444KHz.

I know the piano will settle after a while (had it 2 months now), but I'm worried that since I'll be inevitably tuning the odd unison myself, I'll just be maintaining the sharpness.

Should I go for a full retune down to concert pitch? There are a couple of nasty zingers as well e.g. Fsharp2 - and I wonder whether taking the piano down to concert pitch might help.

Any advice greatly appreciated.

[Barrie Heaton]

its been a strange year for pianos quite a lot have stayed up in pitch when they should be coming down, but it has been mild Oct, Nov,and Dec so heating has not been up in most homes.

If the pitch is important to you, then bring it down in one go. But be prepared for the piano to be very unstable for a few tuning - pianos seem to become more unstable when you pitch them down than when you take the pitch up.

The harmonics will run different at a higher pitch so yes you will get more discords in the bass. I think, others may not, but having the piano above factory pitch for a long time will shorten the life of the wound strings. 180c above is far to sharp looking at a post you did earlier you said "that the pianos was around 20-30 cents sharp" climbing to 180 in such a short time is not good

Al the best

Barrie,

[dancarney]

I think you're slightly mistaken...

100 cents = semi-tone (so 180 is almost a tone sharp). If that was the case, your A49 would be close to 480Hz!! Can you confirm your calculation? I calculate that 444Hz is around 15.6 cents sharp.

(Btw, 444 KHz as you say, would be impossible. It would be nearly 12000 cents sharp; 120 semitones. I'm sure you meant Hz).

You have two options, IMHO. Let the piano to settle down to 440 naturally (might take a while, but will be more stable), or have the pitch corrected (as Barrie said, it'll be quite unstable).

Regards,

Dan

[chriswarren]

Thanks Dan et al.

My mistake - I was misreading the tuning meter. I meant of course 444Hz and c. 16 cents sharp (my da Tuner app for some reason multiplies everything by 10).

So presumably this is still just about within bounds given that we haven't really had a change of season yet?

[dancarney]

If it were my piano, I'd leave the pitch. It'll come down eventually.