Help in setting a new temperament

If you have Standard or Pro, you don't need to install Scala. Scala files will be recognized within Pianoteq itself, and you can modify them if you wish, or create your own tuning system.

You can indeed adjust the tuning directly in Pianoteq (Standard / Pro): from the drop-down menu in the Temperament section, select Advanced Tuning. From there, you can either load a Scala file or adjust the tuning from any selected temperament. It's an incredibly powerful toolkit, and you have loads of options.

I am used to the alternate tuning options in my Roland, Yamaha and Casio keyboards. On these, you simply select the alternate tuning system...AND the key in which you want to play.The PT options are way more complicated, so my question is: Let's say I select Meantone, is there a simple way of telling the program which key I want to play in?

Update on selecting key centre for tuning system: those little arrows do shift the tuning around, but they don't work quite as I expected. Maybe somebody with deeper knowledge can explain what's going on there.
However, I do have good news : there is a simple way to change the key centre in Pianoteq. In the Advanced Tuning window, look below where it says 'Keyboard mapping'. There is a range of notes shown - by default the top one is C3. To change the tuning centre, just click on the + or - button next to that top note. For a minor key, it's probably better to select the relative major key centre (for example, for C minor, select Eb).
Thank you, aWc, for posting that query - it's made me look at something that I hadn't considered before. If I want to play in mean tone temperament in the key of A flat major, I can now do so without wincing!

Ah!, thank you dazric. Gonna try it right away

If you've got Scala files, you could open their folder on you computer and drag them onto the Pianoteq interface to load them. To save them open the Tuning window, Diapason click that little button, and right-click Temperament, then choose save as etc.

Aha, thanks for the clarification, Philippe. I got confused by the arrows because I was expecting 'right' to be 'sharp' and 'left' to be 'flat' - it is in fact the opposite! Also it's not easy to see which key centre you've arrived at that way. I think I'll stick with the + - buttons.

It's wonderfully rich. Beats nicely in places, modulates darkly sounding rather cross and then resolves into the light. It makes the music so much more interesting and puts ET universalism into the corner that it belongs.

Comparisons in 1/4 comma and 1/6 comma would be interesting, as also the Rameau temperament.

The temperament used at St Maximin France is worthy of investigation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4oPdHmJjnE

Best wishes

David P

As a piano tuner and rebuilder who has just started to play around with this software and my new to me Roland RD2000, I would like to commend Moddart for including such a delicious range of temperaments and pitches. I routinely tune in historic temperaments for my clients, and have a favorite Well Temperament which is my go-to for historic performance and my own playing. I don't know whether I can publish it here - would need to get permission, I expect.

Many piano tuners now use Electronic Tuning Devices (EDT's), and the more adventurous of us will talk up alternatives to ET and 440 pitch just to vary the playing experience for the client. I remember what a revelation it was when I was in tuning school to learn how to tune Meantone, Marpurg, Werkmeister III, and Valotti-Young (etc.) and then put them on my parent's Steinway Model II and play the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book,  Rameau, Couperin, Schubert and Brahms. Completely different playing experiences than equal temperament. More expressive and with built-in vibrato speeds!

Maybe your tuner (if s/he has an EDT,) would be more than happy to accommodate your interest in historic temperaments on your upright!

dazric - were you to tune your acoustic instrument to Kellner there would be no practical reasons interfering with whatever you're doing in my long experience of using this temperament.

Lizbetha - your news is really refreshing, especially about going into the realm of Brahms etc and presumably feeling that you're getting something more musical out of the sound?

I'm organising a seminar on 6th May at East Grinstead in England relating to restoring the emotion to music through tuning. Would you like to be able to write something about your experience for presentation then?

The seminar, by the way, was one of the principle reasons for coming to Pianoteq as software for experiment and demonstration.

When tuning Kellner or Kirnberger III I tune without stretch in the central three octaves, and then tune the bass harmonically to the harmonics which fall in the middle octave or tenor octave as appropriate. In pre 1870s instruments I hear nearly exclusively the 3rd harmonic of the bass strings and none at all of the 5th harmonic whereas in post 1880 instruments I hear much more of the 5th harmonic.

In coming to Pianoteq I'm hearing the harmonic content but I think that the real instruments give a stronger 5th harmonic than I'm hearing in Pianoteq. Is that anyone else's experience?

Best wishes

David P

Kellner is the Well Temperament on Pianoteq so you can try it out. In a dozen years of concerts there's nothing it's obstructed and a lot to which it's contributed.

The best tuning software, if you tune yourself, is Tunelab, but don't use stretching, and otherwise a CTS5 Stroboscopic tuner is even better. I find tuning with meter needles unreliable.

Best wishes

David P

'completely agreed.  Back when I was tuning my own real-world fortepiano it was always great fun to explore different temperament schemes but, being an educator/performer and not a professional tuner, I always found the actual process to be rather tedious and time-consuming.   'no more however with Pianoteq!  The instant gratification of being able to change diapason (another 'key' [forgive the horrible pun] aspect of course to historically-informed practice) and temperament with the click of a button on a musically responsive instrument is, I believe, nothing short of revolutionary (and perhaps all too addictive for us 'kooky' historical nuts).

et voilà... here's that same L. Couperin Allemande (a¹ = 392 Hz) I'd posted earlier in Artusi I 1/4 comma: https://www.forum-pianoteq.com/uploads....iI_1-4.mp3 and in Artusi II 1/6 comma: https://www.forum-pianoteq.com/uploads....II_1-6.mp3 .  It's interesting that, though both were rendered with the exact same settings, the 1/4 comma file is 10kb larger than the 1/6 comma one... 'wonder what's going on here?  In any event, I find that all three have their merits and I'll leave it as a matter of personal/individual bon goût as to which is most pleasing (though would be curious to hear people's preferences in the matter).  I purposely did not make a render of this Allemande using Rameau's scheme (1726) as it'd be anachronistic to this particular piece (c1660)...

As for Chopin and Beethoven, I'm a great fan of Jousse's quasi-equal scheme (1832) for the former, but with the latter I tend to stay in the Vallotti/Young/Preston realm (depending on instrument being used and style period of the music being played).

Incidentally, I was over at Oxford last night for a lovely performance given by Kristian Bezuidenhout and Amandine Beyer of various Mozart fortepiano-violin works on one of the Wolfs' beautiful Walter copies.  At the interval I chatted with the tuner about his setting on the instrument and was interested to learn that he was using his own scheme based on a smoothed out mix of 1/6 and Vallotti [??] (which worked really well for the Salzburg-era pieces though perhaps a little less so for the big B-flat major K.454).  The diapason of the instrument was 430... well enough I suppose (it's around what we always used up at Ithaca back in the day), but I found that I was pining for my Pianoteq Walter's very mellow and round a¹ = 421.6 Hz (the actual diapason of Walter's instruments in Vienna at the time of Mozart)... talk about being spoiled! 

cheers,
dj

Wow, lots to digest here. There are several Rameau tunings in the Scale Archive - which one is being used in the videos?

Yes I agree and this is the particular importance of Pianoteq as a research tool. However use of midi files can be debated because to some extent part of the effect of temperament is its interaction with the performer. Ed Foote, message 40 on https://my.ptg.org/communities/communit...gestviewer of relevance.

Pianoteq has to be the go-to solution for all interested in this important and developing subject.

Tuning harpsichords is potentially quick enough to be able to make comparisons under standard enough conditions but the 2 hours to change temperament of a piano is laborious, if repeatedly, damaging to the tuning plank and thoroughly impractical. But sometimes through recordings I don't hear effects through speakers, however good, that I hear from an instrument in real life, and this flaw potentially hits Pianoteq despite its excellence.

But it's the best tool we have.

Best wishes

David P