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Author Topic: Checking your box is in tune  (Read 1649 times)

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Thrupenny Bit

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Checking your box is in tune
« on: August 12, 2010, 08:59:36 PM »

I'm new to this melodeon lark, and I was chatting to a friend recently about the tuning of them. He seemed concerned that some are not in tune with other free reed instruments ( not quite sure what he meant ) , and sometimes they can sound sharp against - say - my concertina if playing in a session. I can't really play both instruments at the same time ( yet!) so....
In between bashing away with my newly acquired box, in an idle moment I switched on my daughter's flute tuner, it's a Korg Chromatic Tuner CA-30.
From my concertina knowledge, I presume melodeons are tuned around A440?
I set my tuner to this and played scales, and it seemed fine, the notes pretty much spot on sometimes a slight flutter around the centre mark but nothing indicating sharp or flat.......
is there anything else it's be worth me checking?
just an idle thought..........
cheers
TB
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Thrupenny Bit

I think I'm starting to get most of the notes in roughly the right order...... sometimes!

HallelujahAl

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Re: Checking your box is in tune
« Reply #1 on: August 12, 2010, 09:32:04 PM »

Nope - you've about covered it I think. Blame the others if there's any dis-harmony  ;D
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Thrupenny Bit

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Re: Checking your box is in tune
« Reply #2 on: August 13, 2010, 09:34:19 AM »

ok....thanks
TB
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Thrupenny Bit

I think I'm starting to get most of the notes in roughly the right order...... sometimes!

Steve_freereeder

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Re: Checking your box is in tune
« Reply #3 on: August 13, 2010, 11:06:41 AM »

In between bashing away with my newly acquired box, in an idle moment I switched on my daughter's flute tuner, it's a Korg Chromatic Tuner CA-30.
From my concertina knowledge, I presume melodeons are tuned around A440?
I set my tuner to this and played scales, and it seemed fine, the notes pretty much spot on sometimes a slight flutter around the centre mark but nothing indicating sharp or flat.......
is there anything else it's be worth me checking?
just an idle thought..........
cheers
TB
The display of the Korg CA-30 is graduated at only 5 cent intervals, and whilst it is possible to interpolate in between the markings, it is not really accurate enough for serious tuning work. Having said that, it is fine for giving an indication of the pitch of a single note. The slight flutter around the centre mark is due to the interaction of the sound from the two reeds of each melodeon note. The two reeds are deliberately tuned a slight distance apart, which causes the characteristic 'beating' or tremolo sound. The further apart the two reeds are tuned, the faster the tremolo.

What the ear perceives, and what the tuner records are slightly different things. When you see the fluttering, your tuner is attempting rather unsuccessfully to display the pitch of the two differently-tuned reeds. The resulting fluctuation will be recording the beat frequency (which is sometimes useful). However, the ear perceives a single note which changes in amplitude (volume) not pitch (frequency). The pitch of the perceived note is the mean frequency of the two reeds:
fmean = (f1 + f2)/2

So for example for the note A, if one reed is tuned to concert pitch A=440 Hz, and the other reed is tuned to 444 Hz, there will be a tremolo beat of 4 pulses a second and the perceived note will be at 442 Hz, i.e. sharp of concert pitch.

Castagnari melodeons like your Tommy are generally tuned with only a slight difference between the two treble reeds, so that the tremolo is slow and subtle. This means that the resultant perceived pitch will be only very slightly sharp, typically by 1 Hz or less. However, melodeons with a lot of tremolo, e.g Hohner Pokerworks or Ericas, straight out of the factory, will have a perceived pitch which could well be 2 - 4 Hz sharp of concert pitch. This is why other instrumentalists may have difficulty tuning to such an instrument, and also why melodeons with lots of tremolo can sound so sharp alongside a single reed instrument like a concertina.

One solution is to tune melodeons so that one reed is flat with respect to concert pitch and the other reed is sharp by the same amount, so that the perceived resultant note is at concert pitch. This is known as Viennese or 'Dedic' tuning. It is not the easiest tuning to do, and there are issues when other reeds such as low octave (e.g. on the Tommy) voices are present. There have been some interesting discussions on Dedic tuning on this forum if you feel like an esoteric read about reeds. Here's one: 'Dedic' tuning; there are others if you search for them.

The bottom line is, unless there is something obviously amiss, don't worry about your instrument's tuning at this stage. It will be fine for a long time to come.  Reeds do change their pitch over time and may start to sound a little rough after a few years, depending on the how much and how hard the instrument has been played. Then it's time for a visit to a tuner for some touch-up remedial work.

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Guy

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Re: Checking your box is in tune
« Reply #4 on: August 13, 2010, 11:39:10 AM »

Thanks Steve-that's about the clearest thing I've read about tuning, made especially useful for the non-technical people amongst us. Well done!

Cheers,
Guy
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Thrupenny Bit

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Re: Checking your box is in tune
« Reply #5 on: August 13, 2010, 11:47:31 AM »

Steve - I now understand!
....and to agree with CC, many thanks for that, I now understand.
cheers
TB
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Thrupenny Bit

I think I'm starting to get most of the notes in roughly the right order...... sometimes!
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