Re: Carl's tunable instruments (was JI and the listening composer)

Carl Lumma wrote:

> >And to clarify what Gene was suggesting, 612-equal gives 5-limit intervals
> >to within a 20th of a cent and 9-limit to about a fifth of a cent. So
> >that's very different to "within a cent or two". And you only need 10
> >notes.
>
> Thanks, Graham. And I'll note that the only instruments that I know of
> that you can even tune with that degree of precision are electronic, or
> very expensive pianos. So anyone claiming they can hear the difference
> should say what they were doing when they heard a difference. Then I'd
> be genuinely interested, as I was when Graham said he'd tuned
> electronically-generated sawtooths to within 0.1 cents of a 3:2.
>
> -Carl

For what it's worth (probably very little on past form) I tune strings and steel tubes to 0.1 cent
accuracy, according to my Peterson strobe that is. And that's about 20 minutes testing and fine
tuning on each string at room temperature. The tubes, every time I check, are accurate, no
problem with the fundamental, as I have eliminated partial interference using filters. Maybe you
could add these to your list or, if my tuner's wrong, I could sue Peterson under the UK Trades
Description Act.

Regards