

''If Dean Reyburn lived in Silicon Valley, none of this would have happened,'' Mr. Callahan marvels at the program's versatility and power. Reyburn has sold about 1,000 copies of the program, at $800 each.
#Electric piano tuner professional
But not only are CyberTuner, Accu-Tuner and other such products anathema to some tuners, they are also the unlikely fuel that has helped rekindle a debate over how pianos should sound in the first place.ĬyberTuner is the work of Dean Reyburn, a professional piano tuner and amateur computer programmer in Cedar Springs, Mich., who wrote the program a few years ago to help his fellow tuners. Another popular product is Accu-Tuner, a stand-alone device that is used by more tuners than CyberTuner.
#Electric piano tuner software
While there are many tuning aids, the CyberTuner software has inspired a loyal following among tuners like Mr. Callahan returns to tune the same instrument, he said. Settings for each piano are stored in the computer for future reference, eliminating the need to reinvent the wheel every time Mr. Tuning a piano with CyberTuner is usually no faster than tuning a piano by ear. Callahan can create a customized, uniform tuning for each of the 800 or so pianos he tunes each year.

What CyberTuner adds is a highly accurate visual readout of the pitch of the strings as they are struck or played. Callahan must still use his ears to listen to the pitch and a tuning hammer to manipulate the tuning pins. But when he tunes a piano now, he fires up his laptop computer, places it atop the piano and calls up a software program called CyberTuner. Callahan opened his own business, he relied on his ears and a tuning fork. John Callahan, a piano technician in Oakland, Calif., who is now 42, learned to tune pianos from his father when he was 16. The traditional rule of thumb, or ear, is that it can take three years, or 1,000 tunings, before a professional tuner can tune a piano well. Like glass blowing, the skill is often handed down from one generation to the next. PIANO tuning is a quirky, sparsely populated profession.
