Professional Piano Tuning in the Portland Metro Area and Chelan County
Hey there everyone, thanks for stopping by! My name is Mac Potts and I am a certified piano tuner/technician based out of Chelan, WA. I provide piano tuning in the Portland Metro Area and Chelan County, and I also specialize in piano preservation and restoration.
My mission as a piano technician is to bring out the full potential of a pianos musical quality. I promise to give every piano a top quality tuning, and when I am finished, the piano will sound its absolute best. Every piano has its own full potential, and my goal in every job is to bring out that maximum potential in that particular piano.
A basic tuning is a simple musical touch up of the piano. Loving your instrument (playing it a lot), and changes in the environment are the two most common reasons for a piano becoming out of tune. If a piano is tuned regularly (no less than once a year), a basic tuning is all it will usually need. I will carefully tune your piano by ear and use special techniques to help your tuning be more accurate and last longer.
To schedule an appointment or if you have any questions call 360-213-4618 or email me below.
A pitch raise, or in rare cases, a pitch lowering, is necessary when the overall scale of the piano is extremely flat or sharp. When this kind of tuning is needed, it is impossible to get the job done in one pass. The frame of the piano doesn’t want to adapt to this new tension. The strings will try to stretch or tighten during the first go round, forcing the technician to get the notes in the ballpark at first. On the next pass, the piano is ready to be fine tuned. In very extreme cases where the scale is a half step flat or more, it can sometimes take three passes in the top octaves where the strings stretch most. Sharp pianos are usually a result of a very cold or humid environment. It’s acceptable for a piano to be ever so slightly above pitch, but not below. Flat pianos are a result of sitting in the sun, an abnormally dry environment, cranking up the heat, or neglecting to tune your piano.
To schedule an appointment or if you have any questions call 360-213-4618 or email me below.
Minor Upright Regulation
Regulation is the act of adjusting the timing of the moving parts of the piano. It is important, especially for beginning piano students, that their instrument perform to the best of its ability. An improperly playing piano can cause the player to become frustrated with the inability to produce a full range of dynamics, and can cause him/her to develop bad technique. There are many steps to a complete regulation, but often just doing a few of the main adjustments makes all the difference in the world. Minor regulation adds $25 to the cost of any tuning.
Capstan Adjustment for the Upright Piano
Adjusting the capstan screws on upright pianos will make sure that the hammer moves almost immediately when the key is pressed. If adjusted too high, there is a risk that the note will misfire. However, typically the adjustment is too low. This produces a sloppy touch to the piano, because the player will feel the keys move well before the hammers do. This is probably the most important adjustment on an upright piano. Low capstans result in a loss of power, causing the player to overcompensate, which results in frustration and bad habits. Pricing depends on how far the piano has to come apart.
Other Aspects of Upright Regulation
Usually after adjusting the capstans, the piano is in reasonable playing condition for the average musician. It is necessary to check the other parts for adjustment in order to prevent blocking or misfiring keys. A full upright piano regulation, especially when involving leveling the keys, is very time consuming and sometimes involves moving the piano to a shop temporarily. Grand piano regulation is almost always done in a shop, because the action (the set of moving parts), must be removed and adjusted on a work bench. Full upright regulation or grand regulation is quoted by the job.
To schedule an appointment or if you have any questions call 360-213-4618 or email me below.
Minor hammer shaping is needed when the felt of the hammers on a piano is grooved from repeatedly being struck by the strings, but still fairly round. This job involves removing the action, setting it on a steady table or work bench, and applying a screen or sheet of sandpaper to the hammers until the grooves are just barely visible. After the hammers have been sanded, the action is blown out or vacuumed and reinstalled in the piano. A little bit of regulation is usually done afterward. Again, this work is quoted by the job.
To schedule an appointment or if you have any questions call 360-213-4618 or email me below.
This is usually as simple as it sounds. Sometimes, the pedals travel too far down before they do their job. Often, simply adjusting some screws or nuts is all that’s needed. If the pedals are squeaky, it’s usually pretty easy to find the source of the problem and apply some lubricant to the offending part. This is generally done as part of any tuning, unless there are missing or broken parts that have to be ordered or made.
To schedule an appointment or if you have any questions call 360-213-4618 or email me below.
Some major shop work will be done by contract labor. I can do much of the normal work, including most all shop regulation and minor hammer shaping. Most major rebuilding work is subcontracted. I will give you an initial quote and a minimum charge. The contractor will work with me to create a total price.
Major rebuilding, such as restringing, replacing hammers, and refinishing usually requires the piano to be transported to a workshop. The cost of moving both ways, initial evaluation, tuning, and shop work will all be added and a quote will be given.
To schedule an appointment or if you have any questions call 360-213-4618 or email me below.
There are pianos available for little or no cost on Craigslist and elsewhere, but sadly, many of these need so much work that they are uneconomical even at no cost. I will gladly provide pre-purchase evaluation of any piano. This requires you to pick me up in Vancouver and take me to the location, where I will check to see if the piano can be tuned and played properly, and give a ball park estimate of any work that needs to be done. The fee for the evaluation is generally $50, and in some cases can be applied to major repairs or purchase of one of my pianos if necessary. I provide an honest evaluation, if the piano is a good deal and in good condition, I want you to purchase it and be happy with it, and provide tuning services in the future.
To schedule an appointment or if you have any questions call 360-213-4618 or email me below.
I have several pianos for sale at any given time, from spinets to uprights to grands. I am a partner in Piano Preservation and Consignment Company, and our selection and prices are excellent. All of our pianos are thoroughly serviced and receive an in home tuning included in the sales price 6-12 months after placement. We have pianos for every budget and delivery is available. I will be posting a link soon to our current inventory.
To schedule an appointment or if you have any questions call 360-213-4618 or email me below.
To schedule an appointment or if you have any questions call 360-213-4618 or email me below.
A Little About Myself
My name is Mac Potts, and I was born blind. How blind you ask? My vision level is zip, zilch, and nada. I was blessed with the God-given gift of music, as well as the blessing and curse called perfect pitch. As a young piano student, I always noticed when pianos were out of tune. As I grew up, I began to examine the machinery of the instrument, and also, the number of strings per note.
One day, I was rocking out on the Potts family piano, when a note knocked out of tune to the point of being unusable. I made a makeshift mute out of Braille paper, a step up from my original paper napkin idea. However, blocking out that string made the note dead, so my dad put together a ratchet tool and tightened the string until I said, “Alright stop. Beautiful.” Naturally, you can guess what happened next. I got a hold of the tool and started trying to tweak other notes.
Immediately after that, I took a two-day class on piano tuning and piano repair from the Piano Hospital in Vancouver, WA. I had it in mind to take some summer classes or get some training on weekends. Upon learning that I was only fifteen, the Piano Hospital informed me that I actually had to graduate high school first. They still let me take the course, and by the time the training had finished, I had almost tuned a whole piano.
With no one to teach me how to properly tune a piano, I purchased some actual tools, so I wouldn’t have to use a ratchet and mutes made of paper or foam. Little by little, I learned how to line up the 3rds, 4ths, 5ths, and octaves. I had many opportunities to practice, make mistakes, and pick up my speed. People in my small hometown of Kalama were eager to let me have a go at tuning their pianos. By the end of June, I had tuned both pianos at my church, all four pianos at my high school, and a few neighbors’ pianos. Most of my tuning throughout my high school life was not for money, but rather for myself. I couldn’t stand doing a gig without doing some touch up tuning on the piano first.
I was the youngest person to take an evaluation class in tuning from the Piano Hospital. So it was no surprise to them that after graduating from high school, I enrolled in the course and zoomed through the tuning lessons, passing the test in three weeks. Although it took more time to complete the repair sections, regulation was the other easy concept for me. Because I had been playing piano my whole life, I understood how the instrument was supposed to respond. I even had to be told to mellow out on the piano playing, because after tuning or regulating a piano, I always had to jam out. It was both my way of testing the piano for any mistakes and rewarding myself for all that hard work.
I have been a certified tuner since 2009. I tune Grands, Uprights, Spinets, Consoles, and even ex-Player Pianos. I have been very successful in satisfying customers, although sadly, some pianos are beyond repair. This can be sometimes avoided by regular tuning by a certified technician.
I have recently moved to Chelan, WA. I am now servicing pianos in Chelan County and nearby areas, as well as the Portland Metro area.
