Voicing vs Tuning vs Regulation: Which Does Your Piano Need?

The short version: tuning fixes pitch (the piano sounds wrong), regulation fixes touch (the piano feels wrong), and voicing fixes tone (the piano sounds harsh or dull, even when it's perfectly in tune). They're three different jobs on three different parts of the instrument — and knowing which symptom you have saves you from paying for the wrong one.

Here's how to tell them apart, from the piano bench rather than the textbook.

Tuning: when the piano sounds out of tune

Tuning is the adjustment of string tension so every one of the piano's ~230 strings sits at its correct pitch, anchored to A440. It's the foundation — nothing else about a piano can sound right if the tuning isn't.

You need a tuning if: notes sound sour or wavery, the piano clashes with other instruments or recordings, octaves sound "off," or it's simply been a year. Unison notes that shimmer — where one key sounds like two slightly disagreeing strings — are the classic giveaway.

This is the regular, yearly service. Everything else on this page is occasional. A standard tuning is $130 + HST ($90 on current intro rates).

Regulation: when the piano feels wrong under your fingers

Between your finger and the string sit dozens of moving parts per key — the action. Regulation is the adjustment of all those parts back to factory geometry: how far keys travel, when the hammer releases, how quickly a note can repeat.

Felt compresses and wood wears with years of playing, and the geometry drifts. The piano still plays — but unevenly.

You need regulation if: some keys feel deeper or heavier than others, soft playing is hard to control, fast repeated notes stumble, keys don't respond until pressed firmly, or the touch is simply inconsistent across the keyboard. Pianists often describe a piano that needs regulation as "tiring" or "unpredictable" — you fight it instead of playing it.

Regulation ranges from touching up a few keys during a service visit to a comprehensive job of several hours. We assess honestly and quote before any work begins.

Voicing: when the piano is in tune but the tone is wrong

Voicing is the adjustment of the hammers themselves — the felt mallets that strike the strings. As hammers wear, the felt compacts and grooves, and the tone changes: usually toward bright, hard, and clangy; occasionally toward dull and lifeless. A technician voices a piano by reshaping hammers and carefully needling or hardening the felt to change how it meets the string.

You need voicing if: the piano sounds harsh or shrill even freshly tuned, some notes bark out louder than their neighbours, quiet passages don't sound gentle no matter how softly you play, or the tone has lost the warmth you remember. The tell-tale phrase we hear: "it's in tune, but I don't like how it sounds."

Voicing is the most personal of the three — "warm" to one player is "muffled" to another — so it's always done in conversation with the person who plays the piano most.

Which one do you actually need?

A useful rule of thumb from the bench:

• Sounds wrong → tuning
• Feels wrong → regulation
• In tune, feels fine, but the character of the sound is wrong → voicing

In practice the answer is often "tuning, plus a little of one other." That's normal, and it's why every visit starts with an assessment: minor regulation niggles are frequently handled on the spot during a tuning visit, and anything larger is explained and priced before it happens — never discovered on an invoice. If you're unsure what your piano needs, describe the symptom when you book and we'll tell you what it sounds like to us, plainly.

Common questions

Does my piano need voicing or just tuning?
If the problem is which pitches you hear — sourness, clashing, waver — it's tuning. If the pitches are right but the tone is harsh, uneven or dull, that's voicing. When in doubt, book a tuning; the assessment at the start of every visit will tell you the rest.

How often does a piano need regulation?
Far less often than tuning. A home piano might want meaningful regulation every 5–10 years depending on use, with small touch-ups along the way. Concert and teaching instruments need it much more often.

Can tuning fix a harsh-sounding piano?
Only partly. Tuning can remove the sourness of strings disagreeing with each other, which does soften the sound. But hardness baked into worn hammer felt is a voicing job — no amount of tuning changes it.