Built by technicians, for technicians
From Cody Handlin
I have been a piano technician for nearly all of my adult life. Growing up with a father who was a computer programmer, I have always looked at my tools through a technical lens. For nearly a decade, I wanted to create a more capable tuning program, but my experience in real-time DSP was too limited to take on the task alone.
Fate intervened when I was called to tune a piano for Joe Kujawski, a NASA-trained engineer. Joe was curious about the various Electronic Tuning Devices (ETDs) I used—I had nearly every one available on my phone—and he asked a simple question: "What are the limitations—what do you want to see that you can't?"
I explained that I wanted higher resolution, the ability to clearly resolve two strings near one another, a way to quantify the beating of thirds, and the ability to visualize coincident partials and inharmonicity in real time—my list was long. Only a week later, Joe had developed a demo applying modern DSP techniques to those exact issues. He graciously agreed to collaborate, and Viper Tuner was born.
Piano Technician & Product Design
Professional piano technician with decades of experience. Drives product direction based on real-world tuning needs and workflow requirements.
NASA-Trained Engineer & DSP Lead
Brings aerospace-grade engineering rigor to audio signal processing. Designed and implemented the core DSP algorithms and physics-based modeling.
As a working technician with the privilege of excellent mentors, I can state definitively: there is more than one road to a well-tuned piano.
Tuning is the art of sonic compromise—and the best compromises come from the best data.
Throughout development, we asked: "Does this help the technician work better, faster, and with more precision—without dictating how they work?"
Our spectrum and aural views reveal what our ears have long known: a piano's inharmonicity is not as well-behaved as mathematics might suggest. Its quirks are as much the signal as its smooth regularities.
Please enjoy our labor of love.