A normal tuning starts by selecting or creating a tuning. This can be done either by loading a previously saved tuning, or by measuring the inharmonicity of the piano at hand and creating a new tuning file. For the convenience of getting started quickly, the Montal Tuner comes with one tuning file already stored. Its name is "AVG", which stands for "Average". As the name implies, this tuning file contains an average amount of stretch. It is quite possible that you could produce acceptable tunings by merely using AVG as is. When the Montal Tuner is first installed, the AVG tuning is already loaded and ready to be used.

You can, at this point, create a new custom tuning for this piano. Otherwise we will continue assuming that an appropriate tuning file has already been loaded.

Strip muting a piano is not normally needed when an electronic tuning device like the Montal Tuner is used. Normally you tune chromatically, one note at a time up the scale, tuning unisons as you go. Only two mutes are normally used.

Select the note A0 by repeated use of the Octave Down button. Enable auto note switching from the Settings page if you don't want to have to manually switch for each note you tune. As you play each note, listen for the sweeping tone generated by the software. This tone will be silent unless the software hears a pitch that could reasonably be from the note you are tuning. It is especially important in the bass not to trust the indication of the sweeping tone completely. If the note you are tuning is very far off, it is possible that the wrong partial could be detected. So use your aural skills to ensure that the note is within reason, and then follow the guidance of the sweeping tone.

The tone will sweep upwards if the note is too sharp, and it will sweep downwards if the note is too flat. The speed of the sweeping tells you how far off the pitch is from the desired pitch. The goal is to get the sweeping tone to be as constant as possible.

After tuning a note and its unisons, play the next note. If auto note switching is enabled, the software will switch to the next note automatically. You will know that the switch has taken place because VoiceOver will announce the new note as it switches. If you are ever in doubt at to what note is selected, find the current note display near the top of the screen.

As each note is selected, a partial is also selected. These partials come from a table in the tuning file. Normally the software uses the sixth partial for the lowest notes. As higher notes are selected, the partial selection eventually switches to the fourth partial, then the second partial, then the fundamental. This last change usually happens at A4. All notes higher than A4 are tuned with the fundamental.

In some cases, you may want to override the default partial selection. For example, a bass note that is normally tuned with the sixth partial may have very little sound at the sixth partial. This would cause the sweeping tone to behave erratically. In that case you can use the partial changing buttons to force a change to the partials. This new partial selection is stored in the tuning file, so if you do save the tuning and load it again at some later time, your override will still be in effect, and you will not have to discover the need for it and reapply it all over again.

If auto note selection is enabled for Auto Up, you can perform aural checks by playing the notes you tuned previously without worrying that auto note switching is going to follow you as to perform those checks.