psycho-acousti-what?

[Ed Sutton]

Hi Mark,
    To check hammer/string contact in the high treble of a vertical piano,
use a finger on the catcher(butt chech) to gently press the hammer to the
string. Make sure the damper has lifted.  Pluck the strings above the hammer
head with a little piece of piano wire.
    Level the strings by pushing toward the plate and/or file the hammer to
fit.
    Glue a 1/8 inch strip of emery cloth down the center inside of a half
round section of 2 inch diameter PVC pipe sliced a little wider than the
width of a hammer. The PVC fits easily over the hammerhead with the action
in the piano. You can align it to file away a little of the left, center or
right string cuts as needed.
    Please tell us if string leveling solves the problem.
    Ed Sutton

----------
>From: Mark Cramer <cramer@BrandonU.CA>
>To: caut@ptg.org
>Subject: RE: psycho-acousti-what?
>Date: Fri, Feb 16, 2001, 10:00 AM
>

> Thanks Jim,
> I've levelled strings in some verticals with agraffes (Petrof, etc.) in the
> tenor. Any suggestions on how to block the hammer and pluck strings in the
> treble?
>
> Mark Cramer,
> Brandon University
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-caut@ptg.org [mailto:owner-caut@ptg.org]On Behalf Of harvey
> Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2001 2:33 PM
> To: caut@ptg.org
> Subject: Re: psycho-acousti-what?
>
>
> On 13 Feb 2001, at 14:51, Mark Cramer wrote:
>
>> A year ago, a client told me she had several notes on her (Baldwin)
> console
>> that physically hurt her ear when she played them.
> [liberal cutting]
>
> Mark,
> I may be way off base on this, but I also had a client with the same
> complaint in the same area. Only difference was that it was on a
> new Baldwin studio, not a console.
>
> The client was delighted at the results. (I've personally yet to walk
> away from a Baldwin with a warm fuzzy feeling).
>
> The "fix" was doing one or both of the following to the offending
> notes:
>
> 1. Torch hammershank and respace. The hammer wasn't hitting
> the string squarely. Results are the goal; cosmetics are last in list
> of priorities.
>
> - Leveled strings. Same idea as above, and once discovered it was
> quite obvious. I don't normally bother with this type of thing on
> verticals.
>
> In either case, for lack of a better explanation, and since rescaling
> was out of the question, I'm calling this a phasing problem that
> revealed itself when certain intervals were played.
>
> Jim Harvey
> [I just fix the stuff, I don't build it]
>
>
>
> Jim Harvey
> harvey@greenwood.net
> Greenwood (n): the largest city in South Carolina WITHOUT an Interstate
>