[CAUT] Hammers

[Don Mannino]

Mike,

My short answer to this is "The ones which you are comfortable voicing."

Most hammers can be installed and prepared to give excellent sound if
they are voiced the best way for those particular hammers.  You will get
different opinions from different techs, which is great, but I suspect
that these opinions come as much from their personal voicing methods as
from the differences with the hammers.

Personally, I have had really great luck voicing Kawai hammers (of
course <g>), Abel hammers from Brooks, NY Steinway hammers, and Ronsen
Wurzen felt hammers.  The Abels can be big and fat sounding if the
shoulders are softened nicely.  Like Kawai hammers they need to be
softened right up close to the strike point, in my opinion, in order to
keep from brightening up under use too much.  The initial shoulder
needling makes the tone bigger and more powerful, and the upper shoulder
needling provides great sustain, tonal range, and keeps them from
brightening too aggressively in use.

The new Ronsens often to win out as best sounding overall in my voicing
seminar (where I install different sample hammers in one piano), but you
do have to work with them a bit to bring up the power and brightness.
In other words, they are not as easy to get good power from as the
Abels, but are really nice hammers in the end.

Finally, US Steinway hammers when properly lacquered and prepped can
create really great sound  and big power that is fairly consistent over
time.  They require the most work and, perhaps, the most skill to create
a big tone that sustains well.

Don Mannino RPT



> -----Original Message-----
> From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On 
> Behalf Of central
> Sent: Wednesday, March 15, 2006 8:48 AM
> To: College and University Technicians
> Subject: [CAUT] Hammers
> 
> 
> Hello,
>      Of all the brands of hammers available, which ones do 
> you feel offer the greatest power, sustain, projection, 
> without sacrificing quality, for the upper treble? -Mike Jorgensen
> 
> _______________________________________________
> caut list info: https://www.moypiano.com/resources/#archives
>