Yamaha bass strings

[BobDavis88@aol.com]

> Subj:	Yamaha bass strings
>  Date:	97-05-28 17:21:04 EDT
>  From:	fmorell@ibacom.es (Fausto Morell)

Hi, Fausto,
Your question [quoted below] is hard to answer at a distance, because there
is subjective judgment involved in all tonal questions. However, several
things come to mind:

There are two separate questions -- metallic sounds, and dullness. First, the
metallic sound is usually either in the design or manufacture of the string,
in the alignment of the hammer to the strings, or in the stiffness of a
particular part of the hammer. I haven't found twisting to fix a metallic
sound -- its specialty is fixing dullness. One to one and a half twists in
the direction of the winding (were they in the correct direction?) usually
are plenty. More can indeed keep the string from vibrating freely. It sounds
like you have fixed the dullness in the string by returning it to its
original twist, and that dullness remains in the hammer. More about that
later.

The first thing to do is to take the hammer out of the picture and listen to
the string itself. Pluck with your fingernail between the agraffe and the
start of the winding. If the objectionable sound is there, voicing can
minimize but not eliminate it. If you decide to replace an objectionable
string (I'm betting you don't have to), replace the other string of the
unison as well, so their harmonic structures are more likely to match.

The next thing to check is that the hammer hits both strings at the same
time. If you raise the hammer until it blocks lightly against the strings,
then pluck them (with the damper up), if one sings and the other is blocked,
the hammer is not mated to the strings. This will cause poor tone, including,
sometimes, a metallic sound. There is a technique of raising the hammer to
the string by pushing up on the jack tender. If you don't know how to do
this, just raise the letoff until the hammer blocks when the key is pressed.
Block it VERY lightly.

Third, if the string is okay, it may be that the voicing was done too close
to the crown, and the shoulders of the hammer are still too stiff. This will
produce a dull sound that is still metallic.


Good luck,
Bob Davis
>  The question I have is for my own piano. One month ago I bought a new
>  Yamaha C3 and I am very happy with it except for one thing that I did
>  not notice when I tried the piano at the Yamaha dealer: two of the bass
>  notes F2 and F#2 have a very unpleasant metallic overtone.
>
>  The Yamaha tecnician tried to solve the problem by voicing the hammers
>  but the problen only got worse, now the notes sound duller and the
>  metallic overtone is even more noticeable.
>
>  Then we tried to give one of the strings a twist. After letting it off
>  the hinch pin the string untwisted itsef  so we gave it back those
>  twists plus two extra ones, the ressult after tuning was that the string
>  sounded dead as a brick, untwisting those two extra twists put the
>  string back to normal.