Frank Weston wrote: > Thank you list. I managed to pry off a small piece of winding, and it is > indeed iron. I do still have my original question. Who can duplicate > these strings? > > For Del: > > I think you are reading too much into my hesitance to attempt rescaling as > a one-shot job on a fine piano. To state my position more clearly: > > The bottom line for any piano is how it sounds. The final arbiter of how a > piano sounds is the human ear. There were many more well trained human > ears listening to this piano when the scale was designed than I would ever > be able to muster in my lifetime. Rather than take the chance that > software and analysis given one chance could improve upon this scale, I > would rather go with the certainty that the original scale was pretty good. > > From what I know about scale design software, the major parameters > considered are tension, breaking strength of wire, various lengths, > materials, and inharmonicity of the whole combination. We have recently > agreed that inharmonicity as such plays a very small role in tonal > properties of a piano. Now, I must ask, if the only parameter remotely > related to tone that rescaling software considers is inharmonicity, how is > rescaling with software ALONE going to improve the tone of any piano? To > get the desired results, one must listen to the piano, make adjustments, > and listen again. I am unprepared to restring this piano more than once > just to see if I can make improvements in tone. The old guys who "didn't > have very good tools to work with" had the opportunity to string and listen > to hundreds of pianos, and they listened with highly trained ears. They > also operated in a very large and competitive market. > > Were I in the position of restringing hundreds, or even dozens of these > pianos, I would be tempted to try to improve upon the scale. I do not > doubt that it can be done, and that you are doing it in your work. I do > not doubt that rescaling software will get the scale designer much closer > on the first shot. What I do doubt is that I, given a reasonable > expenditure of resources on this particular piano, have a reasonable > probability of greatly improving the scale. > > If, of course, Del or anyone on this list has already rescaled and tested > (with good results) a Stieff model 28, I would be more than willing to > accept, and even pay a fee for the improved scale. > > Highest regards, > > Frank Weston ---------------------------------------------------------- Frank, I agree that the final arbiter is the human ear. That is precisely why I started evaluating and modifying piano stringing scales nearly thirty years ago. I would spend all this time rebuilding/restringing the piano, and then be SO disappointed with the sound of the results. I'd think I was doing something wrong, so I'd go to all these classes and find that they were getting the same results. It was treated as a mystery. The improvements in piano tone that are achieved by installing a more balanced stringing scale are always audible. Sometimes they are subtle, more often they are dramatic. Usually it is only possible to smooth out the tenor and treble sections -- unless you want to get into what we are doing now, which is to make complete new bridges so that true "semi-log" scales can be installed. But real -- and very audible -- improvements can be made at the bass/tenor cross-over and through the bass section of nearly every older piano. (I'd say "every" piano, but there might be one or two new pianos with truly optimized stringing scales.) The tone quality can be evened out -- that is, it can be made more uniform. The clarity of tone for each note can be improved. Much of the "muddy" sound resulting from the excessively thick core wires that most, if not all, of the early scales used can be removed. The result is a much more balanced, open and clear sound. I think you may be mis-understanding what rescaling software really does. Yes, it does consider inharmonicity. And, while it is my contention that inharmonicity -- whatever the constant is -- does not make or break the sound of the piano, it does affect how the piano tunes. So why not try to blend the inharmonicity curve together through the bass and at the bass/tenor break so that the piano will be easier to tune? It is easily done and doesn't cost us anything in terms of tone performance. Understood correctly, inharmonicity can also be used as one of the predictors of how a bass string is going to work and sound. Rescaling software also considers unison tension. At least mine does. I'm assuming that the others do also. Evaluating unison tension across the bass/tenor break is another way of predicting how a specific stringing scale is going to sound. Someone practiced and skilled at the art of rescaling considers a number of inter-related factors during the process of developing a new stringing scale for any piano. I do a lot of rescaling work for other technicians -- yes, I do charge for it I am not at all embarrassed to say -- and I am confident that every piano that gets strung with one of these scales sounds better than it would have with the original scale. Even though I will probably never see the piano. The principles of good string scale design are pretty basic. There is not really much mystery to them. It is not necessary to string hundreds of pianos to narrow in on the "one" scale that might work "best" for every given piano. Perhaps it might be helpful to look at it this way: If the acoustically perfect stringing scale for any particular piano is given a tone quality rating of 100, and if the original stringing scale ranks, say, 50 on this scale, then the first shot at rescaling might get us to some point between 90 and 100. Extensive evaluation might enable us to tweak the scale and ensure that we get to 100. Now why should I be content to stay at 50 when I know that, even if I don't get all the way to 100, I can certainly get to 90 or 95 with my first effort? With some decent software, some experience and some knowledge of how the piano works, improvements can ALWAYS be made in those early scales. There is virtually no risk involved and the cost is nominal compared to the overall cost of restringing a piano. Regards, Del
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