Front duplex noise

[Allan L. Gilreath, RPT]

Doug,

There are several tricks that you can apply to these cases.  First, I have
had several customers who strongly objected to the sound coming from this
section.  One was on a Baldwin SD-10 in a room with a very low ceiling and
the other was a Young Chang in a church.  I had them describe the sound to
me and when I pressed a strip of (wood with soft (understring) felt glued to
it) to the front duplex section it removed the sound they found
objectionable.  (BTW, this is a great tool for trouble shooting ringing
damper noises.)  Therefore I lightly muted off the duplex sections on these
instruments.  While this may seem "wrong" to us, the felt is easily
removable and the owners of nd these instruments much prefer the sound now.

Second - the other (more common) situation that I find is one or two notes
that have a particularly objectionable ring in this register.  On this case,
a small piece of bushing felt placed over the center string and under the
two outer strings of the tricord can then be slid up or down to remove a
particularly strong sound while still maintaining resonsnace.  It can be
easily removed if you don't like the result.  In my mind, this has many
advantages over muting off the entire section with stringing braid or felt,
accomplishes what you want without unwanted side effects and looks pretty
professional.

Food for thought,

Allan
Allan L. Gilreath, RPT
Gilreath Piano & Organ Co.
agilreath@mindspring.com

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-pianotech@ptg.org [mailto:owner-pianotech@ptg.org]On Behalf
Of Doug Mahard
Sent: Saturday, April 15, 2000 2:21 PM
To: pianotech@ptg.org
Subject: Re: Front duplex noise


Thanks Antares and Brian,

I kind of had a hunch at the time of my muting that this might not be such a
great idea.  However, I settled on letting my ears lead the way and on the
Young Chang I liked the "cleaner" sound.  Maybe the customer won't like it
and in that case I 'll retrieve my strip mute.  She doesn't like a bright
sound anyway, so she might be overly joyed about the change.  This is a
church instrument.

On the S&S M it didn't make a noticable improvement to my ears to warrant
muting that front duplex.

Doug Mahard