Helmholtz and Steinway

[Overs Pianos]

John D, Del, Ron N., Stephen and all,

>  Have you, Del, or you Ron O, ever allowed longitudinal wave 
>considerations to affect your scale calculations?  I think we should 
>be told.

Sorry folks, I haven't been paying attention over the past couple of 
days -  got distracted with earning a living. Just had a quick catch 
up.

To answer your question JD, no I haven't taken longitudinal waves 
into consideration when designing scales. Reading Del's comments on 
his scaling approach, I design scales in a similar fashion where I 
consider percentage of breaking strain deviation, inharmonicity and 
string impedance (the compounding effect of the sound board on 
impedance is another matter). Regarding these three parameters, all 
cannot be satisfied simultaneously at the transition from the last 
plain wire to the first covered. I sacrifice percentage of breaking 
strain to achieve uniformity of the other two factors. Carefully 
done, it is possible to limit the % deviation increase, when going 
from trichord plains to bichord covers, to less than 15 % for 
modifying production scales, and around 11% for my own instrument. 
Ron N I think works along similar lines?

Stephen's post on longitudinal modes was most interesting. No 
opinions from me on this one. I'm in the stalls.

While I've done no serious investigation into longitudinal harmonics, 
I've been aware of them, occasionally exciting the bass strings 
longitudinally to have a listen and ponder. But to date, dealing with 
them has been restricted to the voicing needles.

Thanks Ron N for those pat. no.s also.

Ron O.
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Website:  http://www.overspianos.com.au
Email:        mailto:ron@overspianos.com.au
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