At 1:19 PM -0800 11/29/01, Delwin D Fandrich wrote: > > hand to succeed. Steinways are designed to sound a certain way and >> to change the plain wire scale is plain stupid. >> >> JD >> > >So, John, are you saying that only Steinway got it right? That it's stupid >to change a Steinway scale but acceptable--even desirable to change a >Grotrian or a Schiedmayer. Or is it just stupid to change the tenor/treble >scaling but smart to change the bass scaling? Is it OK to change the bass >scaling of a Steinway? How is it that one alters the original factory intent >and that should never be done but the other offers good, valid improvements >in the piano's performance? Or was it just the Steinway designers of >1885--or whenever--that rendered pianos of such perfect performance that >they should still completely fulfill the desires of the pianist in 2001 and >it was all the others that made scaling mistakes? Del, having conceded that some of the things I say are 'true', you now jump on your usual hobby-horse and start the usual patter. You know perfectly well, since you read my message, that I am making a clear distinction between plain wire scales and covered string scales. The bass scale on almost any piano can be improved, often dramatically, without any repositioning of the bridge. I'm not saying that you mustn't or that you can't move or reshape the bridge; I'm saying that a lot is possible without resorting to this. Clear so far? It follows from this that I very rarely copy a Steinway bass scale because if they were designed by anyone sane, then he must have been deaf. If anyone expects me to wind note 10 of a Steinway K on a No. 18 core, then he's come to the wrong man. I will wind it on a No 22 core because it will bark and honk if I don't. I rescale Steinway bass strings not because I think a Steinway ought to sound like such and such, but because noone in his right mind could think the original of certain strings sounded right. A Steinway with my strings still sounds like a Steinway, but like a clean Steinway without the zings and twangs and honks. Some while ago Steinway ordered a single covered trichord from me for Elton John's model D. (This was generous of them because they'll often order a single string of a pair -- I just bill them for two and write that they must replace both.) The new trichord went on and apparently sounded so much better to the client than the others that they very quickly ordered from me the whole section. The bass scale of the Model B is about the weirdest scale ever devised and you will agree that to have 8 singles and 12 bichords on a 6'11" piano was perverse even in 1900. As to the plain wire, I obviously need to repeat that to do anything more than mess about a little bit with the gauges to remove any blips is pointless and that anything more, without changing the bridge, will, on a Steinway, have a bad effect, but in a piano of make X whose bridge is tolerably well placed but which strings at a tension of 180 lbf simply by virtue of the thickness of the wire -- and it is THIS case that I say is unusual, if you will read me -- then it is possible by an overall lightening of the gauges to free up the tone by reducing the mean tension to say 160 lbf and to achieve a singing and soulful piano from what was a rather stiff and Yamaha-like piano. In cases such as Schiedmayer and dozens of old Leipzig and Dresden makes, including Blüthner, with bulging bridges, it is a mug's game messing about with the gauges at all. Either you fit a proper hockey-stick bridge and completely redesign the scale or you stick with what's there and just love that pure mellow sound. What you do with a Bösendorfer, God knows! Just stick to jazz, perhaps? >Why not give the system a little boost by judiciously going up a half-size >in wire here and there? Or by designing a new bridge. Good rescaling, >whether done by the simple manipulation of wire sizes or through the design >of new bridges, should not appreciably alter the original tone character of >the piano. In other words, the overall Model O scale will still be >relatively short and its string tensions relatively low. But the balance >will be better, the bass/tenor cross-over less objectionable and the upper >third will have a brighter, clearer sound without the necessity of >over-shaping the hammers or juicing them to death. > >I don't view this as either arrogance or stupidity. When done with care and >finesse I call it giving the customer the most performance for his/her >investment. I call it keeping up with technology. I call it sensible piano >remanufacturing. Well, that's not a whole lot different from my thinking and if you'd take the trouble to listen to people, you and others might realize you do not have the monopoly of knowledge and experience and don't need to preach to the converted -- converted, I should say, mainly by experience and a preparedness to listen, and even learn. Believe me, there is more to bass string design and manufacture than logarithms and it's just possible you don't know it all. JD
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