Killer Octave Occurrence in New Pianos

[Ron Nossaman]

At 03:49 AM 7/9/2003, you wrote:
>I have a question for techs that work on new pianos: What is the incidence 
>of an identifiable Killer Octave area on a new piano? Let's say the 
>threshold for its existence will be with voicing efforts - when you need 
>to "voice the piano down" to blend the weak area (the Killer Octave) into 
>the rest of the keyboard. Feel free to identify fallboard names (or not).
>
>And yes, I have an ulterior motive - it has to do with a past technical 
>presentation at a PTG chapter meeting.
>
>Anyone?
>
>Terry Farrell


Anyone that was up at 3:49 am thinking about killer octaves is already in 
enough trouble without me adding to the confusion, but...

I find them in a lot of new pianos. Depends on the brand and model, but I 
almost universally ignore them unless there's a specific complaint. The 
problem is that killer octaves aren't a yes or no thing. There is a broad 
sliding scale as to whether it's acceptable or not, how bad it is, where in 
the scale it occurs (or is worst), how much of it is hammers or duplex 
noise, and at what volume level it becomes noticeable. Then, of course, 
they get better or worse with humidity swings, so it's sometimes hard to 
tell just what you've got. Very often, a killer octave that sounds utterly 
horrible at high attack levels is quite acceptable when played softly. If 
the owner doesn't hit the keys hard enough to notice it, for them it isn't 
a problem. I, on the other hand, make a lot of noise tuning, so I'll find 
plenty of high attack level problems the owner (or sales staff) isn't aware 
of. Killer octaves don't seem to get better with age, so what I detect at 
high attack levels when the piano is new will start manifesting at lower 
volume levels as the piano ages, and finally become noticeable by the 
customer one fine static-filled cold winter day a couple of years after the 
warranty period as she is playing at her customary level, or has taken on 
more aggressive music. Swell, now what?

I find this very frustrating. If I explain the problem early on in response 
to a customer's observations about the sound in that area, it's universally 
not believed, but worries the customer (justifiably, I'd say). The dealer 
doesn't see or hear the problem, naturally. The manufacturer doesn't 
believe it either, but attempts to honor the warranty by hiring another 
tech to go look at the piano in expectation of getting better news. The 
other tech, almost universally knowing nearly nothing about soundboards, 
will run up a bill of at least a couple of hundred bucks trying to voice 
the problem away. Sometimes, the customer accepts that, often adopting the 
other tech as her tuner as a result, and is quite happy until the piano 
quietly goes out of warranty and the noise slowly becomes noticeable to her 
one dry winter day, etc. Sometimes, the problem doesn't go away with 
voicing, and actually becomes more noticeable to the customer. Often, this 
is as far as it goes. That's it. That's what it's supposed to sound like. 
If the customer doesn't accept that, the manufacturer will then often ship 
someone in from another state or even country to work the necessary magic 
to make the problem go away. More voicing, naturally. Neither of these 
contract techs makes any attempt to ascertain whether the noise is coming 
from the soundboard or not. They always go straight for the hammers. The 
guy brought in from farther away naturally charges more, usually does a 
fine voicing job, swears the problem was simple and is now fixed (implying 
that the local tech just didn't know how to fix it and blamed it on the 
soundboard instead), and rides off into the sunset without ever having 
looked at the soundboard. The customer, after playing the piano for a few 
weeks to get used to the different voicing and dynamic response, concludes 
that the problem is still there.

There are a lot of variations on this theme, and some manufacturers are 
very good about working with you (if they know you and trust your 
judgement), while others will always insist you don't know what you're 
talking about, never had that problem even once before in all the thousands 
of years they've been in business (even when you've done this with them 
twice a year for the last three years), and will call a REAL tech to fix it.

Again, the problem with killer octaves is that they aren't 100% awful, or 
100% fine. And as long as most of the technical community doesn't 
understand the problems, but can make considerable money voicing around 
them every year as they get worse with age - even to bringing the rest of 
the piano down to the performance level of the killer octave, it's not 
going to get a bit better.

Ron N