Yamaha foam

Carol Beigel crbrpt@bellatlantic.net
Wed, 12 Nov 2003 23:51:14 -0500


The foam Judi Edwards uses in her pre-cut foam baffles is Markertek Acoustic
foam at:  http://www.markertek.com/MTStore/Store.cfm
I find that using two layers is most effective. Most of the time these sound
absorbing baffles are needed is that the Disklaviers sound too bright.
There are two reasons for this.

1) The hammers are too hard on the G series pianos.  For all my waxing
eloquently about the skill of using voicing needles, this is where Roger
Jolly's version of steaming hammers is a "must" prologue!

2) The default velocity value for the MIDI file is set to 100.  I suggest
editing the data to reduce this value to about 70.  There is a free program
called Veloset that easily does this.  Also, the "controller 7" value or the
velocity for the tracks can be edited using a MIDI sequencer program.

Everytime I have made a set of baffles for a client, their complaint has
been that they can't sit with friends next to the piano and carry on a
conversation while it is playing.  I cringe at the thought because pianos
are not stereo systems!  On MarkIII Disklaviers, there is the option to send
the piano parts through the tone generator with the silent mode engaged, and
thereby have infinite control over the volume.

If anyone is interested in pursuing a software fix for this problem, please
feel free to visit my website that I have been writing for 3 years to help
my own clients cope with this on their own.  It still is not finished as
everytime I get a chapter finished it is obsolete!!  At least the software
is there.

Carol Beigel
www.carolrpt.com





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