Voicing up Shigeru Kawai SK3

Stéphane Hanriat stephane.hanriat@free.fr
Thu, 19 Feb 2004 22:31:56 +0100


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Hello,

I own a brand new Shigeru Kawai SK3 that the Kawai technician in France =
has
made, according to me,  too deep voicing on notes in the treeble range =
(octave 5 to 6).

Although he disagrees with that, the tone is slightly too mellow in this =
range,
from pianissimo up to mezzo forte. At pianissimo or piano, the higher =
partials are
reduced compared to neighboring octaves (impacted notes are from 55 to =
69),
and the attack looks a bit dull.
Those higher partials are coming back with more strength on the key. =
However,
these notes always require slightly more strength to produce a balanced =
sound.
>From Mezzo forte up to Forte, things are OK (overall loudness and tone =
quality
is well balanced)

The technician made several filing with very limited improvement. I'm =
not a
specialist, just a pianist - but my engineering background and what I =
learned
reading your very interesting posts, tell me that there has been likely =
too much
deep needling in the higher section of the shoulders.

The Shigeru hammers are cold-pressed and are considered as medim/soft in
europe. May be they are not  very robust to extensive voicing.

I'm wondering what could be the best solution to recover some power to =
these
15 hammers : dry ironing, juicing or changing those 15 hammer heads ?
Kawai says the tone will not be even if I change only a sub set of =
hammers
(they don't want to replace either full set of subset anyway...).

Have you experienced changing subset of hammers in this range ?
Which hammer head brand would you recommend for those Kawai pianos =
(softer
than Yamaha...) ?
Do you think dry ironing would make it ? (actually the recovery level =
I'm expecting
is not that big and the felt thickness is small in this range, so this =
could work).

Many thanks for your feedbacks,
Sincerely yours,
Stephane Hanriat
stephane.hanriat@free.fr

PS : This being said, the SK3 is an outstanding instrument. Action is =
close to
perfection, overall tone is wonderful, rich, not too harsh like Yamaha =
and the
softer hammers give you great control and margin in the way you produce =
louder
sound.



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