soft pedal on new Kawaii

[Thomas Cole]

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Julia,

The general spec on an upright is to decrease the hammer blow by half. 
Normally this doesn't make a huge difference in the volume - it's 
subtle. If you tighten the wing nut on the pedal prop, that will push up 
on the hammer rest rail as you've discovered. This introduces lost 
motion which, if you readjust, will change certain other regulation 
adjustments (e.g., dampers will pick up sooner, checking will be 
affected, bridal wires, etc.), all because the pianist wants the piano 
to play quieter.

This is where I step back and try to find out from the pianist if she is 
having difficulty playing softly, or IOW getting the dynamic range she 
wants (which I might interpret as a technique problem that she is 
assuming is a piano problem), or whether the hammers are too hard which 
don't allow for soft playing (which is a voicing problem).

We often have to read in between the lines with these customer requests. :-)

Tom Cole

Alpha88x@aol.com wrote:

> Greetings,
>
>               Why wouldn't a soft pedal on a brand new Kawaii studio 
> upright not make the piano play any softer when depressed?  I checked 
> the distance of the hammers and the pedal, caused the hammers, sure 
> enough, to get closer to the strings, but the tone of playing did not 
> get softer as it should; I mean alomost NO tonal difference.
>
>                So...I adjusted the soft pedal screw, down at the pedal 
> until my ear was satified as to the softness. Adjusting this made the 
> hammers distance about 1/2" closer to the strings than it was set at. 
> Then, when I looked at the hammer rest rail, it was up off it's 
> resting position on the action bracket. In other words, there was 
> about 1/4" space between the hammer rest rail's bottom and the felt on 
> the action brackets. When I measured the resting position distance of 
> the hammers to the strings it was 38mm!!  I know this is too close, 
> but now the pedal causes the hammers to play softer....
>
>                The girl needed to practice for a college entrance or 
> something, so I lightly glued small pieces of felt in the space in 
> between the rail and the action brackets, as a temporary measure,  as 
> to allow the pedal to do what it is suppose to do, so she could 
> practice. Howevwer, I told them I would investigate the specs and 
> visit as a follow up. What could the true problem be here? My guess 
> that it has to do with voicing. (38mm and up off the action bracket, 
> doesn't seem right and scares me.) Thanks for expertise in advance.
>
>             (By the way, this was a call from the piano dealer, for 
> their first free tuning and to look art this pedal's problem under 
> warranty.)
>
> rookie,
> Julia Gottchall,
> Reading, PA 


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