Hi Gene. Took me a while to figure out the Sostenuto as well. But if you stop and think about what is actually possible a good routine for adjustment pops right out at you. Course a bit depends on what kind of Sostenuto system you are adjusting. But essentially... the thing needs to be positioned such that 1: when you play without, the tabs just zip on by unnoticed by the bar 2: when you press the pedal the rotates to prevent the tab from falling below it. 3: when the pedal is pressed, all notes that havent yet been played will be able to be played as usual, without their tabs going through the lip of the bar and getting hung up there. So..... that implies a few things... 1: the lip of the bar needs to rotate so that it is perpendicular to the damper wire. That extends it as far out on its rotational axis towards the tabs as its possible. 2: the bar needs to be at the optimum height and distance (up/down and in/out) relative to the tabs. 3: the travel of the bar must be sufficient to rotate it far enough down when the pedal is released to get the lip out of the way. Course.. the dampers have to be properly regulated to begin with..or you might have to compensate depending on the situation. So... the lip is regulated to 45 degrees at the rest position to start with. Then travel is regulated so the pedal rotates the bar to the horizontal position and no further/no less. That done... the up down positioning can be accomplished. The lip should be at the middle of the tabs when in the horizontal (pedal depressed) position. Finally do the distance positioning. When the pedal is at rest... the lip should be about 1.5 - 2 mm away from the tabs. If the bar is thus regulated, then any problems are related to the tabs themselves. And there could be lots of reasons. Somebody could have improperly bent out a damper wire in some attempt to get that damper to work better. The tab itself could be bad, the dampers might be out of whack in general.... Typical troubleshooting yes ? If you know the bar is right.. then its something else. Look for evenness in height and lateral positioning of the tabs.. and make sure they all stick out at the same angle. Check damper regulation... etc. Hope this helps. I am sure if I missed anything it will be supplied by some of the other good people here. Cheers RicB --------- My problem with the sostenuto was that dampers would skip past the blade when pedal is fully depressed with fff blow.I had to adjust the blade to a bit more than 45 deg to make it ok in this respect. What did I miss? I made my own version of the Steinway tool and it works ok for getting the blade the same height as the tabs. Did not have a problem with anything else. Any advice would be apperciated. Gene Nelson
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