Acoustic foam

[Michael Magness]

On 11/5/07, Tom Servinsky <tompiano at bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> Sorry John, I guess I totally miss-understood your point. Sorry!
> As far as the foam on the top, that does quiet things down quite a bit. So
> much so, the player feels like the piano is sounding from another room.
> Here's my take on things:
> The one's doing the most complaining are the ones who are doing the
> listening, not ones doing the playing. It's the overall volume taking over
> the household that bothers most listeners. Thus the foam on the bottom of
> the piano really retards the sound coming from that section of the piano.
> In
> our part of the world, we have a lot of extremely hard floors with no rugs
> or carpets under the piano ( marble and stone). The sounds bounces very
> quickly off of the bottom and shoots around the rooms in droves. Adding
> the
> foam will slow that problem down to a crawl. What's interesting is that
> the
> player can barely notice any difference in sound.
> Adding the foam on the top adds another effect as it's  diminishes the
> sound
> to the player. If the piano is being strictly as a player piano, the foam
> on
> top will help tremendously. However, if the piano is going to be played by
> a
> pianist  they will be shocked with the diminished sound. If the piano is
> being used strictly  by a pianist, I will opt not to add foam to the top.
> There's a psychologically phenomenon that occurs when the piano is being
> played by a person, as the piano is expected to be heard.
> When the piano is being played by a player mechanism, people have a
> tendency
> to think the volume of the piano should behave like a stereo receiver. You
> should be able to go to a complete, distant, ambient sound of Volume 1. Of
> course, that's an impossibility when dealing with the complexities of a
> piano. But that's what I have been able to derive from the comments about
> volume and pianos.
> It comes down to what your end games needs to be.
> Tom Servinsky
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "John Formsma" <formsma at gmail.com>
> To: "Pianotech List" <pianotech at ptg.org>
> Sent: Sunday, November 04, 2007 8:09 PM
> Subject: Re: Acoustic foam
>
>
> > On 11/4/07, Tom Servinsky <tompiano at bellsouth.net> wrote:
> >
> >> There is a big difference between foam mattress material and acoustical
> >> baffle foam.  Recording studios having been using this material for
> years
> >> to
> >> insulate the interior space against outside noise. Can't say I have
> ever
> >> seen a recording studio pad the walls with mattress foam. I'm not sure
> >> how
> >> the acoustical/physical characteristics plays into the egg crate shape,
> >> but
> >> it does contain sound extremely well.
> >> That being said, any material (be it foam, blankets, or anything) is
> >> going
> >> to aid in retarding sound from the bottom of the piano. The question is
> >> how
> >> much containment of sound are you hoping for. We've experimented with
> >> just
> >> about everything and for the extra money, the high grade acoustical
> >> baffle
> >> foam is well worth the extra cost.
> >
> > I agree with you, Tom.  I was responding to what Israel said about
> > using a foam mattress cut to size.  That will reduce the sound, but as
> > I said, the acoustic foam is denser and would do a better job.
> >
> > What I was talking about was after the acoustic foam was in place on
> > top and bottom.  I was wondering if a foam mattress might help *in
> > addition* to what was already there. It did make a difference, but not
> > significant enough.  Sorry if I worded it poorly.
> >
> > Having done my little experiment on that job, I will use acoustic foam
> > in the future if ever I need to reduce the volume.
> >
> > Someone else before me had put a sheet of fiberglass insulation in
> > there.  That doesn't work well at all, just in case anyone was
> > wondering. <g>
> >
> > JF
> >
> Years ago I had a very fussy customer with one of those tiny 4' 5or6"
> George Steck grands. He felt it was too loud for the room, it was a huge
> room with carpet, heavy brocade drapes, bookcases, plenty of "soft stuff" to
> absorb sound but he wanted it quiter still. I arrived one day to tune and he
> had had a custom cover made for it, padded with a quilting inside. The outer
> cover matched the drapery material and fit from where the top folded back
> all the way over the nose and hung a few inches past the rim. It was very
> quiet, after I removed it to tune it was still very quiet, I looked
> underneath and he had stuffed 2 foam bed pillows between the beams and sound
> board! Perhaps I should have said nearly dead, rather than quiet! <grin>



Mike

-- 
The way some people find fault, you'd think there was some kind of reward.
Michael Magness
Magness Piano Service
608-786-4404
www.IFixPianos.com
email mike at ifixpianos.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20071105/f72e4512/attachment.html