[pianotech] idol voicing

Ron Nossaman rnossaman at cox.net
Tue Mar 31 10:03:00 PDT 2009


erwinspiano at aol.com wrote:
>  * Dean
>   You took the thought right out of my next post to you. The medium we 
> work in is all important but perhaps most hammers can get you to a 
> better place tonally.
>   However truly excellent hammers are capable of what ever the 
> soundboard can deliver. Not all hammers can. Don't be afraid to try though. 
>  One thing. If the needles do not go in I'm done.
>  
>   Dale*
> 
> Thanks David L and Dale for your responses. Perhaps, Dale, on your next 
> 30 year old Kawai you bloom you could get your wife to hold the video 
> camera and post a YouTube for us. J
>  
> I have listened to the pianos on David A’s site. Luscious indeed.  So 
> far I haven’t been able to get that close to that sound with stock 
> Asian hammers.
>  
> *Dean*

I did just that this morning in an 18 year old Yamaha GH1. 
Every year, I'd brushed up the hammers with my pot scrubber to 
take some of the pain out before tuning it. Last year, I 
didn't, to see how bad it really was. This year, it was 
absolutely intolerable, so she decided it was time to spend a 
couple of bucks to denastify it. I poked about 40,000 holes in 
the mid to high shoulders, making three quick passes to knock 
them down and even them up as much as is likely (considering), 
then scrubbed them with the brass brush. The high bass still 
bonged, and the low tenor still honked like a duck with a head 
cold, but the rest of the thing sounded more like a piano than 
it ever had. I could have spent all day there and made another 
5% of difference, but she was thrilled enough with level one 
denastification, so we quit rather than either find the limit, 
or reach a level I can't maintain with those hammers. There 
are plenty of limitations, but you can usually do *something* 
to buffer the pain.
Ron N



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