David Love wrote: > It's that judgment that I'm interested in. I go back and forth as well. It's, like anything else that's evolving by trial and error beyond what the numbers tell me, an accumulation of evidence and a windage adjustment from the last few iterations. It's not a no risk, perfected, follow the checklist sort of thing just yet. Tuning is far better quantified, and look at the disagreements that generates. > The best "spreadsheet" fit often involves a fairly radical shortening of the > speaking lengths such that the original designs that employed that modified > the strike point with a new agraffe line. I'm not interested in doing that > and so have kept my own modifications of the speaking lengths more > conservative although that tends to cause a drop in the inharmonicity curve > and an increase in the BP% farther than I would normally go. Yes, that's a compromise. Another approach is to not worry about the strike point that low in the scale and optimize the rest of it. Or, split the difference and try for least bad somewhere in between. Not being able to easily replace the plate necessarily imposes some limitations. >Spreadsheet > also don't always necessarily make for perfect tonal transitions for reasons > unknown to me, even though they are certainly better than the precipitous > tension drop offs characteristic of the original. They certainly are better. Not just different, better. But we're still learning. At this point, we can (often very dramatically) improve overall tone and get smoother transitions than the original, but we are still operating with no quantified definition of what constitutes good tone, let alone the 100% fail proof recipe for assembling it in a piano. >Are you totally satisfied > with the tonal characteristics of the transitions and, if not, how would you > characterize the tonal differences that you experience across those breaks > (difficult to answer I know). Totally satisfied? No. I don't know how anyone who would take this stuff up in a developmental fashion could ever be *totally* satisfied. I've been deliriously happy about some of them, but the next one will be another day. I grade incremental improvements on the curve. As I learn more about what factors improve (to my ear) certain aspects of certain areas of the scale, another potential improvement assumes the temporarily higher priority, and I'm chasing that one next time. That doesn't mean the last thing is perfected, but just that the next thing needs attention first. The bass/tenor crossover has a whole lot of factors to consider. Soundboard response is, I think, a biggie. How to get a similar volume from the low tenor and the high bass, and have that blend gracefully into the tenor and lower bass without sticking out as either louder or softer than what's around it. Doing it on paper with the scaling isn't overly difficult, but making it happen in a piano adds considerable complication. I'm finding that keeping the bass and low tenor light helps keep the clangy upper partials there down, and gives me somewhere to go with mass loading if necessary. Fine control of tone quality there still needs research. At least half of the challenge is that cleaning up that low tenor area makes the piano sound different from 98% of the pianos we've listened to through our entire lives, and we have to decide which we prefer. We usually want something to be just the same, only without the annoyances, which isn't possible, so we have to get around our own training and decide what is important. Another thing I've found in doing this sort of work. If you change anything from the original, no matter how much better it sounds than the original equipment model as a result, there will be those for whom it can never be good enough. It must be absolutely perfect in every way, and since it doesn't sound like the original, it isn't. This is from expert bystanders, typically. The folks who contract for the work are overall quite happy and pleased. None of this is probably good for anything, but it all fits into the process somewhere. Back to work, Ron N
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