[CAUT] damper chirp

[Jim Busby]

Hi Tim,

What type of felt is it? I think Bosendorfer felt, like Steinway felt is horizontally layered. That is one of the reasons it tears so easily when you insert mutes w/o being careful. Yamaha felt is layered vertically (I believe it's Yamaha) and is more durable and different sounding. You can tell by very gently pulling down about 1mm and you'll see one start to expand (Steinway) and the other won't. See which kind you have and sample with the "other" kind. Sometimes this solves it. We carry both kind just for this.

Regards,
Jim Busby BYU



-----Original Message-----
From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of geinert at drtel.net
Sent: Thursday, March 13, 2008 7:15 AM
To: caut at ptg.org
Subject: [CAUT] damper chirp

Last night I was at a Bosendorfer Imperial I service.  A couple months ago I
regulated and voiced it.  Last night, when played with the shift pedal, whenever
the dampers were lowered they would chirp.   It was not completely unlike what
a glazed damper sounds like, but these are pretty new, and definitely not
glazed.

When I had regulated this, too  bright/not enough warmth were the complaints.
When voicing una corda, even though I know Bosendorfer does not set the shift
to clear the left string I did it anyway.  I tried to figure out why not to at the time
and couldn't come up with a reason.  Last night when the dampers were
chirping, I checked right away to see if the clearing string was the problem, and
it was.  Setting the action shift back to put the strings between the grooves and
the chirp went away.

I am interested to hear theories of why that would  be.  No other piano I have set
with the left string to clear when the action is shifted does this.(that I know of
anyway)

Tim Geinert