On Nov 17, 2010, at 9:59 AM, Alan Eder wrote: > IF such a gap is ever created in a conventional action design > (however momentarily), do you think it is more likely if the wippen > is lighter or heavier? I would speculate that wipp mass would be less of a factor than rep spring strength, material and condition of drop leather and wipp cushion, key mass, and key bushings. But who knows? One thing to keep in mind when complaining about these designs where the wippen is linked to the key: the piano makers who used them were not doing it for ease of manufacture, to save money, nor to win friends in the technician community. They certainly believed there were advantages, and so many high end makers did it that I am inclined to believe they were right. It's a question, like in many areas of the piano, of how much return you get for the investment. Hard to say. Personally, I have never played such an instrument that was in good shape and fine regulation, so I can't offer an opinion based on experience. I speculate it might be analogous to the interaction of finger and keytop, as seen in high speed videography. We see the finger approach the key, come in contact, and then the finger stops its motion momentarily, maybe even rebounds upward a wee bit, before the key and finger descend together. There may not be a physical gap between flesh and keytop, but there may be a springiness of the flesh of the finger, where it is compressed, expands again, then compressed again. This kind of thing is felt, even if subconsciously. Something similar could happen in the interactions between the wippen and the key, in the various rebounds each experiences during play of different sorts. So sometimes there might well be loss of power and a feeling of an impact. And this might be eliminated or reduced with the linked action. Regards, Fred Sturm fssturm at unm.edu http://www.createculture.org/profile/FredSturm http://www.youtube.com/fredsturm http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/FredSturm -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut.php/attachments/20101117/e41ce701/attachment.htm>
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