[CAUT] Steinway "sound"

[Horace Greeley]

Hi, David,

Please reread Jim's comments and my response.

He was specifically asking about the relationship 
between two different but integrated issues; not 
about the totality of the design.

Best.

Horace


At 01:55 AM 2/15/2011, you wrote:
>I agree that there are differences that can be 
>attributed to the bellies, but with respect to 
>the subject heading, I don't know if I would say 
>that they rise to the level of obscuring an 
>otherwise fundamentally recognizable tonal signature.
>
>
>David Love
>www.davidlovepianos.com
>(sent from bb)
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Horace Greeley <hgreeley at sonic.net>
>Sender: caut-bounces at ptg.org
>Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2011 23:39:02
>To: <caut at ptg.org>
>Reply-To: caut at ptg.org
>Subject: Re: [CAUT] Steinway "sound"
>
>
>
>Hi,
>
>Definitely the belly work is core; much more
>important in the process than tone
>regulation.  By the time an instrument gets to
>the latter points of the process, the most the
>tone regulator can reasonably hope to do is to
>give the instrument as full a voice as possible
>without overemphasizing the weak spots of the particular system/piano.
>
>Selections in NY can be difficult to parse,
>too.  It's never clear how much time is spent on
>the instruments, how big the pool of technicians
>doing the work might be, or how consistent the
>concept of tone and touch might be between
>them.  From that standpoint, if you're working
>with a local dealer that is large enough to host
>a real selection, there will probably be only one
>or two technicians working on the instruments, so
>(for better or worse) the degree and quality of
>prep will be much more regular between them.
>
>Actually, after too long a time of too much
>unpredictability and inconsistency, I think we're
>getting better instruments overall now than we
>have since the later-50's/early-60's.  While
>there's still "stuff" (...there's always
>"stuff"...), and some of it isn't small, it seems
>as if some of the more egregious manufacturing
>problems are gradually being worked out.  With
>Ron Losby at the helm, I suspect that the degree
>of convergence between NY and Hamburg will
>continue to increase.  It will be interesting to see how this all unfolds.
>
>Best.
>
>Horace
>
>
>
>At 09:00 PM 2/14/2011, Jim Busby wrote:
> >David,
> >
> >I think the bellies. In voicing class, and in
> >the other 3 classes we also had 4 different
> >pianos and got to tweak them, try different
> >things, and they were a mixed bag. IOW, if it
> >wasn’t the belly and just the hammers you
> >could technically make them all sound about the
> >same using the same voicing techniques, right?
> >No way here, IMO. They were different beasts. I
> >wish I had your rebuilding chops and could give a better answer.
> >
> >Jim Busby
> >
> >
> >From: caut-bounces at ptg.org
> >[mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of David Love
> >Sent: Monday, February 14, 2011 9:01 PM
> >To: caut at ptg.org
> >Subject: Re: [CAUT] Steinway "sound"
> >
> >Jim:
> >
> >The other question I meant to ask is with
> >respect to the experiences you had at the
> >factory.  Do you think the differences in the
> >B’s were owing to differences in the bellies
> >themselves or just differences in the amount of
> >prep work given to the D’s over the
> >B’s?   Recently a batch of new B’s were
> >delivered to Stanford and before they were
> >dispersed to the various rooms around I had
> >chance to go through them side by side.  There
> >were a lot more similarities than differences to
> >me.  Some differences could be accounted for by
> >hammer density alone, you could tell.  And some
> >other differences were sectional, some killer
> >octaves were better than others and there were a
> >few odd clunker notes here and there but they
> >seemed to be mostly termination problems.  Tenor
> >and bass sections were very much alike.  I
> >don’t think I sat down to any one of them and
> >said, wow now that’s different, though I had my favorites.
> >
> >David Love
> >www.davidlovepianos.com
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >I’ve been in the selection room in NY and the
> >tone was all over the place with Bs but not
> >quite as much with Ds, in my opinion. What I was
> >hinting at is our worn out question; don’t Ds
> >in concert halls, as well as the Steinway C&A Ds
> >have a certain characteristic tone that is
> >“Steinway”? I agree with what you said below
> >that we have the ability to reproduce it (last
> >sentence below) but nearly all the rebuilds
> >I’ve heard are not like Steinway. Nor do they
> >try to be. That’s why (I think) Brent made his
> >statements. Not in disrespect to anyone, but who
> >might better duplicate the “Steinway sound”
> >if there is such an animal, than Steinway? Now
> >I’ll bow out and let all the retorts fly. <G>
> >
> >Best,
> >Jim
> >
> >