Allen writes: >I've been reading Reblitz about voicing hammers, in which he says to >needle deep on the sides and shallow on the striking surface. For >deep voicing, he says to have the needle sticking out 3/4", and for >shallow he says to have it sticking out 1/16". Are those two >distances the depth of the needling, i.e. the needles should go all >the way in? If not, how deep should they go in? > Reblitz is usually a good starting point, he's one of the more accurate writers. I voice lots of Yamahoper pianos, and had a class with the head factory voicer from Yamaha about 5 years ago. He said the needles should protrude about 8 to 9 millimeters from the voicing tool (Yamaha type is best, at least for Y's- Schaff). You also need a voicing block for grands to hold up the hammers. Make sure you hold three of so hammers at a time when you plunge the needles into the felt, so you don't wobble the centers! You can start with 1 needle if you are not used to this, if you want, that just takes longer. I do lots of real fine voicing on concert grands with just 1 needle. If you are new to voicing, carry a few bandaids, and lots of extra needles with you. I use a regular #7 sewing needle available anywhere. I have used this 8 - 9mm length when I have to do *off-crown* deep needling with great success since then. He used 3 needles tho, and I just use 2, since it's easier to get them in (and harder to miss). For hard hammers I start with the needles 6" to 8" away from the hammer and plunge them all the way in hard. This takes a little practice aiming, until you are a good shot, you will "inoculate" yourself a few times. For shallow needling on the crown, use 1/16th inch or 1 mm, with 3 needles. Set the needles so they protrude only the amount you want to penetrate, that way you get a consistent result. You can needle right over the crown with this depth (no deeper than 1mm!), and it mellows the piano right down for soft to medium playing volume. If the hammers are really hard, like Keith, I have used pliers as a last ditch effort to mellow down the piano. Vice grips work best for this, you can set the squeeze pressure with the knob. Voicing is one of the things that has always frustrated me because it is so subjective. Never the less I do a lot of it, since I tune for quite a few concerts, and symphony work. Keith is right, different hammers voice differently, Steinways a really different from Yamahopers. I've been working on an adaption the technology in my Chameleon 2 digital audio system, (part of Tuning Manager for Macintosh). I am creating a audio frequency spectrograph that would be a great help in bringing voicing into the 21st century (its in the 19th right now). Here's how it works: The tuner plays the selected note on the piano for 5-6 seconds. The computer then displays a graph showing the relative strength of each relevant partial in decibels. It also displays the cents offset for each note too, for analyzing false beats, etc. This isn't done yet, but I'm working on it! This would be great for before and after pictures of what the voicing really did to the sound! I am mainly writing this for investigating why some pianos give strange or inconsistent results when recorded with Chameleon 2. There is something(s) weird going on in the partials with some pianos ( but we knew that... ;-) Dean PS Allen, Could you include you last name in you signature? Thanks! :-) * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Dean L. Reyburn, RPT Sanderson Accu-Tuner * * REYBURN PIANO SERVICE, INC. Authorized Distributor * * 2695 Indian Lakes Rd, NE "Software Solutions * * Cedar Springs, MI 49319 for Piano Technicians" * * Me: 616-696-0500 Fax: 616-696-8121 75601.2765@compuserve.com * * (Watch this space for our WWW page soon!) * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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