>Barb Barasa wrote: >My proudest moment in this area came when a player piano expert referred a >customer to me after getting their player mechanism working. He said, "Barb >can get this thing sounding great!" When I got there, they put a roll on and >you couldn't even tell what tune it was playing! I think it was about a >minor third flat (I don't have any "cents" about this). I thought, "Well, >I've finally been put in an impossible situation." When I left, it sounded >great. Barb, This looks to me like a classic example of an "expert" being "anyone a hundred miles or more from home". As one of the few professional (a means of eating) piano techs in this area who rebuilds players, I've just got to take exception to the idea of this guy being anything remotely resembling an expert. (At the risk of being labeled a sexist, I'm assuming the perp to be male. You did say "he".) If the guy isn't a piano technician, he has no business mucking about in players. This is only my opinion and not an absolute, but I'm absolutely convinced. I spend a lot of time on the phone with would be player patchers explaining to them that the piano needs rebuilt FIRST! Putting new seat covers and mag wheels on a car that doesn't run is not good mechanics. Neither is shamming a player rebuild in a piano that isn't serviceable. While I have their attention, I also point out that it costs a minimum of three hundred dollars more to redo someone elses player job than it would have cost to do it right the first time. Of the hundreds of player "rebuilds" I have had the misfortune of being called on to get working, the vast majority of them are partially done butcher jobs in pianos that haven't even gotten the bigger chunks of dirt and possum parts blown out. Mostly, I have to tell them what they've got, what the last guy did for (to) them, what it needs to make it work, and charge them a service call for bad news. If I don't have anything to work with, I can't do them any good. The sad thing here is that the customer thinks the work was done by an expert (who won't come and fix it himself) and has already spent far more money on the piano than they wanted to, only to be informed (by me, the ogre) that I can't enhance the luster of fecal material. The piano needs rebuilt and, usually, so does the player. What this ultimately means is that the piano will probably NEVER be rebuilt and the player will probably NEVER work like it could have if the whole job was done. The next thing I generally hear is "It's only a player, it's supposed to sound like that". AARRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH! Sorry about the rant, but this is a VERY sore spot for me. These things can be truely wonderful if done correctly, but usually end up being the mechanical equivilent of a badly stuffed deer... no grace, no life, no magic. No offense. Ron Nossaman
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