voiceing

[Keith Roberts]

Thank you Ron, for your well written post. I want to establish some kind of
common terminology that transcends the one on one and expands into the group
conscience. Ask a terminology question and uncover another terminology
question. Dale's post looks interesting.
Thank you for the caution. Eric was dealing with a soft hammer that was
brought up with lacquer. He then spent the class removing the objectionable
sizzle and uneven volume. He STRESSED that one needle in a "tension or
compression" hammer has up to 10 times the effect as on a lacquered hammer.
I'm assuming Yamaha has the type of hammers that Antares says can be made
"powerless" by over kill or lessening the natural tension with incorrect
needling.

Keith R
----- Original Message ----- > Ok, I got it now. I'm not entirely sure there
is any universally approved
> terminology in voicing. I always have to work out a "translation table"
> with each customer each time it comes up. They all know exactly what
> they're hearing, and they all use entirely different terminology to
> describe it. That low tenor woof is likely string scaling. Low tensions (%
> of breaking tension) in the wire trichords will give that hollow sound,
> while the wrapped strings just below are at a higher %break, and sound
much
> better. I don't know of any hammer voicing tricks to make this go away.
> I've managed some apparent improvements with the usual brushing, steaming,
> or needling, but it is never really satisfactory to me. Super hard hammers
> don't help this much either. I usually start with a light brushing with a
> small brass bristle brush to try to hear past the clang and see what I
have
> to work with. Sometimes just the brushing helps enough to get me off the
> hook. Sometimes not. Some techs are very good at temporarily disguising
> scale and soundboard design problems with voicing, but I never was.
>
> Low soundboard impedance problems produce a similar kind of sound, so it
is
> often hard to tell what you're hearing. Those hollow sounding couple of
> notes on either side of a plate strut where the bridge is deeply notched
> are a low impedance effect. The bridge is too flexible there. Killer
octave
> (5-6---) voicing problems are likely soundboard impedance problems too,
but
> could be too hard hammers, string level, or front duplex effects. Low
tenor
> voicing problems across the break can be low impedance, scaling, or both -
> just to add to the confusion.
>
> I'd proceed cautiously.
>
> Ron N
>