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Phil
I appreciate your comments and & wished to share a few of my own. I
know I'm taking usual risks by offering somewhat transparent observations of
my work and others. If I'm unclear or (often the case) let me know.
Though I've always employed some form of rib crowning and have enjoyed
many of these board as much as CC crowned board I've had other that I didn't
enjoy as much.(which is also true of CC board of course) I'm sorry if this
burst any ones bubble but this is honest assesment. Some of my earlier subtle
disappointment were possibly due also to inadequate amounts of bearing which John
Hartman was responsible for kindly enlightening me. Since then I feel the
results have been remarkably improved, IMHO.
When I first started making my own boards about 8 years ago I was crowning
my ribs less and drying more. Probably about 5% emc. As time went on I
started drying less (bout 6%emc) and crowning more, using a progressively tighter
crown, as well as taller ribs. All this to say I'm still learning interesting
stuff realizing I ain't never going to now it all.
It may be of interest, it is to me, that some models of S&S's and inherent
designs charachteristics lend themselves more easily to sound board
replacement, IMHO. I mean that within reason no matter what you do the sound is good.
I'm thinking of Model A- 2 & 3's. Where the string load and mass of the board
work well together and low amounts of crown/ bearing seem to work as well
higher amounts of crown/bearing whether they be Rc or CC. The O on the other
hand, and this is strictly my subjective opinion, does better with a flatter crown
and more moderate bearing loads. L's are more easly given board transplantss
as are wide tail cousins the A's. Perhaps this is why the O was discontinued
What got me to thinking about this stuff Phils post and a 1961 model L in a
church that was "sonically" amazing and also a 1940 Concert Dept. - D at the
symphony both with original boards. I've rebuilt the D, action and strings. It
has no visible compression damage, has a lot of crown and bearing. It sounds
as good any/ many D I've heard. Jeremy Denk, a young pianist from New York,
played Taichoskys piano concerto no. 1 in B flat minor.
Jeremy is young pianist with amazing skills. We spoke about things in the
piano he liked, such as the power and warmth of the piano. I voiced a few
notes at the break he said sucked and after voicing he agreed they'd improved to
his liking. He also liked the tone of bass& tenor up to the break. He then
played thru the killer regions saying he wished it could sound more like the
tenor which he liked very much. He confessed he'd take the piano home any day.
By the way this piano has really a quite acceptable killer region. I've
pulled the hammers into a horshoe shape on about 10 or 12 notes with the
sharpest bend in the shape is toward the keyboard at note 64. This helps not only
power but sustain plus tone color when shifted.
Ahh my point. I sat thru the performance thoroughly enjoying the sound of
a gracefully aging CC board detecting only sweet & intense musical clarity
,power ,warm tone color and amazing projection of that sound on every single
note including the killer octave. Any slight objections observed at the keyboard
simply melted away in performance. How long will this 63 yr old board produce
this kind of sound? I think a long time. This kind of tone in a S&S piano is
why they are no 1 in solo piano performance not marketing.
Another other point is that that if a small shop were to diligently
monitor emc's more closely than mass production facilities, say to no more or less
than 5% at time of ribbing & using a apropriately curved deck, more of the A
plus pianos Phil referrs to would possibly be seen without so much damage. That
is providing diligent climate control is used. Thats true of both CC &RC
boards
Also many1960 and 70s S&S's used sitka boards with sugar pine ribs and
were made by guys seemingly paying attention to the important stuff. These
pianos sound as good as any vintage ax I've seen especially in the sustain dept.
Another observation is that of the S&S's , Masons, Yamahas & others that
had the best sounding CC boards IMO had some signs of compression in the
panel. The ones I've observed with no cracks or compression but had an otherwise
perfect looking flat panel came out often but not always sounding inferior. A
case of high emc's at ribbing. I don't know that Yamahas Are cc crowned. I
rather think they are not, never the less the ones I like most have some
compression squishing going on that is observable when looking carefully across the
panel.
Regards--Dale
>>I think Mark Potter's summary covered the argument pretty well and is
>>consistent with what advocates of rib crowning have been saying....
>>When a concert pianists goes through 25
>>pianos in order to pick one what is it that they are listening for? The
>>marked differences in the instruments may well be a function of
>>preparation, touchweight dynamics etc.. But you can be sure that the tone
>>of each is also a function of how effectively the soundboard is working.
>>If we agree that a rib crowned board sounds as good as a compression board,
>>all things being equal, then their would be no reason to choose one over
>>the other.
No reason, sonically speaking.
>> The only issue to consider, then, would be how consistently can
>>one method produce good results over the other, and what is the likelihood
>>that one system will function to a higher level over time than the other.
>>The science strongly suggests that the rib crowned board has advantages in
>>those two areas....
>>
>>David Love
These are the reasons to choose rib crowned (RC) boards over
compression crowned (CC) boards, all things being equal. And there's
the rub, and why I believe that we have these endless discussions on
this subject. Each individual builder or rebuilder, or each
individual factory (or its powers that be) have to become convinced
that all other things are equal between the two systems. No
discussion or argument, no matter how compelling, is going to
convince me personally that one system is better than another,
sonically speaking. Because, for me, the ultimate arbiter of that
decision is my ears, and through my ears my heart (or other word
you'd care to substitute), not my brain.
I think we don't distinguish in these discussions among classes of
pianos. I think the distinction is important. The potential
differences in sound between RC and CC only really matter in pianos
of the highest level, the ones utilized by artists or fine amateur
pianists. These players are highly discerning and highly opinionated
about the sounds that they hear. And they're looking for something
beyond the average piano sound, something which is difficult, if not
impossible to describe. They would probably say something like, I
can't put into words what I'm looking for, but I know it when I hear
it. As David mentioned, artists will search through 25 pianos
(they'd probably be willing to search through many more) to get the
one that they want. They're not terribly interested in consistency.
In my experience, they prefer inconsistency, or what they would call
difference. They don't care that the other 24 pianos aren't so good
if they can find the one that is. And they probably wouldn't think
that there was something wrong with the other 24, just that those
pianos were more suited to someone else. They probably would be
interested in longevity, but only if you could assure them that they
wouldn't have to make any sonic sacrifices to get it. These pianos
represent a tiny percentage of the piano population, maybe 1 % or
less. What I might call an A+ piano.
The remaining 99% of the piano world falls into the A- and below
category, where these distinctions don't matter. At the lowest
levels, these pianos are abysmal. At the highest level, the A-
level, they are well designed and well made from good materials. I
won't name any brands, but we all know these pianos. There are many
of them around. The are very acceptable and serviceable pianos, even
for very good pianists. They sound good and they play well. It's
the kind of piano that after playing for a few minutes I refer to as
a nice piano. And they are, but they don't have that spark, or that
something special that lifts them from good or nice to great or
inspirational. I respect them intellectually but my ears and my
heart are not in love. And that's what artists are looking for, a
piano that their ears and hearts can love. And I haven't yet become
personally convinced that a RC soundboard can produce this.
What it would take to convince me is to play on a piano with a RC
soundboard that I love, or that ranks among the best pianos that I've
played. That's not to say that this can't or won't happen, but it
hasn't happened yet. So, I can't profess to being a true RC believer
at this point. It may just be a matter of exposure. I've played on
hundreds, if not thousands, of pianos. Most of these have probably
had CC soundboards, as far as I know. I've only played on a handful
of pianos that I knew for certain had RC boards in them. Those
pianos fell into the nice, even very nice, category, but not great.
So, as far as I know, my favorite pianos, the ones that live in my
memory and serve as my reference standard if you will, have had CC
boards. Perhaps if I'd played on hundreds of pianos with RC boards
and only a handful of pianos with CC boards then all my favorite
pianos would have RC boards. I can't say.
For A- pianos or below, the evidence presented here has convinced me
that RC should be the method of choice. If you're a factory that is
building low to upper mid range pianos, then I see no reason not to
use RC boards. If you're attempting the sonic pinnacle of an A+
piano, where sound matters more than consistency or longevity, then I
am not yet convinced that RC is the method of choice. If you're a
rebuilder, your choice is harder. You're not a factory. You
probably don't want to make the choice that 10 % of your output is
going to be great and 90 % not so good (those percentages are random
for talking purposes, feel free to substitute your own numbers).
Every piano needs to turn out well. Even if you believed that CC
offered a bit more sonic potential, you might prefer to opt for very
good 100% of the time, rather than great 10 % of the time.
I suppose that one way to settle this would be to have a high quality
maker make several of the same model, half with RC boards, and half
with CC boards. Bring in some good pianists and let them try all the
pianos and pick out the 5 or 10 that they liked best. If the 5
pianos that all the pianists chose were all CC board pianos, then I
think the conclusion is that you need to use a CC board if you're
building artist quality pianos, and accept whatever downside goes
with that choice. If the favorite pianos were a mixture, but all the
number one pianos were CC, you might conclude that CC has the
potential to be slightly better, but perhaps not markedly so, so do
we as a factory want to live with its downside? If the favorites
were a random mixture, then I think you would conclude there's no
sonic advantage of one system over another. So there would seem to
be no reason to continue using CC boards. If the favorites were all
RC, then I think the conclusion is even more obvious.
Until something like this happens, or until each individual somehow
comes across a RC soundboard piano that converts him, these
discussions will continue without any conclusions.
Phil Ford
PS All of my comments here would apply equally well to laminated
boards vs solid boards. For A- and below pianos I see no reason
(other than perhaps cost) to use a solid board. For me, the jury's
still out on laminated boards for A+ pianos.
--
Phillip Ford
Piano Service and Restoration
1777 Yosemite Ave - 130
San Francisco, CA 94124
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