Hi Paul, When figuring out how to muffle sound, it is important to consider the sound path. If you're trying to muffle sound reflectance (e.g. off of a wall), it is effective to attach foam to the wall. The sound must travel through the foam in two directions in order to reflect. Ideally the foam is somewhat inelastic (e.g. very mildly crunchy), so that the sound is burned off in the form of (very minute amounts of) heat. If, however, you're trying to muffle sound that is passing from one point to another (e.g. from the piano to the audience), the best means is to create soft acoustic barriers, across which the acoustic impedance varies radically. This is done by adding mass, preferably in an inelastic material. Take a lesson from auto manufacturers. To deaden road noise, they don't use foam on the bottom of the car. They use materials such as heavy felt and tar. To deaden sound from the piano, try hanging carpet material or very heavy blankets on the underside of the piano. Likewise, reflectance off of the floor can be deadened with carpet under the piano. Hint: Keep the carpet loose. Before investing lots of time into any one approach, test your materials. Just drape a speaker with carpet, surround it with foam, or whatever, and give it a listen. If it works for the speaker, it will work for the piano. Another idea, useful in combination: Remove the real lid, and make a substitute lid out of really thick particle board (which is dense and and inelastic). "Seal" it to the rim with weather stripping. On the underside of the lid, attach carpet material and then "crunchy," acoustic, egg-crate foam. Obviously, to vary the volume of the piano quickly (at several times throughout the service), you'll need to muffle up the piano and electronically amplify when greater volume is necessary. I hope some of these ideas are useful. ;-) Peace, Sarah ----- Original Message ----- From: "Andrew & Rebeca Anderson" <anrebe@zianet.com> To: "Pianotech" <pianotech@ptg.org> Sent: Wednesday, September 29, 2004 11:52 PM Subject: Re: Control grand volume > Some people make sonic foam inserts for pianos. The cheap approach would > be to go down to your local rock n roll music store and say something > about sonic foam panels for your studio. You can cut those up and mount > them between the beams. Or just put them on the floor and cover them with > some attractive cloth. > > Andrew > At 10:01 PM 9/29/2004 +0100, you wrote: >>Whats the stage made of ? Sometimes a wooden stage or acoustically active >>stage really helps to boom the piano sound out there... isolating the >>piano by putting a nice thick carpet under it can help a lot in such >>cases. You can also attach a thick peice of material to the underside of >>the rim so that you more or less muffle the sound. I've heard of techs >>stuffing foam rubber into the space between the bracings as well. Just a >>few thoughts >> >>RicB >> >>Paul Chick (Earthlink) wrote: >> >>>A client asked me how he/they could control the volume of a Kawai RX-2 >>>grand >>>that is on a music stage area of their church. When used with a praise >>>band, the piano overpowers the guitars and (6-8)voices. They keep it >>>closed >>>and do not use any microphones. But, when used as a solo instrument, the >>>volume fills the church nicely. Budget is an issue, so, are there some >>>means or methods to decrease and increase the piano's volume? >>> >>>Paul C >>> >>> >>>_______________________________________________ >>>pianotech list info: https://www.moypiano.com/resources/#archives >>> >>> >> >>_______________________________________________ >>pianotech list info: https://www.moypiano.com/resources/#archives > > _______________________________________________ > pianotech list info: https://www.moypiano.com/resources/#archives > >
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