This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment MessageHi all, Joe said: "Tone is nothing like what the past was, IMHO."=20 Alan responded: "I had asked [Ari Asaac] how a person can learn to = really hear the subtleties of voicing and what a piano should sound = like. His response was 'Listen to piano music recorded in the 1950's.'" Later, Horace commented to Barbara, "The piano aside, the real problem = with the recording, however was the use of Crown pizeo-electric crystal = pickups which were placed on the stage." And there's *almost* the point! There's a very good reason why the older pianos didn't sound = particularly bright. The *recordings* didn't sound particularly bright. = I wish I could speak more authoritatively as a recording engineer. I = can only speak from general knowledge, which may or may not be up to = snuff in this area. Anyhow, recording equipment from long ago simply = wasn't capable of the broad frequency responses available to us today. = Particularly at fault were the microphones, which were abysmal at best. = The transducer elements were HUGE and clunky and didn't vibrate too well = at high frequencies. The amplifier circuitry was adequate (not great), = starting around the 1940's. The magnetic recording equipment could pull = a lot of media through at any rate desired, but the recording heads were = fairly massive and didn't respond too well at higher frequencies. Some = of these shortcomings could be overcome by a competent recording = engineer, with the help of filters, but the primary limiting factor was = still the microphone, which was usually about the size of a submarine = sandwich. I doubt the recording engineers were particularly motivated = to reproduce the higher frequencies, because consumer sound reproduction = equipment of the day was incapable of reproducing it. Frequency = augmented recordings would only be of interest for archival purposes -- = recording for reproduction equipment that wouldn't be developed for many = decades. I do have some experience with this, and I can assure you that = not even academic people are interested in doing this. (Sad.) Today, we have some very nice equipment available to us. We are now = capable of a fairly flat response curve up to 20kHz and beyond. Some of = the research equipment I have designed and constructed for sound = reproduction has been flat +/- 1 dB from 10 to 6 kHz and flat +/- 5 dB = from 6 kHz to 20 kHz. That's pretty good, and I could have done even = better with a higher budget and fancier equipment. The B&K condenser = microphones I used were much flatter still -- almost magically so. So the pianos from back in the 1950's may have sounded much darker, as = recorded. However, I wouldn't be too confident that they were really = that dark when heard live. Some people may remember the pianos from = back then, but how *well* do they remember them? I don't think we = really can have any idea what those pianos sounded like from any = recordings. Our only hope of understanding these pianos is to reproduce = their construction as faithfully as possible and to attempt to voice = them the way we think we remember having voiced them back then. But = since voicing is a subjective thing, with an end target in mind, I think = this is where our ability to reproduce the past will fail us. I = seriously, seriously doubt we can have any good appreciation for the = evolution of piano sound, beyond the performance ramifications of design = changes that have been made throughout the eons. Peace, Sarah ---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/92/c2/6a/0a/attachment.htm ---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment--
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