Ric: I'm glad to hear that you are trying to continue this discussion, since certainly no answer was ever achieved, nor probably the right question asked (isn't every right answer contained in the right question?). Anyway, keep up the research and questioning. What you have found bears out my suspicions from long ago. It is another of those mythological answers to real beats like twisted strings which has been around forever. Paul "If you want to know the truth, stop having opinions" (Chinese fortune cookie) In a message dated 04/14/07 09:07:23 Central Daylight Time, ricb at pianostemmer.no writes: Hi Folks Several off list discussions with a few well known piano physics profs has recently confirmed a now long held suspicion that the idea that classic false beats or single string beats are caused by a loose pin is just plain way too simplistic and very far from complete. In fact loose pins can only account for a contributing factor to the overall larger and holistic bridgepin / bridge / and soundboard termination area. As a consequence of this it should be expectable to find this kind of falsness in all registers of the piano, contrary to present popular belief that these are confined to the mid upper range of the piano. Closer examination of what the overtones of strings in all registers of the pianos does indeed reveal exactly this. I am finding single string beating in all registers and these are of the sort that respond to the pressure of a screwdriver or similar tool to the side of the pin. They are quieter and harder to discern the lower you get in the scale, probably because of the wealth of overtones and amplitudes of these that are present, but they are indeed and no doubt about it very present. >From A0 to C8 one can find this kind of single string beat popularly called the false beat. One thing I find curious, tho I have not confirmed it yet... is that these beats seem to occur in range of 1500 hz upwards. At least in the ones I've been able to identify in bass notes... they seem to convey a sense of being overtones in this range. In all cases so far, the addition of mass to the strings front bridge pin, or an area very close to same has an impact on the speed of the beat.... and at some optimal degree of mass addition (or even subtraction perhaps) the beat disappears. It has seemed to me for a long time that this whole area of sound problems needs quite a bit more close examination as to what really causes this single string beat. And it also seems more and more evident to me that a cure, and one which bears with it other tone enhancement factors, lies somewhere in an <<optimal mass at the termination>> perspective as opposed to the idea that the pin simply needs to be tight enough. Especially since loose pins can so often be absurdly present with no noticeable resultant single string beat. Cheers RicB -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20070414/7e3e1f83/attachment-0001.html
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