Dale says:
Yes & then the hammer maker becomes the scape goat. How grossly unfair.!!!!
But the turkey will continue to be stuffed until hammer sampling becomes common place....in another 20 or 30 years? hope not.
There are a bunch a smart guys in our business & on this list who are figuring it out.
I know what I like, and it is getting harder to sell. The younger students all seem to gravitate to the brassiest pianos. When the Yamahas were replaced by some rebuilt STeinways, the immediate complaint was that they had "weak actions". I took this with a grain, since as I walked up to the small practice room, I find the student playing FFF with the lid all the way up. How am I going to sell a nice, round, full-bodied hammer to him? He and others prefer the brightest piano that can be found, and I wonder what sort of conversations they are having with their teacher inre "tone". I don't know if I need another battlefront around the school.......
Private customers usually are real happy to hear that their GHRKX-44 or whatever can be mellowed out. On the majority of actions from the Asian area of the last 20 of so years, I don't bother with needles. Steam goes so fast, so evenly, and so easily, that my needles are never first choice on this genre of piano. It is common to probe a little to even things out, and some of the bass breaks need a pretty deep treatment, so I do use the pins, but not to begin with. The steamed shoulders usually allow needles to move in a much more dignified manner, too.
I use a strip of flannel with a fast pass of the iron and these calcified mallets start behaving like the sheep they are.
Regards,
Ed Foote RPT
http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html
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