<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> </head> <body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000"> Hi David I. I think here again is one of those things you'll get alot of opinions on.  Some of the classic European approaches demand that the lower shoulders be fully needled so as to release entirely all pent up ... I'll use the word <<energy>> there is there into the crown area.  Andre preaches something he calls <<Battery voicing>> which I find to be a good concept.  In that perspective you use only what lower shoulder energy you need to find a balance for power throughout all registers.  The rest is left so as to be useable later on.  Then too... if you are a voicer who leans towards very mellow sound you are more likely to have needled enough both on the lower and midshoulder areas to be able to avoid having to go back later on to the same degree as you might if you leaned more towards power voicing to begin with. If your Hamburg D is breaking up on fff play ... especially in that range C5-C7, then I'd start by making sure you have excellent mating between hammer and string, excellent front termination definition, and strings seated (and you know what I mean about string seating so I dont need to get into that).  If its still brash...then you have to tame it down.  From Hamburg factory voicing jobs I most often find there is not much to be gained by needling lower shoulder areas.  I find rather that mid-upper shoulder/subcrown is the key.  I'm looking for that area where a slowly inserted 2 needles one or two  times is going to do the job I'm after. You can get the feeling you are voicing down a good deal more then you really are as you go... but in the end still have all kinds of power.  I like to check my voicing by playing rather hard chromatics...as legato like as I can on hard play, with the sustain pedal engaged. If i hear glass like attack sound with the pedal down, and none with my foot off it... then I am just about exactly where I want to be. Cheers RicB <blockquote> A question I am wondering about....with harder presssed hammers we open up the shoulders.   Do techs find they need to go back after some time and work the lower shoulders again?...they get compressed again with playing....obviously we need to work int he upper shoulders on a regular basis ...I have a Hamburg D I work on that I am not happy with the sound.   I think it distorts on forte playing...the mid shoulders seem pretty firm to me....I assume these are Renner Steinway hammers that have had a lot of needling in the lower/mid shoulder at the factory...this is from 1998, all original...I'm hesitant to make big changes, but I am headed that way... Any suggestions... David Ilvedson, RPT Pacifica, CA  94044</blockquote> </body> </html>