Grand Piano Hammer Voicing Experiments
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ต.ค. 2024
- I have read on piano forums about using fabric softener to voice piano hammers. I was curious if this technique worked so decided to conduct some experiments on my C5 to see the effectiveness of this method.
I am not a piano technician but an enthusiastic amateur who loves playing (with) the piano.
I found your conclusion amusing as I also made the mistake of not using unscented fabric softener. The problem I had was a couple of notes in the treble were dead, they would decay rapidly compared the the adjacent notes. Just one application on the lower shoulders solved this.
Personally I could hear a difference in the before and after recordings but recordings are not a very good judge compared to being there. Piano voicing can also be very subjective.
Well stated.
Hi Johnny, I'm glad someone picked up on the end humour :-). I had the piano tuned last week and I can now hear a more rounded tone, particularly in the bass with the lid up. At the time of doing the experiments my ear may have become a bit insensitive to what was happening. I very happy with the instrument now.
I love your scientific method. I honestly thought you were a pro technician.
One method that I like is to use a steamer. It works very quickly, and very noticeably. It is a good back pocket method if you accidentally over voice by making the hammers too bright. The steam breaks up the lacquer, or any other hardener, very quickly so that you can restart fast. I use a blow dryer without heat to dry off the excess moisture in the hammers while working on them.
My take, the approach should have been to VERY shallow needling of the strike point if removal of that metallic ring was the objective. This was confirmed to me because I though there was a noticeable difference after the strike points were sprayed.
Lightly steaming the strike points using a slightly damp cloth laid along the hammer line and a house hold iron set to 'wool' temperature is another more proven approach.
Thanks Johnwoodrow8769 - The steaming approach provides a definitely more obvious audio quality. Bit of a risk of the sound becoming a bit too *muted* or mushy. I'm happy with the sound now - it seems to mellow with age - much like us all LOL
I actually discern a pretty big difference once you use the dropper. The first untreated one is mushy and muffled whereas the post-dropper recording is noticeably brighter and clearer.
Hi @queeniesongs, I agree. I have noticed a big improvement since the treatment and particularly after I had it tuned. The bass has some beautiful round tones.
When laquering hammers the solution is put on to saturate the felts down to the wood core. So, saturating the felts down to the wood core with fabric softener would be consistent.
For brightness of tone, manipulation of the strike point is the only one that will make a difference. Isn’t that common sense???
If the strike point is hard, you get bright sound. If the strike point is soft, you get mellow sound.
Why? Contact time with string. Short contact time emphasizes the higher overtones. Long contact time mutes the high overtones.
This is refering to the first part up to 4 min. I'm not sure how the recording was made but I'd use two studio condenser microphones that would stay in the same position for all recordings. Also a good soundcard (like Focusrite, Mbox etc.), same gain, practically all conditions identical. Even an open door that was closed in the other recording would change the sound a bit. Drapes, objects in the room, everything should be the same.
My opinion is that "before" is darker sound, less upper harmonics, "after" the tone opens up, and I think it's better. The reason for the change is more resilience of the hammer after spraying which leads to shorter contact time with the string.
Thanks for the informative feedback @ionbaciu224. I have noticed an improvement since the treatment. I think it is a much more subjective change as a performer as you feel the sound better if you are actually pressing the key. It may not be noticeable as a listener but the performer feels every dynamic nuance they are creating.
I think it sounded slightly better before the fabric softener.
Hi bw2082, I tend to agree with your observation. Towards the last experiments I felt there was a slight *rounding* of the tone but it was very much a "six of one, half a dozen of the other" situation. Johny Mac above put it nicely saying voicing can be very subjective. Either way I'm happy with the sound now after having it tuned.
First you were using the softener incorrectly. Second, you have to identify a voicing problem and use the right method to solve that problem. Softener wasn't even called for. Just spraying softener on an already soft hammer does nothing. It sounded to me like some hammer shaping would have been a better method to clean up the tone a little. See this video th-cam.com/video/69VakMtdR-Q/w-d-xo.html
Thank you for you observations. Your video on using solutions on a hammer was excellent and very informative.
If you play also f and ff it would be better to hear the difference, generally ypur piano does not seem to need voicing.
I agree sarbachpiano. I am very happy with the tone now. It seems to have settled down after my *fiddling*. lol
Hilarious 😂! Well, you didn't see (hear) a difference because your piano was already very mellow from the start. Just as I didn't perceive an improvement in your playing because you already played very good from the beginning. I once replaced hammers on my Yamaha U2 with Abel ones and it sounded so bright. After one application of alcohol and fabric softener solution to the shoulders it was a different piano altogether.
How permanent was your method?
Ouch. This experiment was EXPENSIVE. I wonder if there are ways to undo this or the solution lives forever in the hammer felt.
Hi romeli, the experiment wasn't expensive but was time consuming. The solution obviously lives forever in the felt but being cautious and moving forward slowly I hopefully avoided any catastrophic results. The piano seems to have mellowed nicely over the past months. I'm not going to fiddle with the tone anymore. Just get on with practice 🙂
The needle did the trick i could hear it
These hammers look rather old. Old hammers don’t respond much to voicing of any kind. I would guess a new set is in order. Just promise us you won’t douse the new hammers with sandalwood.
LOL I promise I will keep ALL scents away from my hammers in the future ;-)
lovely piece is?
Mendelssohn's "Melody in F"
I got a new piano from best choices products with headphones and microphone.
Good for you. Nothing like an acoustic instrument though 🙂
i heard cleary difference (did blind tests) ......................... so i think you hearing is not good enough to hear the subtile differences. I hear them even with this technical dramatic bad audio recording. .....
I'm glad you could hear the difference user-xxxxxn. It is such a subjective experience listening to sound, particularly from a musical instrument. I tried to be as objective as I could with these experiments knowing my own aural limitations. I hope they were of use to others.