[CAUT] My take on them, (was The "new" S&S Hammers).

[Douglas Wood]

I agree completely that one should develop a voicing style down pat.  
But I'd recommend listening carefully to what the great pianists want  
and then adjusting for the circumstances. One certainly doesn't want  
a stage piano in a small practice room, but having a related response  
character will serve the students better when they do get on stage.

I'd like to point out that from what I hear, even the european  
artists are finding that they are pleasantly surprised at the current  
NY products. It is essential to remember that the quality of  
preparation makes all the difference in pianists' reactions to the  
piano (I know I'm preaching to the choir here!), but given comparable  
preparation, the artists are starting to realize that the individual  
piano characteristics are more important than whether it was built in  
Hamburg or NY. This is, I believe, an objective of the company in  
their current product development--less difference between NY and  
Hamburg. The quality control in NY is way up, and it shows. The  
strong preference for Hamburg pianos developed, IMHO, due to the  
unfortunate shortcomings in quality control in NY through the 70's  
that have been the subject of much work and investment on the part of  
Steinway. In an odd sort of way, I actually feel the beneficiary of  
some of those issues in that I've been able to see the results of all  
sorts of interesting attempts at overcoming them. Many have not  
worked particularly well, but when one is desperate enough, well,  
y'all know what I mean.

It would be most interesting to find pairs of pianos that go through  
hammers at about the same rate and try competing products. That might  
actually give us a handle on useful service life. I've always had the  
sense that the NY hammer, properly set up, is a bit more durable than  
one with minimal or no lacquer. But I have no real data.  
Unfortunately, we don't have time even to identify such instrument  
pairs here...

I would like to suggest to all that the lacquering of a softer hammer  
is in some ways an essentially different approach: it makes a  
composite material. There are many composites in our lives these  
days, and they present somewhat different design and implementation  
needs and opportunities. This is why the NY hammer doesn't really do  
very well with voicing techniques appropriate to non-lacquered  
hammers, and vice versa. I'd like to suggest that if we could somehow  
measure hardness and resilience, and maybe a few other  
characteristics, of hammers, we would find quite a lot of similarity  
from end results that are tonally similar.

This takes me back to a notion that has served me well: that the  
primary goal in setting up a piano is to maximize the available tonal  
range. It seems to me that if I work toward having the color change  
as much as possible with volume, and exaggerate the shift, most  
artists can easily find what they want, and are therefore happy. The  
piano can sound quite different from performance to performance, but  
that is the artist at work.

Doug Wood


On Sep 15, 2007, at 9:42 AM, Richard Brekne wrote:

> Sounds to me like the Ronsen Wurzen II's are very comparable to the  
> Renner Wurzen II's we get here in Europe. At least Davids  
> description fit to a tee.  In response to Doug Woods post I'd like  
> to just say that I for one have no doubt Steinway NY gets the sound  
> they want with the hammers <<as is>> they supply. I adhere to the  
> contention that no matter what you do... lacquered hammers will  
> always produce a significantly different character then needled  
> unlacquered hammers. My personal preference is for the latter.   
> That said... to each his own.  The comment about S&S catering to  
> the overwhelming majority of pianists in the world is a curious one  
> tho in this context... since apparently a significant if not  
> overwhelming majority of these prefer the Hamburg in most  
> instances.  What that in the end says about hammer voicing  
> preferences I'll leave up to the individual to ponder.
>
> As far as Bacon versus Wurzen II.  I have to say that I have run  
> into Wurzens II sets that were very very very soft.  I'm not sure  
> as to the claims that this has so much to do with the felt itself  
> as to the degree of pressure is used in the pressing.  I've yet to  
> see a side by side comparison of these two no doubt fine raw hammer  
> felts ready for pressing to see which is denser from the get go.   
> I'd wager however that either could be made either too hard to too  
> soft for just about anyones tastes.
>
> All this goes back to my origional post on this matter.  Get your  
> own voice and voicing style down pat.  And select the hammers that  
> YOU prefer working with to get it.  It is not IMHO even remotely  
> neccessary to adhere to someone elses idea of what any given piano  
> should sound like.  The window for acceptable voicing is actually  
> quite large... which means for every 10 pianists you wow.... there  
> are at the very least another 10 who will be less then impressed.
>
> My take.. :)
>
> Cheers
> RicB
>
>
>
> I haven't seen a Ronsen Bacon felt hammer for a long time but that's
> what I understand also that the Bacon felt is softer.  My experience
> with the Wurzen AA felt ones has been very good.  The denser felting
> doesn't pack like softer hammers, yet if they get bright needles
> penetrate quite easily.  I don't have an electron microscope so my
> observations are very unscientific but the Wurzen felt seems just more
> dense from the felting process rather than the hammer pressing  
> process.
> >From what I heard of the testing on a new Walter grand, the Bacon  
> felt
> was better on the very live sounding board assembly.  On most sounding
> boards that we see the Bacon felt needs some hardener.
>
>
>
> Try a set of the Wurzen AAs I think you'll really like them.
>
>
>
> dp