[CAUT] Bass bridge, string scale, cantilevered bridge, tone

[Delwin D Fandrich]

Look at the photo below: 
 







 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
You cut the bass bridge body off of the cantilever. Flush. Sand the cantilever
smooth and cap it with a piece of maple veneer of the thickness of the saw kerf
(to keep the original o/a height of the bridge assembly). 
 
Move the bridge body forward to the front edge of the cantilever, keeping the
alignment of the bridge the same as the original. You will be reducing the
length of all of the strings by the same amount. In this case it will be by
about 25 mm. 
 
Through roughly the upper half of the bass scale there will no longer be any
cantilever overhang. There will be some overhang through part of the lower half.
Can't be helped. 
 
You'll need to grind away a bit of that triangular-shaped plate filler just
forward of the bass end of the bridge body. No harm done, just do it. 
 
Don't worry that the end of the bridge seems to hang out there. You can glue a
filler block on the end of the cantilever if it makes you feel better. 
 
Drill the bridge pin holes deeper if need be. Pin as usual.
 
Someone will have to do a new bass string scale. Make sure whoever does it does
it right; there is a lot of weirdness going on with string scales these days.
Use European loops on the strings. 
 
You'll end up with better pitch definition; there will be more energy in the
fundamental. The overall all bass sound will be a bit cleaner and clearer. No,
you won't loose any power.
 
Del
 




You 

| -----Original Message-----
| From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On
| Behalf Of Jim Busby
| Sent: May 01, 2008 12:00 PM
| To: College and University Technicians
| Subject: Re: [CAUT] Bass bridge, string scale, cantilevered
| bridge, tone
|
| Hi Dave,
|
| Ron would better answer this, but what I did was take it as
| close as I could w/o touching. (Yes, I did leave a bit of the
| cantilever. Ron is braver at plate alterations than I.) Also,
| make the strings with German loops and this gives you an
| effectively more flexible backscale. The conventional
| "French" loops are more rigid, and the German loops are equal
| to about 20mm more length, IMO. In fact, if you do nothing
| more than change to German loops you will see a noticeable
| difference in the bass! Vince and I are nearly always
| changing to German loops now on most everything. With the
| last 3 Ms I left the bridge alone, switched to German loops,
| and was pleased.
|
| Jim
|
|
|
|
| -----Original Message-----
| From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On
| Behalf Of Porritt, David
| Sent: Thursday, May 01, 2008 12:45 PM
| To: College and University Technicians
| Subject: Re: [CAUT] Bass bridge, string scale, cantilevered
| bridge, tone
|
| Jim:
|
| Just a few minutes ago I was looking at an "M" and the bass
| bridge if it were brought to the place where the cantilever
| is attached to the board the lowest end of the bridge looks
| like it would be off the bridge root and rubbing the plate. 
| What do you do with the last 4 unisons in that case?
|
| dp
|
| David M. Porritt, RPT
| dporritt at smu.edu
|
|
| -----Original Message-----
| From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On
| Behalf Of Jim Busby
| Sent: Thursday, May 01, 2008 1:38 PM
| To: College and University Technicians
| Subject: Re: [CAUT] Bass bridge, string scale, cantilevered
| bridge, tone
|
| Alan,
|
| Years ago when I had my first class from Del he said that he
| took a small grand, reduced the soundboard area by 30-40%
| (That's what I recall
| anyway) reduced the speaking length of the lower bass
| strings, then actually had a BIGGER sounding piano! The proof
| was there to play. It just sounded like a "bigger" sized
| piano. The Ms I've done sound more like Ls, As or Os. But
| that, I guess, is just my opinion and the opinion of everyone
| who has heard them. Can't prove a dang thing...
|
| (AND DON'T WANT TO ARGUE...<G>)
|
| Regards,
| Jim
|
| -----Original Message-----
| From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On
| Behalf Of Alan McCoy
| Sent: Wednesday, April 30, 2008 2:18 PM
| To: College and University Technicians <caut at ptg.org>
| Subject: [CAUT] Bass bridge, string scale, cantilevered bridge, tone
|
| Hi Jim and Ron (and others),
|
| I do not have enough first-hand experience with especially
| short-scale instruments that have been recipient of the kind
| of treatment that the Brodmann thread was about, namely new
| string scale with a shorter speaking length, longer
| backlength, no cantilever. But I am curious about what kind
| of tonal change I might anticipate if I were to rescale, say,
|  a Kawai GE-1.
|
| Would anyone be interested in describing what would be the
| likely tonal result with these changes to this short-scale
| piano? I know words won't likely do justice to it, but I'd be
| interested to hear anyway.
|
| BTW, this isn't idle curiosity.
|
| Thanks.
|
| Alan
|
|
| -- Alan McCoy, RPT
| Eastern Washington University
| amccoy at mail.ewu.edu
| 509-359-4627
| 509-999-9512
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 

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