[CAUT] Thank you for Stability advice

[David Love]

Got it.  I guess I won't comment further about pretending to do something to
that one note the customer didn't quite like.  Somebody might actually be
reading this!

 

David Love

www.davidlovepianos.com

 

From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Fred
Sturm
Sent: Tuesday, February 09, 2010 2:05 PM
To: caut at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [CAUT] Thank you for Stability advice

 

Hey, I agree entirely. My purpose in writing what I did was to try to bridge
the gap (no pun intended) between those who seat and those who don't, by
acknowledging that seating does have a sonic effect. People started doing it
because it did something perceptible, more often positive than negative. At
least in the short term. If you say something implying it's the same as
doing nothing (fiddling around a bit until the customer thinks you did
something, or the like), we end up talking at cross purposes. The seaters
continue to say that, "yes indeedy, it does have an effect. That other guy
must not have actually tried it." And so actual communication doesn't take
place. 

Regards,

Fred

            

On Feb 9, 2010, at 1:28 PM, David Love wrote:





I was being a bit facetious about the placebo effect in the sense of
perceived change in tone but not in the sense of a cure for the problem.  I
wasn't really my goal to start a thread on the placebo effect.   That aside,
anytime you change the contact point on the bridge by tapping or pressing or
pulling  or bending you'll likely get some change in the sound.  That change
may be a positive one, or not (it doesn't always work).  If the bridge pin
is notched and is the cause of the tonal problem (which it can be) then
tapping the string down away from that notch can improve things, at least
temporarily.  Eventually, and often quickly, the string will want to
straighten and find its way back to the notch in the bridge pin.  That's why
some people prefer to tap the bridge pin rather than the string (knowingly
or not), because it moves the bridge pin notch down closer to the bridge cap
and  unifies those two contact points.  However, because of the clamping
effect of the pin on the string it can also simply further indent the edge
of the bridge so that during the next humidity cycle the problems will
either reappear or, if the humidity rises, further damage that edge.  So the
question really is whether it's a permanent fix and and/or whether it
doesn't create more problems in the long run by incurring even further
damage to the edge of the bridge top.  My experience is that the fix is at
best temporary, at worst it doesn't work and just encourages more aggressive
tapping operating under the belief that it should work and thereby creating
more problems.  If the problem is flagpolling then it doesn't work because
tapping the pin down won't stop the flagpolling problem.    In that case
there are other remedies that can be considered.  At least that's my take on
it.   

 

 

 

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