[CAUT] Hamburg Steinway Hammer Voicing (Up)

Fred Sturm fssturm at unm.edu
Tue Jul 27 08:51:06 MDT 2010


	I am going to add a bit to what I posted below about deep needling.  
With bass hammers, it is often a temptation to say they sound okay as  
is, and aren't worth the trouble to do the normal full shoulder  
treatment (standard deep needling in the whole shoulder areas of all  
hammers). In fact, all hammers of all "hard-pressed" hammers need this  
to develop a full tonal range, and also to develop projection. If the  
bass sounds dull, and those hammers haven't seen any needles, do the  
normal 10 - 40 insertions of a 3 needle tool in each shoulder as a  
first step, pretty deep (7-10 mm), standard pattern. Adding lacquer or  
other juices to hard-pressed hammers _should_ be unnecessary except at  
the very top and sometimes very bottom of the range. Hamburg hammers  
are plenty dense, and needles ought to be all that is needed. (With  
the caveat I think David Love mentioned about what you are trying to  
get out of a board that may not have that possibility).
Fred
On Jul 26, 2010, at 10:06 PM, Fred Sturm wrote:

> On Jul 26, 2010, at 7:45 PM, Ed Sutton wrote:
>
>> First try needling in the very low shoulders, what Andre Oorebeek  
>> calls "the battery."
>> Not guaranteed, but I was recently very surprised to find that  
>> sometimes it makes a big difference.
>> ES
>
>
> I agree, and not just into the lowest shoulders. DEEP needle,  
> individual needle, more than 10 mm long, heading from anywhere below  
> 3 / 9 o'clock into the area of felt near the molding, angling  
> towards the point of the molding (not passing above that point). It  
> depends what has been done before, and what kind of hammers they are  
> to begin with, but these should be a good candidate. Try 2 - 4  
> insertions on each side of the molding, listen. Also feel what is  
> happening - how much resistance to the needle, how stiff it feels in  
> there. If you are getting more of what you want, and if there is  
> plenty of resistance (which I would expect), do more insertions.  
> This procedure can give considerably more focus and power. Not  
> always, but more often than not.
> 	
> Regards,
> Fred Sturm
> fssturm at unm.edu
> http://www.createculture.org/profile/FredSturm



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut.php/attachments/20100727/1d67fc4f/attachment.htm>


More information about the CAUT mailing list

This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC