[CAUT] Hammers

[David Love]

Are you sure it had Ronsen Bacon?  The early iterations of those pianos had
Abel hammers and they were too hard.  I spent some time out at the factory
with Del sampling some other hammers including Ronsen Bacon and Ronsen
Wurzen but I don't think they ever put either one of them into production.
Both he and I liked the Bacon hammer the best on that piano and that was
unadulterated (no lacquer) and no play in time.  They had an Abel hammer
made for them which, at the time, was about as soft a pressing as Abel was
able to do and it was still too much for that piano.  The powers that be
opted to maintain the Abel hammers.  The issue seemed to be defining who
they were in competition with for market share.  I think Del felt that this
piano was to be an alternative to a Steinway style tone, darker and warmer.
The folks at Walter (at least the marketing folks--I think Charles and Del
were on the same page) felt that Yamaha was their competition, sadly.  The
designs are very different in terms of scale tensions and accompanying
soundboard weighting.  The belly is very light and a soft hammer does a
terrific job with it.  A harder hammer (or a lacquered Bacon hammer perhaps)
would not show as well.    

David Love
www.davidlovepianos.com

-----Original Message-----
From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Fred
Sturm
Sent: Friday, June 25, 2010 8:13 AM
To: caut at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [CAUT] Hammers

On Jun 24, 2010, at 8:47 PM, David Love wrote:

>  It's just that the
> belly is so responsive that all it needs is that soft hammer to  
> drive it and
> develop the full range of partials.


	I played the Walter grand Del designed at a convention a couple
years  
ago, and found it very badly needed voicing down (and I like a bright  
piano). I asked, and was told it had Ronsen Bacon hammers. Surprised  
the heck out of me. Definitely a different animal. I'll be curious to  
see what the Weber he designed is like (there will be one at Vegas I  
am told).
Regards,
Fred Sturm
fssturm at unm.edu
http://www.createculture.org/profile/FredSturm
http://www.youtube.com/fredsturm
http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/FredSturm