I should say an alternative to a Steinway but similar in tonal style, darker and warmer. David Love www.davidlovepianos.com -----Original Message----- From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of David Love Sent: Friday, June 25, 2010 10:01 AM To: caut at ptg.org Subject: Re: [CAUT] Hammers 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
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