La Petitto Pianinno PSO don't you know

[Larry Fisher]

>From: ted@palmnet.net (Ted Simmons)

>Subject: Lo bass tuning

  I tuned a Kimball laPetite a month ago
>the customer called me back complaining about the low bass being out of
>tune. .  It seems that no matter what I did she
>insisted that the low notes were sharp.     I lowered it to where the string
>sagged and she still called it sharp.   Anyone have
>any ideas on what my next step should be?
>
>Ted Simmons, Merritt Island, FL
>
>

Been there done that.  Gosh Ted, you got yourself quite a pickle there.
I've had such calls in the past and usually on such a piano as you've
mentioned.  The piano has a bass string that is shorter than most spinet
pianos.  That means that the laws of physics are being really torqued out of
skew.  With such a twisting of unchangeable laws of the planet, you have
trade offs.  One is lack of bass, so the harmonics are predominant and so
the fundamental frequency, the one you want to hear, is covered up by all
the unwanted frequencies.  Hence, the customer says, "It still sounds
wrong".  Well as a matter of fact, yes it is wrong to try and make a piece
of wood, 1/4 inch thick or there abouts, and less than 3 feet long in the
direction that the sound travels through it to vibrate at low frequencies,
not to mention that the vibration is being generated by a string that
doesn't have enough mass to excite the board properly even if the soundboard
could vibrate at that low a frequency efficiently.

All things added up, that's the way it is.  As for the most often to follow
remark of, "Well it sure didn't sound like that before you tuned it!!",
that's because the customer wasn't listening that close before it was tuned,
before the money was spent.

I lost every La Petite customer on my database as soon as I upped my rates
to just a bit higher than average for this market area.  I turned down a
PianoDisc installation for a La Petite owner that had a cheaper bid from a
place in the nation's mid-section.

In my opinion, the La Petite is TOO DANGED SMALL to do the job in the bass.
Acoustics have their limits, physics has it's limits.  I've seen a Samick of
virtually the same size side by side with the La Petite and the Samick, with
it's newer technology had a much better sound for it's size.  The La Petite
put a working grand in homes that couldn't normally fit, or afford them.  It
wasn't meant to be a good sounding instrument, just a good looking (from a
distance) PSO (Piano Shaped Object).

You handle your call the way you wish, but if it were me, I'd stick to my
guns and insist that the piano is indeed in tune and there's only one thing
to do, ............... get a shovel.  Sorry, that's the way I feel about
poorly designed pianos that the engineers don't have to service for the rest
of their lives.

Lar

                                    Larry Fisher RPT
   specialist in players, retrofits, and other complicated stuff
      phone 360-256-2999 or email larryf@pacifier.com
         http://www.pacifier.com/~larryf/ (revised 10/96)
           Beau Dahnker pianos work best under water