Loud Overtones From String

JCSwafford@AOL.COM JCSwafford@AOL.COM
Mon, 24 Jan 2000 23:07:24 EST


Dear List, 

I work for a dealer. I have received many complaints concerning loud 
overtones from some unisons. Pianos of every manufacture have them I've 
noticed, especially from the bass strings. Voicing the hammer and seating the 
strings does not help. About the only solution I've found is to needle the 
hammers excessively, but of course the tone is ruined then and out of balance 
with the other hammers.

Only their Chinese customers find this to be a problem. They think the piano 
is defective with these extraneous noises emanating only from 1 - 5 unisons 
in the piano. I perceive the problem to be scaling oriented, but do not know 
how to explain to the customer why it only occurs with certain unisons and 
not others.

Has anybody found a good way to deal with or explain to the customer the 
nature of  this problem? It has nothing to do with sympathetic vibrations, 
the overtones are not pure, and they come from a single unison.

Waiting for your thoughtful reply.

Joel Swafford, RPT


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