brightness of Steinways

[David Love]

There is no right or wrong as to level of brightness, it must be to suit the 
pianist.  Steinway hammers are routinely hardened with a dilute lacquer 
solution (sometimes plastic disolved in acetone is used for touching up the 
strikepoint).  Steinway hammers are very soft out of the box and many stores 
selling new Steinways do not harden the hammers as a routine part of the 
prep until the customer makes a "brighter" request.  Almost always the upper 
two sections need to be brightened, and often the tenor and bass will need 
to come up to.  It depends somewhat on the set and the needs of the player.  
Your technician should be able to bring the tone up if he/she is familiar 
with Steinway voicing techniques without making the piano "pingy" or 
metallic sounding.

David Love


>From: AAKStar@AOL.COM
>Reply-To: pianotech@ptg.org
>To: pianotech@ptg.org
>Subject: brightness of Steinways
>Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2001 13:52:41 EST
>
>Hello,
>
>This is my first time posting to the channel.
>
>I want to know how bright a voiced and regulated Steinway should be? The
>reason I ask is because a technician just voiced and regulated my Steinway 
>L,
>and it sounds so dull and soft that I want to call him back to tell him to
>re-voice it! But I know he will say that Steinways are supposed to be
>textured and less brighter than the Asian pianos.
>
>I will counter by saying that at my local music institute, all of the 
>pianos
>are "lacquered" to make them quite bright. I love brightness, as long as it
>is not metallic or brittle sounding.
>
>So my question is, do you lacquer your Steinways on a regular basis? 
>Because
>most or if not all of them come out of the factory quite dull.
>
>Andy

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