sanderson Bass strings/scale

[Delwin D Fandrich]

----- Original Message -----
From: "John Delacour" <JD@Pianomaker.co.uk>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: November 30, 2001 10:46 AM
Subject: Re: sanderson Bass strings/scale


> At 9:15 AM -0800 11/30/01, Delwin D Fandrich wrote:
>
> >Sorry, John. Obviously I've offended you. I guess it was just my
> >over-reaction to being informed that, in your opinion, I was both
> >presumptuous (for thinking I could improve Steinway pianos by altering
their
> >perfectly shaped and located bridges)
>
> On the contrary, I said more than once that reshaping and relocating
> bridges was perfectly acceptable and often very desirable:-
>

Yes, I got that. That's not what I was talking about.

> ----------------------------------------

> >At 6:58 PM +0000 11/29/01, I wrote:
> >Customers often ask me to look at the plain wire scale and "rescale"
> >it.  I always have a look to see if any minor changes are desirable
> >but the fact is that it is not possible to "rescale" the plain wire
> >scale without fitting a new bridge, since it is the bridge and not
> >primarily the wire gauges that define the scale.
>
> __________________________
>
> At 12:25 AM +0000 11/30/01, I wrote:
> >I obviously need to repeat that to do anything more than mess about
> >a little bit with the gauges to remove any blips is pointless and
> >that anything more, without changing the bridge, will, on a
> >Steinway, have a bad effect
> __________________________
>
> >  and stupid (for altering the stringing scale on those hundreds of
> >Steinway grands I rebuilt over the years and thinking their sound
> >actually improved as a result).
>
> Presumably you have altered the scale slightly on those pianos where
> you have not altered the bridge and altered the scale more radically
> in the other cases, where your redesigning of the bridge in the light
> of a wholly better string scale has allowed you to apply better
> principles.  Where's the argument?  That's precisely what I have said
> and I have no doubt of your skills or the excellence of your results.
> I just wish you'd learn to read better and not jump to conclusions.
>

Well, now I'm really confused. Just what did you mean when you wrote:

"To change the wire gauges on a Steinway is deliberately to change the
character of the tone -- and inevitably for the worse.  The long
bridge on Steinways is correctly shaped and positioned for the
Steinway sound, which comes from a relatively short, low-tension
scaling.  In my opinion, it's the height of presumption to alter
this.  Most of us know the design faults of the various Steinway
models and noone would claim they're perfect, but if they'd wanted
their pianos to sound like Broadwoods, they had sufficient skill at
hand to succeed.  Steinways are designed to sound a certain way and
to change the plain wire scale is plain stupid."

To my reading it sounds like you are saying, "To change the wire gauges on a
Steinway is deliberately to change the character of the tone -- and
inevitably for the worse." You're not allowing much room for improvement
here. It sure seems like you're saying we shouldn't be doing this at all.

You say, "The long bridge on Steinways is correctly shaped and positioned
for the Steinway sound..." But what is this position? Is it when C-88 is 45
mm long? That certainly is relatively short and low tension. Or is it when
C-88 is 50 mm long? Now, that's some longer and higher in tension. So, which
one is correctly positioned. Which are we to assume is the correct position?
Needless to say, the two pianos are going to sound different. Which is the
"Steinway sound?"

We have a moving target here and usually we have a customer who isn't happy
with the sound of his/her Steinway. Is it presumption to assume one of these
two bridge placements is right and the other is simply wrong? Our options
are, short of remanufacturing the piano with a new soundboard and bridge
design, are 1) to rebuild the piano using the original scaling and have the
customer perhaps less unhappy with the piano, but still unhappy, or 2)
rebuild the piano with the bridge in the original position (or can we
optimize its location at one of the many positions Steinway has already
tried out for us) and we can modify the stringing scale some to improve the
pianos performance at least a little bit. But, it seems to me you're saying
it is both presumptuous and stupid to this. If I mis-read you, sorry, but
that is what a fairly straight-forward reading of the above paragraph seems
to say. Especially since you wrote this in the context of someone relocating
the bridge and changing wire sizes on a Steinway O, albeit perhaps a bit too
aggressively.

How else should this paragraph have been read?

Del