Dale writes:
<< The hammers are relatively new and incredibly difficult
to get needles in the high tenor & treble. The sound is strident. I can't
detect any lacquer/plastic solutions. Again the client is displeased with the
sound after the new hammers were installed. I will try to needle them but
with
felt that stiff its often not productive nor fun.
Hey Ed I'm sure you probably don't need my advice but this is my two cents
worth. Let us know how what you decide on in the C-3 and how it comes out. >>
Ok, will do. I am going to install the Abel Premium hammers on this one.
What I have learned over all these years in the studios is that when a piano
is listened to via microphones, all bets are off. In the country tracking
sessions, the piano is basically playing a rhythm guitar part, and if it isn't
crashy thin, it turns to mud along with the bass and bass drums. It seems that
if the higher partials are not there to begin with, adding them via EQ ruins
the sound that a lot of these guys are looking for. If it is too harsh, the
subtraction of the high end can be done with less obvious degradation.
This particular user wants it as bright as possible without running into
that lacquered sound. Go figure.
I am known on music row, sorta, as favoring mellower, and the studio
owners are always careful to caution me about getting "classical" with their
pianos. That may be because of my long term involvement with the Blair School at
Vanderbilt, but over there, a lot of them think I favor excessively bright
pianos! Somewhere in the middle is the perfect sounding piano for everybody,
but I haven't found it yet.
Last week I was asked to voice down a relatively new Yamaha C6 in
Nashville's Public Radio studio. It wasn't an excessively bright piano to begin
with. In fact, it wouldn't do for most of my recording studio customers.
Anyhow, I began with 1/2" needles down around 9:00 and 3:00, working my way up as
the needle angle steepened so that by the time I was entering the hammer at 11
:00 and 1:00, I was almost parallell to the core. Maybe 15 jabs in each
shoulder. A light hammering across the shoulders and tops and the piano had
certainly lost some aggression. However, it was pretty bright at FF. The engineers
listened to it and said that it was improved but it could certainly be even
more rounded and mellow.
I went in from each end of each string mark on the hammers, aiming at the
tip of the core. That is 6 more needles in each hammer. They said, "oh yea,
now it is starting to really sound good, but it could go a little more. <sigh>
I just ain't used to digital recording. Any of the old line engineers would
have hung themselves in the microphone closet with a roll of 24 track tape by
now.....
I used a one needle, Fred Drasche move, punched in between the two right
hand string marks, straight down to the core from the very crown. I could feel
the crunch as I through the hammer's heart. I played it and knew I had to
stop. Through the glass they looked pleased. I gave all of the hammers a
hammering, ( I use a small jewelers hammer to help the felt resolve whatever slack I
have needled into it), and then played it. It was the mellowest Yamaha I ever
heard, but if I leaned on it, it would still be bright. It was the ppp that
surprised me. I still had some high-end in there and though warm, it still
had definition. As I increased the play, it brightened up with a lot of
predictibility. On FFF it still hinted at being crashy.
Listening to this piano on the radio that afternoon(live broadcast), I
was amazed how bright it sounded, and the engineer told me that they were
recording it totally flat. I found that hard to believe, but I will see this piano
again next week, so time will tell.
Regards,
Ed Foote RPT
www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/
www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/well_tempered_piano.html
<A HREF="http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/399/six_degrees_of_tonality.html">
MP3.com: Six Degrees of Tonality</A>
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