I agree. If I'm trying to get some resiliency in the shoulders, I'm going to be putting 30-40 single needle stitches in the 11 & 1 o'clock areas. This is work! I'd hate to do it all day long....whew! Then I'm working on pianissimo and shift voicing, i.e more crown, left edge area=shallow needling. David I. ----- Original message ----------------------------------------> From: Richard Brekne <Richard.Brekne@grieg.uib.no> To: Pianotech <pianotech@ptg.org> Received: Wed, 01 Dec 2004 21:20:10 +0100 Subject: Re: Heavily played newish Mason gets "strident" too quickly... >I'd say off hand that the hammers have not had enough deep needling. Its >a common enough problem. A lot of aspirant voicers seem to shy from more >then a little deep needling and try and get a soft sound by shallow >needling up around the crown area alone. This typically results in a >hammer that doesnt yeild a lot of that fundemental sustain to the tone >to begin with, and hardens quickly with use as well. >I had this exact problem in my own early experiences with voicing the >traditional way. Now I use a 6.5 - 7 mm needle depth all the way up to >around 1 mm behind the back of the crown area and up to about 2 mm in >front of it. The entire shoulder area below on both sides need to be >fairly uniformly needled. The softest part of the hammer ends up being >the lower shoulder, gradually getting harder towards the crown. The >shoulders acting like a kind of springy cushion for the harder crown >area to use as a kind of shock absorber. If this is made soft enough, >the voicing will last quite a long time. Course if you make them too >soft then you just loose all your power and the sound gets too foggy so >one has to be reasonably carefull. >Cheers >RicB >gordon stelter wrote: >>Just got an email inquiry from a man with a 2001 Mason >>BB that he plays every day for 3 hours. Complains that >>the hammers get hard and "strident" sounding quickly. >>Has had 4 techs work on it and is not satisfied. >> I told him they may have mangled the hammers to >>the point of needing replacement, or they might just >>need regular "sugar-coating". Comments? >> Question: Are Mason hammers from this era >>especialy prone to "packing". Should he consider >>replacing with another brand? Any other voicing >>suggestions? If replacing is deemed necessary, what >>brand would be best? >> >> Thanks! >> G >> >> >> >_______________________________________________ >pianotech list info: https://www.moypiano.com/resources/#archives
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