Steinway D questions

[Ron Nossaman]

>2. Voicing specific "deadish" notes. These are Steinway hammers. They 
>appear to have been soaked with hardeners, and have very little soft felt 
>left on top after a minimal shaping I had to do. In addition, a previous 
>tech overhardened them, then yet ANOTHER tech needled them down to 
>compensate for the first tech. There are about six notes from the upper 
>tenor to low high treble that have nearly no sustain but a harsh attack, 
>insufficient loudness, and seem to have an extremely annoying tonal "hole" 
>between the fundamental and the highest partials. In other words, one 
>hears the fundamental which dies quickly, then very high metallic 
>harmonics, but no to little octave/octave fifth harmonics. Hammers are 
>fine aligned to strings, let-off is slightly less than 1/16th, notes are 
>regulated exactly like their neighbors, strings are seated on bridges, 
>strings have been leveled, and hammers are correctly fitted to strings. 
>Picking the strings seem to indicate poor response in the strings rather 
>than a hammer problem, but the repeated work by other techs before me make 
>me wonder. Slightly moving hammer alignment does nothing. Moving tonally 
>good adjacent hammers to problem note does very little as well. Could 
>these be "dead spots" relative to soundboard/bridge responsiveness? Could 
>the hammers themselves have been "killed"? Suggestions how to get mid 
>harmonics back in and longer sustain and louder volume greatly appreciated.

I have a question. If the tonal problem is in the high tenor / low treble 
area (classic "killer octave" area), plucking without the hammer being in 
the equation at all produces the same result, as does moving good sounding 
hammers to that spot, you have lifted, seated, and aligned everything, 
what's left besides the soundboard? New hammers, Wurzen or otherwise, won't 
improve the pluck tone, nor will repinning hammer centers, so that's not 
it. Have you moved the strings on the V bar to see if it's even partially a 
capo termination problem? I'd try that too, if you haven't, in hopes of 
getting lucky. If all else fails, you're left with a dead soundboard.

Ron N