---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment On 1-okt-04, at 15:30, David Love wrote: > The evidence of different soundboards (and soundboards in various > conditions) needing hammers of varying densities is so abundant in the > piano circles that I run in that I don't even know what to say to = those > who are interested in this possibility except try it for yourself and > see. You wouldn't put a very hard Renner hammer designed for a > Boesendorfer I do not agree with you... I had my first factory training at B=F6sendorfer in Wien, and the=20 emphasis on my training there was voicing. Their hammers are not "very hard", they are kind of medium hard, just=20 like most Renner hammers. The B=F6sendorfer sound is not based on a rock hard hammer, as most=20 European technicians know, but it is a regular Renner hammer which they=20= turn into a romantic hammer "with a core". On the other hand, as far as making a 'characteristic sound', to me=20 personally it does not matter how hard a hammer is. If it is very hard,=20= I'll 'bang' it down to the desired level. It is only a nuisance because=20= it takes more muscle and more sweat. > on a piano that would sound best with a Ronsen soft Bacon > felt hammer-- B=F6sendorfer uses Renner hammers and have done so for a very long time.=20= According to me, they have never bought Ronsen hammers nor Bacon felt=20 hammers. They used to buy Weickert felt in the past, switched over to VFG felt=20 because the Weickert Filz factory was not able to produce during the=20 f!@!@$%^&* communist period and nothing more reasonable was available,=20= and immediately switched again to Wurzen when that 'right felt' was=20 available again in the early nineties, like most European piano=20 factories and like Yamaha (for their concert grand, the CFIII-S). > and there are many such examples out there. A lengthy > explanation as to why that might be is more than I am prepared to get > into at this point but in as much as new soundboards require different > types of hammers (think Yamaha hammers on a NY Steinway or vice versa) > so will old ones. > An old ugly Yamaha that probably sounded ok with a > Yamaha hammer when it was new, may very well sound better with a = softer > Wurzen hammer Wurzen hammers are not particularly soft David. It depends on the buyer=20= who orders the hammers. Schimmel for instance wants rock hard hammers=20 because they have a machine to pre-voice their hammers. If anyone buys a Renner Schimmel hammer set from da Renner shelf, that=20= person will curse his bad luck because voicing down those hammers will=20= take hours of again muscle and rivers of sweat. 'Our' Renner hammers=20 are not that granite hard, because we ask the Renner Company for a=20 'certain kind' of firmness or hardness. The older Yamaha I was writing about last night was actually an older=20 Yamaha from the early seventies. The soundboard had not really lost any=20= crown yet but the hammers were worn out completely, and so were the=20 strings. If we had installed new Yamaha hammers (after restringing), it would=20 have sounded much better but the AA Wurzens gave it a whole new quality=20= it had never known before. A softer hammer, generally speaking, would have given it the sound of a=20= "wet news paper". > now that it's older and responding differently and tends > to support my point. The evidence is at least empirical whatever the > science may or may not convince you of. While a medium hammer may = give > the most flexibility to go either way on many pianos, there will be > cases where hammers which fall at one end of the spectrum or the other > will be the better fit. I do not agree with you. A given soundboard has a 'certain'=20 personality, and the personality will always be the same, except that=20 the physical 'force' of that personality will diminish, just like with=20= older people : their personality is intact but their physical strength=20= has gone down over the years. When the crown of an older soundboard had lost its major power, the=20 sound gets thinner and weaker, and with physical 'distortions', and=20 that is what we call 'older'. The character however is still there but=20= maybe less 'predominant' and with the shortcomings of old age like=20 brittle bones, weaker organs, and alzheimers. There are certain aspects that could 'amplify' that weaker personality,=20= and those aspects are for instance new strings and/or new hammers. Just amplifying that older 'personality' actually creates the problem=20= we, as technicians, always encounter because we just energize the voice=20= of the old personality, but not the muscle and bone structure, so to=20 speak. In other words : if we install a granite hard hammer on an old piano,=20 we give it a granite like loud old voice and if we install softer=20 hammers we hear a renewed but velvety old voice. Through that voice we hear a more, or less, amplified personality, but=20= also the amplified weaknesses of an older body. In yet more other words=20= : installing new hammers is just a cosmetic operation. The eye lashes=20 maybe short or long, but unfortunately it is still very clear that this=20= lovely old lady is ninety years old, whatever the well known possible=20 disguises. There is however an other factor in play here : As I explained before, there are soundboards (personalities) which=20 predominantly 'show' higher overtones. Bechstein soundboards are like=20 that : their treble section is usually rather brilliant, where their=20 bass section is usually 'under developed'. In that case, when we=20 install new hammers (may they be hard or soft) we have to use a voicing=20= technique where we put the emphasis on getting out the lower partials=20 as much as possible. With Steinways it is the opposite : not creating a=20= hammer crown which causes the instrument to give more overtones is like=20= putting a bag over the head : it sounds poorly. Then there is the choice of hammers, or actually the choice of hammer=20 felt : Roughly speaking we have the four major hammer felts we all know : the=20= Wurzen predominantly used by Renner (about 90%), the VFG felt=20 predominantly used by Abel (about 90%), the Royal George felt (of late)=20= we find on millions of Yamaha's, and the Bacon felt used primarily in=20 the USA. All four felts are made of sheep's wool but have been fabricated in=20 different ways, and all four have totally different characteristics,=20 whether we like it or not. They may resemble each other because they all come from sheep's wool,=20 but their manufacturing process is quite different. The difference is=20 what we hear, and that difference is what we choose. What makes this=20 difference an issue here, is that some felts are used mainly in the USA=20= and some other felts (Royal george, Wurzen and VFG) are used all over=20 the world. In other words: we share a common felt experience and we=20 base our opinions and personal taste on this experience. Personal taste is something we can not really discuss, well grounded=20 opinions are another matter and that is one of the difficulties here on=20= this list : are we talking about personal taste or are we talking about=20= scientifically based opinions? The four felts I mentioned all have a different characteristic, despite=20= their common material basis. The way these felts were made determine=20 their characteristics, and those characteristics are factual elements=20 we can determine and classify. The way these felts sound is a totally=20 different subject and that usually leads to misunderstanding and=20 unnecessary friction. It is not wise to discuss 'beauty' or 'ugliness'. > > As far as how long a hammer will last, unlacquered versus lacquered;=20= > the > issue seems to be how much lacquer and how it is applied. A weak > stiffening solution probably doesn't do much to effect the life of the > hammer. But since lacquer gets harder and more brittle over time, a > heavily lacquered hammer will not last in terms of controllability as > long as an unlacquered hammer, assuming it hasn't been needled to=20 > death. To get down to the core of lacquered versus unlacquered is like this :=20= a lacquered wool piano hammer has fibers which have been fused together=20= into an almost (in varying degrees) unmovable non-elastic matter by a=20 binding force called hammer hardener. This piano hammer consists of a wooden molding, a staple, and a mass of=20= fibers which originally were resilient, with an elastic capacity which=20= through the appliance of hammer hardening have clotted into an=20 non-resilient and un-elastic wool mass we can compare with a very sober=20= palet (all this depending of how much hardener was used). An unlacquered wool piano hammer has a natural resiliency (in varying=20 degrees) and this elastic force we can use in the process of=20 intonation. It is like the use of a multi colored palet (all this=20 depending of how much pressure was used). Get this: Crystallized or more or less non-resilient matter, like a felt covered=20= (but hardened) drum stick, creates a 'certain' non-or- less-resilient=20 sound when we hit a drum with the emphasis on higher overtones. The=20 spectrum is poor because of the lack of resilience. Non-crystallized or more or less resilient matter, like a (non=20 hardened) felt covered drum stick, creates a 'certain' more-or=20 less-resilient sound when we hit a drum with the emphasis on higher and=20= lower overtones. The spectrum is rich because of the present=20 resilience. That is literally the difference between a lacquered hammer and a non=20 lacquered hammer, and that is a fact. Which hammer you like is not my business. Andr=E9 Oorebeek > > > David Love > davidlovepianos@comcast.net > > -----Original Message----- > From: pianotech-bounces@ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces@ptg.org] On > Behalf Of Richard Brekne > Sent: Friday, October 01, 2004 5:04 AM > To: ilvey@sbcglobal.net; Pianotech > Subject: Re: Evidence of overlacquered hammers > > ...That went to claims about soundboard condition dictating > this or that kind of hammer. I dissagreed ... > > > _______________________________________________ > pianotech list info: https://www.moypiano.com/resources/#archives > > Andr=E9 Oorebeek ---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 10373 bytes Desc: not available Url : https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/bb/7b/a6/e4/attachment.bin ---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment--
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