Modern Tone

[Sarah Fox]

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MessageHi all,

Joe said: "Tone is nothing like what the past was, IMHO."=20

Alan responded: "I had asked [Ari Asaac] how a person can learn to =
really hear the subtleties of voicing and what a piano should sound =
like. His response was 'Listen to piano music recorded in the 1950's.'"

Later, Horace commented to Barbara, "The piano aside, the real problem =
with the recording, however was the use of Crown pizeo-electric crystal =
pickups which were placed on the stage."

And there's *almost* the point!

There's a very good reason why the older pianos didn't sound =
particularly bright.  The *recordings* didn't sound particularly bright. =
 I wish I could speak more authoritatively as a recording engineer.  I =
can only speak from general knowledge, which may or may not be up to =
snuff in this area.  Anyhow, recording equipment from long ago simply =
wasn't capable of the broad frequency responses available to us today.  =
Particularly at fault were the microphones, which were abysmal at best.  =
The transducer elements were HUGE and clunky and didn't vibrate too well =
at high frequencies.  The amplifier circuitry was adequate (not great), =
starting around the 1940's.  The magnetic recording equipment could pull =
a lot of media through at any rate desired, but the recording heads were =
fairly massive and didn't respond too well at higher frequencies.  Some =
of these shortcomings could be overcome by a competent recording =
engineer, with the help of filters, but the primary limiting factor was =
still the microphone, which was usually about the size of a submarine =
sandwich.  I doubt the recording engineers were particularly motivated =
to reproduce the higher frequencies, because consumer sound reproduction =
equipment of the day was incapable of reproducing it.  Frequency =
augmented recordings would only be of interest for archival purposes -- =
recording for reproduction equipment that wouldn't be developed for many =
decades.  I do have some experience with this, and I can assure you that =
not even academic people are interested in doing this.  (Sad.)

Today, we have some very nice equipment available to us.  We are now =
capable of a fairly flat response curve up to 20kHz and beyond.  Some of =
the research equipment I have designed and constructed for sound =
reproduction has been flat +/- 1 dB from 10 to 6 kHz and flat +/- 5 dB =
from 6 kHz to 20 kHz.  That's pretty good, and I could have done even =
better with a higher budget and fancier equipment.  The B&K condenser =
microphones I used were much flatter still -- almost magically so.

So the pianos from back in the 1950's may have sounded much darker, as =
recorded.  However, I wouldn't be too confident that they were really =
that dark when heard live.  Some people may remember the pianos from =
back then, but how *well* do they remember them?  I don't think we =
really can have any idea what those pianos sounded like from any =
recordings.  Our only hope of understanding these pianos is to reproduce =
their construction as faithfully as possible and to attempt to voice =
them the way we think we remember having voiced them back then.  But =
since voicing is a subjective thing, with an end target in mind, I think =
this is where our ability to reproduce the past will fail us.  I =
seriously, seriously doubt we can have any good appreciation for the =
evolution of piano sound, beyond the performance ramifications of design =
changes that have been made throughout the eons.

Peace,
Sarah 
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