Quiet The PianoDisc!

[A440A@aol.com]

<< I have one of those PianoDisc customers who wants the piano to play REALLY 
quietly. Unfortunately, it's a bright YAMAHA G1 in a really bouncy room with 
an 18' ceiling. I'm thinking of stuffing some carpet pad above the beams, 
padding the caster cups and maybe voicing down the hammers. Would string felt 
help? Any other ideas? It's a new PianoCD unit which adjusts to quite a low 
volume, but she wants it REAL low! >>

Greetings,
    My suggestion is to first, voice the hammers,way down.  The second 
suggestion is to voice the hammers even further.  The G1's I have seen are, for some 
reason, being sold with hammers in them that are insanely hard for this size 
piano. 
   The last one I voiced for a customer, (who was really happy with the 
results), took about 30 jabs on each shoulder, with a 13mm long needle, beginning 
with the low shoulder and working my way up to just short of the strik point.  
Even then, there were several hammers that needed a long needle coming in at 
the 11:00 and 1:00 points so that I was hitting a crunchy spot under the strike 
point. 
   The hammer area around 3:00 and 9:00 felt like a marshmallow, the strike 
point was springy, and the piano was mellow until you reached FF.  This is not 
what the Yamaha factory recommends, but I have found it to bring out the 
widest tonal range in these pianos, as well as helping the bass break evenness.  
The players also feel it makes the piano much more controllable.  
    I think someone has confused loudness for power.  
 
Ed Foote RPT 
http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html
www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/well_tempered_piano.html