Soundboard Resonances and the Wogram Article

[Ron Nossaman]

> This is going a bit off track from my point.  I'm not really talking about
> randomness or unpredictability in the way you mention, I'm really talking
> about controlled randomness as it were and it's more to do with overall
> tonal impressions, how the board seems to move and breath than with whether
> or not there will be success in crowning it, eliminating awkward scale
> problems, relocating bridges or other details that, I agree, need to be
> addressed frequently.  I realize this is a totally qualitative attribute and
> nothing I am able to address in any kind of technical way.  

Me either, nor anyone else, I suspect.


>The idea
> that an RC&S and compression crowned boards are simply two different ways to
> get to the same result is, in my experience, not really the case.  They are
> different.  That difference has everything to do with a more controlled
> tone, a tighter sound.  

Yes, they are. As I've said before, it's still a toad, but 
with fewer warts.


>To many people, maybe to most, that is a desirable
> thing.  If there is a criticism, and to many this would not be a criticism,
> it is that the boards can feel overcontrolled, that they might lack a
> certain freedom especially at the forte end.  Sometimes you want the board
> to growl a bit at the upper end of the dynamic range.  This type of effect
> can sometimes be difficult to achieve on these boards.  

Ah, I see. That's what I've always thought was the board being 
driven beyond it's capacity, and is one of the things I 
intentionally try to eliminate if possible. It's probably 
accepted just because it's often there in conventional boards. 
It's what we're used to. It happens at different dynamic 
ranges with different seasons and accompanying RH% ranges 
within the same piano. It's an artifact of the same condition 
that brings us the killer octave and the treble dink. I 
consider it a defect.


>Now maybe that's the
> case with any new and successful board.  But that's not been my listening
> experience.  What I am trying to put my finger on is whether placing the
> bridge exactly in the middle of the panel with the addition of a full cutoff
> bar doesn't contribute to that phenomenon by virtue of how the resonances
> otherwise set up, as the Wogram article suggests, when the placement is not
> exactly on center.  Judging from the diagram and the movement in the bass
> corner of that panel, I have to assume that the piano he measured did not
> have a cutoff bar of any type.  So, if so, is there any merit to placing the
> bridge slightly off center by adding a smaller cutoff.  I'm not sure the
> question can be answered, but it's an honest one without any particular
> agenda.       
> 
> David Love

I don't know what merit that would be. Trying to build a board 
that overdrives into chaos at a certain predictable dynamic 
level in different parts of the scale and controlling it from 
one board to the next is way outside anything I'm interested 
in pursuing, or will ever be capable of if I were. Someday, 
with composite soundboards in a new production piano, maybe - 
if it's really deemed necessary and there are a number of 
identical pianos to play with, but in a remanufacturing 
situation, using wood, in any number of different models of 
piano, I'd call this an absolute impossibility to reliably 
control. In any case, I'd rather see it gone altogether so the 
piano will have functional tone production capabilities 
through it's entire dynamic range - if and as possible.

Ron N