Real Customizing of a piano

[Ron Nossaman]

>   Sooo, what makes a Steinway sound like a Steinway? 

What David Love said, most particularly the fall board decal.


>Did it 
> Usta-B a Steinway, or is it still? I think that it still very much is, 
> more of the original timbre and tone remains than is replaced.
> Even the rim and plate are changed, what with treble dams and aliquot 
> and duplex mods, plate mounting, etc, etc. It seems that the design of 
> everything can be changed, and we still have the wonderful Steinway.

This is precisely why the decal is so important. These 
modifications are done to any piano to improve it's sound and 
eliminate as many design problems as we can. The result is a 
cleaner richer sound. Since the occasional Steinway through 
the years has been able to produce a lovely rich sound, 
compared to the average piano, good tone is automatically and 
forevermore connected with the hallowed name. With the right 
fall board decal in place, good piano tone is far more likely 
to be perceived than without it, however wonderful the 
instrument of less than Royal blood sounds, or however pitiful 
the Steinway sounds. That's an unfortunate fact that has been 
demonstrated many times. Carefully reproducing the low bass 
with the 0.067" core wire and utter lack of fundamental, the 
painfully apparent bass tenor crossover, with low tenor honk, 
the attack distortion in the killer octave, which charmingly 
migrates up and down scale with seasonal changes, the 
squalling tuned front duplex, and the ever popular high treble 
dink, will get you the authentic Steinway sound. Changing a 
few things to produce a low bass with some fundamental, an 
aurally transparent crossover without honk, a clean clear 
killer octave with no duplex noises, and a treble with a 
couple of seconds or more of ring time will also get you the 
vastly different authentic Steinway sound, but only with the 
decal. A very similar tone quality in a piano lacking this 
decal won't.

Is it still a Steinway after making these changes? I certainly 
hope not, or we've wasted considerable time and money trying 
to make them better.

Ron N