Getting the high trebble right

Stéphane Collin collin.s at skynet.be
Fri Jun 13 12:58:22 MDT 2008


Hi list.

 

I have just done a hammer change on this Knabe grand, and everything went
very well, but the high treble who are now much less loud and interesting
than they were with the old hammers.

Old hammers were lighter than the new ones, but new ones (Renner Wurzen AA)
are in the middle of the Stanwood strike weight standard.  I have rebalanced
the keys and the front weight is just under the maximum advised, so I didn’t
modify the geometry.  Bass improved much, probably thanks to the extra
weight of the hammers.  The treble, though, sound dead with a knock on wood
noise far from musical.

So I wanted to see if my bag of tricks for getting the treble hammers right
is up to date.  One must know that I exclude the acoustic body as culprit,
because, as I said, the old treble hammers did sound very well.

-          Get the crown shape more focused.

-          Ascertain that the best strike point was reached when hanging the
hammers.

-          Check that the hammers strike the strings at right angle.

-          Check the regulation.

-          Do some voicing.

-          Put some acetone-key tops marmalade on the crowns.

-          Some more voicing.

All of which didn’t work, except that the acetone-key tops mixture did bring
a bit of the note back into the wood knock, but still...  So I was prepared
to put the treble hammers on diet, having them loose kind of one gram, but
as this would oblige me to re balance the keys, I wanted to check with list
wisdom if there was something more to try before that.

 

Best regards to all.

 

Stéphane Collin.

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