Bass Bridge Position-upright

[Fenton Murray]

Attached are before and after of photos of a belly I did on an upright. Some 
might say I pushed the envelope to far in shortening the speaking length of 
the bass strings(they're probably right, but it's a way to learn something), 
the back scale is now huge. I did this with out much experience but I was 
very pleased with the bass. I think some loss of power as a trade off for a 
stronger fundamental might be an apt description as you put it David. The 
piano had horizontal ribs that I changed to a more traditional layout, I 
also added two large cut offs.
Fenton
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Love" <davidlovepianos at comcast.net>
To: "'Pianotech List'" <pianotech at ptg.org>
Sent: Monday, March 10, 2008 7:54 PM
Subject: RE: Bass Bridge Position


> JD
>
> The reason for the 6 note transition I just outlined in another post so I
> won't rehash that.
>
> I'm not terribly enamored of the low bass on the O and I still find the
> tenor/bass transition (as on virtually all Steinways) to be a problem.  In
> the low bass I prefer a clear fundamental unmuddied by unwanted strong 
> upper
> partials.  The O in its original form does have power though it's a bit 
> too
> gnarly for me and lacking a clear fundamental.  While I have been able to
> achieve a better sound which scale changes such as reducing the core wire
> diameters, the short backscale length and possibly the cantilever seem to
> contribute to the lack of clarity and weak fundamental in the low bass. 
> The
> filtering of the low fundamental that the extended cantilever contributes
> has been discussed by those with better theoretical knowledge than I have
> and at this point my conversion to a straight up bass bridge is based a 
> bit
> on faith and my own experience with such changes.  Power is really 
> secondary
> for me in this case.  If I can have balance and continuity through the
> scale, I'm willing to sacrifice a bit of power.
>
> Simple changes as you mention can be made to the O to make it acceptable.
> In this particular project I was looking for something a bit different.
>
> David Love
> davidlovepianos at comcast.net
> www.davidlovepianos.com
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On 
> Behalf
> Of John Delacour
> Sent: Monday, March 10, 2008 1:21 PM
> To: Pianotech List
> Subject: RE: Bass Bridge Position
>
> At 20:01 -0700 9/3/08, David Love wrote:
>
>>My scale experiments suggest that this scale looks a bit better with
>>12 or 13 monochords in the bass instead of 10.  I'd be curious to
>>know how many notes on your transition and what the speaking lengths
>>at the beginning and end were.
>
> If I were doing what you're doing I would take the singles up to note
> 13 or possibly, given the reduction in speaking lengths that your
> modification entails, to note 14.  I don't see any point in having
> more than 4 notes in the transition.
>
> I'm curious to know why you think an improvement can be made to the
> performance of the O by such a shortening of the bass bridge lengths.
> Certainly the bass lengths are long for a 5'10" piano and this is
> achieved partly by rather short tail lengths on the bottom notes, but
> I've always thought the performance of the bottom notes on the Model
> O was rather remarkable left just as they are, including the apron,
> with extraordinary shaking power.  You are going to replace this with
> a straight-down bridge and presumably be using double-covered strings
> throughout the singles.  On this piano I would do neither.  If I were
> going to get rid of the apron I would substitute an angled bridge and
> I might well still use single-covered singles.
>
> I consider the O, for all its faults, a pretty well-balanced piano,
> with a bass that, with simple changes to the bass strings (as
> discussed in another thread) has the character I find suitable for
> this piano.
>
> JD
>
>
>
> 
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