Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum FAQ - Tuner-Technicians Forum tons of tension

If this is the only thing you’re confused about…my hat is off!

No. It is not possible to voice a piano with a high-tension scale to have the 'same' voice as a piano having a low-tension scale. Nor is it possible to achieve this result by simply replacing the hammers, for example installing Steinway hammers on a Yamaha to make it sound like a Steinway. The scale (in combination with the soundboard assembly) is what it is.

It is, however, possible to voice each of these within some reasonable range of brightness and/or softness.

But this question brings up one of my standard points about piano buying. If you have a developed or developing taste in piano sound you should spend enough time with each instrument you are considering to be sure the voice it delivers falls within the range that excites you. You may be certain about a piano within minutes or it may take several hours, but you should be sure before you buy and it is delivered to your home. Do not believe any dealer who tells you this Yamaha can be voiced to sound just like a Steinway once it is paid for and delivered. Or for that, the dealer who tells you a Steinway can be voiced to sound just like a Yamaha. Neither attempt will be successful. The Yamaha is what it is and the Steinway is what it is. Now, the Yamaha can be voiced to sound a bit warmer than the norm just like the Steinway can be voiced to sound a bit brighter than its norm but each is built to a different design philosophy and never the twain shall meet.

During the 1970s and early 1980s I received many calls from folks owning relatively new Yamaha pianos with the common request to “make my piano sound like a Steinway.” More than a few of them did not take kindly to the news that it couldn’t be done. Seems their dealer had assured them it would be no problem. Just buy the piano, play it for a few months and call in the piano tuner. Quite a few of these folks were of the impression they were purchasing a piano that was essentially a copy of the Steinway but at half the price. And who was I to tell them otherwise?

Del

Jodi, I too eat mangos while naked. They are soooooo messy!

Maybe someone can answer something that has been plaguing me since my last visit to one of my local piano dealers. I played a Shigeru Kawai 5'10"(sk1?)about a month ago at an authorized Kawai dealer and just loved it. I played a repossesed one last week at a different dealer with the same size and found the sound to be lacking. At first I thought maybe it was the room acoustics, but the Estonia 190 sitting 10ft. away sounded great. Is this a situation where the prep was better at the authorized dealer, or could there be this much variation from one piano to the next?

jdsher,

I ran into the same thing with two Boston 5' 10" pianos. The new one sounded okay but the one which was a few years old next to it sounded dreadful, with very short sustain. The dealer's tech was very highly regarded; he is my tech as well. I concluded that it wasn't prep, but rather that the piano deteriorated in a few years.

I suspect if weight were used instead of diameter, the formula would be about the same. In any case, I'm not interested in winding my own strings, so it's academic for me. I'm just interested in doing the best with what I have to work with. Mostly I'm concerned with not having big leaps in tension. There's usually a big drop in tension at the break, which I try to minimize.

They work with diameters.

And it's not necessary to wrap your own strings to take advantage of them. Most, if not all, string makers will now work to specified numbers. That is, you supply the numbers and they will wrap the strings. If you supply desired core wire diameters and desired overall diameters they will work out the appropriate wrap wire to give you a string very close to that diameter. Or you can do as we do and specify both the core diameter and the diameter of the wrap wire (or wires in the case of a double-wrapped string) and they will wrap the strings using those specific wires. In this case, of course, we must accept full responsibility for the overall diameter of the string so we best be right.

Del

Interestingly enough, a little searching on the Internet turned up a paper on the design of the scale for a medium-sized Estonia grand: PDF file on scale design.

Oooh, good one BDB.

This article has been around for a while. Interesting, but based on a number of assumptions and conclusions of dubious validity and value. The scale developed in this article would certainly never appear in any piano I had anything to do with. Good math, though.

Another source of scaling information is “The Calculating Technician” which was published by (and might still be available from) the Piano Technicians Guild.

And, of course, the various formulas worked out by Al Sanderson are among the best ever developed for anyone interested in learning about or evaluating piano strings scales. They are (relatively) simple and accurate.

Del

So what are the characteristics of the Estonia 190 that you don't like, Del?

This would be fascinating info to know KlavierBauer (scale designs vs. tension). Is this info available anywhere on the 'net? Do higher tension scales have a larger dynamic range by any chance?

Thanks

Del, where does downbearing fit in? I've heard before that downbearing can actually be much more important a measure than scale tension. Is this true? What is an optimal amount of downbearing pressure, and what effects can it have if off?

I would guess that dynamic range is limited by

A) How quietly a piano let's you play
B) How hard you can hit the strings.

Both depend on the design of the action. I wouldn't guess that scale has much to do with it, except for perceptive dynamic range. A piano that excites more higher harmonics on loud than on soft will have a higher perception of dynamic range I would guess.

All pianos give off more harmonics on louder, but to differing degrees.

It's not that I don't like the piano — I do. It's just that it could easily be some better. I find it a bit weak. Especially in the high treble and the mid to lower tenor. Though this is a reasonably long scale — at least down until it starts the tenor bridge hook — it is a very low tension scale. Now I generally like lower tension scaling but this one, I think, is a bit too low. And that hook down at the lower end of the tenor bridge both loads up the diameters and drops tensions even further. The bass is a bit erratic and inharmonicity is all over the place making the poor tuner fight to get some semblance of clean octaves and intervals.

Sometimes good is the enemy of better.

Del

[/qb][/QUOTE]This would be fascinating info to know KlavierBauer (scale designs vs. tension). Is this info available anywhere on the 'net? Do higher tension scales have a larger dynamic range by any chance?

Thanks [/QB][/QUOTE]


It depends on what you mean by "dynamic range." In very broad and general terms higher tension scales are capable of moderately greater absolute power. However, this comes at the expense of tonal dynamics. That is, the voice characteristic is more linear from pianissimo to forte — more of the acoustic power is concentrated in the higher harmonics.

The lower tension scales may not have quite as much absolute power potential but their voice range is generally greater and there is more tone quality change between pianissimo and forte. Often, when there is no other piano nearby for direct comparison this gives the illusion of greater power.

Obviously, many other design and structural characteristics also affect the voice mix.

Del

It's not just the string bearing. The ideal amount of string bearing is a function of the overall string tensions, the backscale length and the soundboard assembly crown and stiffness characteristic.

Designs with longer backscale lengths can handle a bit more bearing. As can scales with lower tensions. Soundboards with a lot of crown but low stiffness can handle quite a lot of string bearing. Stiffer soundboards need less.

It’s all relative.

Del

The maximum power potential of any piano is limited by action saturation — that is, the point at which hitting the key harder no longer any increase in hammer velocity. This being the case our perception of any given piano's relative loudness is determined by its dynamic range, or the difference between how softly it can be played and how loud it is at action saturation.

Action saturation is a function of how stiff the various levers are and how compliant the various felts and leathers are. In any given action this is a fixed point and can only be changed with some difficulty (and expense). It is relatively unaffected by action regulation.

As you say, how softly the piano can be played is a function of action design and (mostly) its regulation.

Our perception of both extremes is shaped by the characteristic voice of the piano and by our perception of piano sound. Even though the sound pressure level meter tells us otherwise, our ears tell us the piano with the warmer, more fundamental sound can be played more quietly — more softly — than the harder, brighter piano. As well, even though in most cases the SPL meter tells us the absolute power levels are about the same, our ears tell us the harder, brighter piano is also the louder, more powerful piano.

Del

My perception is that this is true close to the piano, especially where the pianist sits, but that it is less of an effect farther away. It's probably because the higher harmonics don't travel as well.

What do you mean by the higher harmonics don't travel as well? They should attenuate just as much or as little as the fundamental.

I would guess that the piano, having a larger sound source (top reflected and bottom reflected soundboard) would sound more different farther away, then say a trumpet, which acts more like a point source.

Hmmm...now that's an interesting thought. I've been working on generally reducing the excess size of the piano soundboard for efficiency and resonance control reasons -- never thought of it in terms of projection.

Del