Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum Kawai RX6 first 4 bi-chord notes sound metallic

The first 4 notes from G1 to A sharp 1 sound metallic, lacking in tone, no resonance, tinny and thin. All notes below and above these sound GREAT!!!! Why is this so?? The piano is 1 year old and is an excellent piano. These issues are my only problems. They are problems that really BUG me! Something is NOT right. Piano has been set up, strings have been seated, the strings are all perfectly mating with hammers. The tuner needled the hammers - nothing changed except the sound was muted. Not good. Tone the same. Thin, metallic and lacking in resonance. The 7 ft Schimmel sounds fabulous in this area!
I have thought about a possible solution. Maybe these first few notes need new strings of a THICKER GUAGE??? Yamaha ( Steinway, who use the same scale design as Kawai with the first bichord on G1) use mono-chord stings to the A sharp. Kawai puts the G1 as the fist bi-chord. What do members think of this? I woud like to replace the first few strings of the bi-chords with THICKER guage strings. The sound of these notes is driving me MAD MAD MAD!! SOMETHING IS NOT RIGHT HERE. Any ideas would be most appreciated. Thank you.

The overall tone of the piano is otherwise wonderful. The bass is very consistent and smooth in its transition from treble to tenor to bass and the tone is very warm and mellow, except for these G1 G sharp 1, A1, A sharp 1. From the B up it is great!

A few suggestions:

1. First take a deep breath, get away from the piano, take in a movie or whatever.

2. Contact the piano tech that you had out and express your feelings. See if he can come out again to take another look at the piano — WHEN YOU ARE THERE.

3. Don't think that you can willy nilly change strings on your Kawai. The people at Kawai that designed the scale know way more than you or your piano tech do. Best to work with the piano tech you had out initially or someone that Kawai recommends.

You may also want to ask your piano tech to talk with Don Mannino @ Kawai - 800-421-2177. Don has an incredible wealth of knowledge on servicing/tweaking Kawai grands. That would be my recommendation.

The conversation that Don and your piano tech has with Don will do magnitudes more than piano players opinions on this forum will accomplish.

deleted

Thanks Glenn for your reply. I get the impression that many techs on this forum don't eally take me very serious. I think I bring up some insteresting ideas and observations, as I have been a pianist have been tinkering with pianos since I was 12. I first pulled my old Schwechten upright to bits! (God - my mother had a fit - but I fixed it and whitened the ivories with peroxide! A nice memory, as I am now 55)

Beleive me I DO know pianos and what they do and maybe should sound like, based on size, quality and make.

The Kawai is an excellent piano. But if they are experts and know more than me (as you have said and that is probably true) then why do they allow such an expensive, 7 ft semi-concert grand come out of the factory with bad sounding notes as I have tried to describe? I am beginning to think I KNOW more about sound quality than they do. But of course I do not control their budgets and cost control etc.. Maybe someone put in some dud strings in my piano?? Maybe the windings are not tight enough. Maybe the copper winding has some flaws in it so the string vibrates incorrectly? Maybe I have 6 of these poor strings on my piano? Something is not quite right.

I often watch movies - every night in fact and I do breath and take deap breaths at the gym during my workouts.

Even so I am very keen to make the most of my expensive investment. This piano cost me MORE than just an arm and a leg I can assure you. I am in debt for the rest of my life because of this piano! And I want it right. Shouldn't I?

When the tech comes I am always there. But in future I will question everything he does and I will watch and observe. My tech is coming out next week and hopefully he can suggest something. Maybe it just might need a string twist? I don't know. I hope that's all it is but honestly I don't think it will make an ounce of difference.

I agree with you highly that the piano just needs tweeking by someone is is qualified and WILLING to do so. I am a very fussy person and I know what I want to hear and should hear on this piano. I am so particular that I found faults on a Steinway concert grand, (brand new) worth over $300,000.00AU. I was quite suprised, but then again even what they say is the "best" piano in the world is not perfect. The issue I found on the Steinway was the same as the problems I found on my previous pianos - of which no tech was able to fix. These pianos incidently went promptly BACK to the dealer.

Unfortunately, Don Mannino might now want to have anything to do with me, as he has deleted and not responded to my previous posts. He has given up on me which is a pity, as I highly regard him and the Kawai brand. It would be indeed great to have my tech and Don discuss the RX6 and come to some conclusion, but I doubt if Don would be willing to do this.

Thanks for you comments Glenn and as soon as I know what the problem is with my piano I will gradly enlighten members of this forum and I will be a very happy piano player!

Cheers!

I take your post in a serious way, but I have no answer to it. The problem you are referring is not uncomun. I've seen several posts in this forum talking about problems with the scaling of pianos of well reputed brands. I seems that most of such problems are near the bridge break and the passage from wound to plain wire strings.

But, I've never seen a definitive answer to this problem. Each one has his opinions of course but none can give a definitive solution to these issues. Some suggest to use thicker wire, some suggest the contraire in order to increase string's tension, some suggest to replace trichord plain wire unisons with bichords of wound strings unisons, etc...

I am not a specialist in scaling but I guess it is not an easy task to design a scale where there is no abrupt change at this spot in the piano's scale.

Thanks Rafael,

You are quite right. As I test out other pianos I always find these notes sounding poor near the breaks. I also have a poor sounding bi-chord right at the tenor/bass break. But it does not worry we too much as it is tonally of the same timbre as the surrounding notes, but it sounds a bit harsh and metallic. The reason I object so much to the low G is that in this area the notes surrounding have really nice deep, rich sonorous tones. The G stands out big time as it has no tone, lacks sonority, sounds metallic and thin.

I will continue to pursue an answer to this issue because I believe it to be worth the trouble. The RX6 is a mighty good piano and deserves to be as near perfect as possible.

Many thanks for your messages,
Cheers,

Michael

I spoke to a good friend today - he was my tech for the last 30 years when I lived in the eastern part of Melbourne. He sugested that it may be the hammers causing these problems. Of course he is not sure - but it was a suggestion. Maybe the density / hammer mass is not right for these strings in the break area? Voicing with needles seems not to make any difference eccept mute the sound and it becomes muffled. Maybe a difference voicing technique is needed? Is is possible to make a bass bichord to sound MORE BASSY with more tonal quality??
Any ideas? Thanks!

Hows this ladies and gentlemen: I got so sick and tired of hearing those metallic, harsh sounding notes. So I pulled out the action, cut some small strips of name board felt and attached these to the offending hammers with masking tape. The strike points covered with name board felt. Put the action back in. Viola! The sound is GOOD!! More fundamental, more tonal quality NO harsh metallic sound, no ringing, and the notes sounded similar in tone to their neighbors! (except of course slight muffling )This is all I am asking for. Surely it is possible to fix this problem, as the name board felts will not stay in place for too long. So the hammer is the culprit!

My hypothesis is that the hammers on my piano have become somewhat too hard and need to be softened, voiced BUT in such a way that the tone does not become muffled.

My tech needled these hammers last week - but it made no difference. Why did this make no difference?

Before I bought the piano is had been in the dealers shop in an airconditioned (evaporated - water type) environment for about 2 years. The strings were slightly rusty too. Is is possible that this effected the hammers?

Any ideas would be gratefully accepted.

Hi Mike:

You just need an experienced patient technician who will listen to you and make the piano just how you want it, and is also capable of telling you what are this model's limitations. All pianos have limitations. Your part is to be patient too, work with the tech and pay the fees. A good voicer can work wonders with your piano. You most certainly can control the harmonic structure produced by a hammer, which can give a rounder tone and more power, or whatever. However, some hammers respnd better and stay put longer. Find the right tech, even if it takes a while. The right tech is the one who listens to you and can translate what you are saying into technical terms, and take the appropriate steps to translate the technical terms into action producing what you want within the limitations of your piano.

Good luck!

Steve

Question:

“My tech needled these hammers last week - but it made no difference. Why did this make no difference?”

Answer:

Most likely because he/she did not voice the correct area of the hammer to remove the unpleasant sound you are hearing.

Observation:

“So I pulled out the action, cut some small strips of name board felt and attached these to the offending hammers with masking tape. The strike points covered with name board felt. Put the action back in. Viola! The sound is GOOD!! More fundamental, more tonal quality NO harsh metallic sound, no ringing, and the notes sounded similar in tone to their neighbors! (except of course slight muffling )This is all I am asking for. Surely it is possible to fix this problem, as the name board felts will not stay in place for too long. So the hammer is the culprit!”

Possible remedy:

When you state that you have covered the strike point of the hammer to get the sound you want, then voicing on the crown and near crown is what you are looking for. Maybe even some cross stitching is required. This will cause the front of the hammer to expand and “cushion” the blow of the hammer strike. This allows the hammer to stay on the strings a split second longer than normal.

Also remember that any hammer set will have better final results if the set is shaped correctly previous to commencing the voicing procedures…..

Hello Mike,

Your experiment with name board felt told you something. That felt is far softer than the hammer felt. If that sound is what you want, I would suggest--at the risk of egg on my face because I haven't seen the piano--that your intuition is correct: that the hammer needs some voicing on those notes, probably not very much, and probably near the crown.

I don't know what the odds are that you can get one of the Shigeru MPAs out to work on your piano when he's in your area working on the SKs, but it would be worth checking into.

Mike, that was a cool experiment. Try: Isaac Piano Hammers and/or bass strings at: http://isaacpiano.com/

I think Steve's got it just right as well as Dave Stahl who told you to see if you could find a way to get one of the Shigeru-Kawai factory techs to work on your instrument.

As an Australian, you might be interested to know that you've got some folks in Sydney at Overs Pianos http://www.overspianos.com.au who, from what I have read, do superb rebuilding work. More interesting, Ron Overs has even designed and built a new concert grand with a number of enhancements to traditional piano design. I've heard recordings of it, and they sound great. The relevance to your situation is, I suspect, that he and his techs are extremely competent. Unfortunately they are not in your neighborhood although they're at least on the same continent. Depending on your budget, you could consider flying one them to work on your piano (if they'd take the gig). Alternatively, they might have a network of contacts in the piano technician world in Australia from which they could refer somebody closer to you geographically with the right skills to help you with your piano problem. It's probably worth a phone call.

BTW - brilliant problem determination on your part! My bet is that the problem is, indeed, with the voicing of the hammers in that area of the piano - but you've got to get a tech who knows what s/he's doing to work on it. There's way more to it than just needling near the crown of the hammer thought that may well be all that's needed to address your situation. There's a huge thread on voicing here in the tech forum on the ART of voicing. You could read it and giver yourself a headache from trying to reconcile the many points of view if you find that sort of exercise interesting ;-)

Good Luck with your piano.

Thanks Steve! You are so very right here. I appreciate your help. I think I have found someone. My tech who I have known for 35 years or so, but lives a long distance from me is willing to come over and sort the piano out for me. He understand me and listens. I am quite convinced that my problem is simply a hammers voicing issue which needs lots of patience and care and expertise. Oh and the piano is almost 3 years old. I found out recenlty from Kawai. As it has been in a dealers shop with watercooled airconditioning and in a wharehouse (under what conditions??) all this time, it is any wonder the hammers and not at their optimal condition for a fussy player like me.I took out some hammers and had a good look at them and felt the hardness of the felt. They were as hard as rocks!

Cheers! I will let you know how things go.

Michael

Thanks to everyone here for your help.
Fantastic information. I will post info on the results. I just know my RX6 can be awesome!

Piano Mike:

Have you tried voicing on the strike points rather than on the shoulders? My limited understanding is that this is not normally desireable, but perhaps in your situation, mindful of your experiment, this might help. My hammers were voiced (lightly, lightly) right on the strike point. Sounds good to me!

Hop

Hi all, after some busy months of performing and teaching I am now back trying to solve a few issues with my RX. (See my other recnet posting regarding the pianos raise in pitch!)I actually got so fed up with techs not fixing the problem and NOT hearing the offending sound that I was hearing.. I bought my own voicing kit. With great care and reading I will voice these offending hammers and post the results. When I pluck these strings in the area with a guitar pick all the strings sound uniform and resonant. I think its the hammer for sure being the problem.

I really appreciate all your help and ideas. Most grateful to all. Keep up the good work and enjoy piano world!

You may be right -- although it is unusual for individual or a few hammers in a set to have a tonal quality radically different from the rest. One other possibility that I would suggest you check out first is that when the note is struck, the excursion of the string is far enough to brush against the damper wire. I don't know exactly what you are hearing, but this can make a "zing". You can't even see it but if you move the damper wire away from the unison, the sound will go away.

If you PM me, I can send you a PDF of an article I wrote titled "Voicing for the Rest of Us". Most instructions for voicing are way more complicated than necessary.

--Keith

I played an RX1 at the store and noticed the same thing in the upper break. Just 5 or 6 notes and then it was fine above that. I'm interested in knowing how this turns out.

First, find out which string is causing the metallic ringing of the bi-chord unison, then use a voicing tool to needle "in line" from the end of the string grooves, not at the near crown or crown area of the hammer. Don't go too deep, 4-5mm or so should do the trick.

This should reduce or eliminate this metallic ringing you are hearing. I would not normally suggest this as a DIY project, but since you have some technical background, it should work.

There are other technics to "get more" out of the hammer. How old are the hammers again?

Enjoy

Thanks, I will post the results of my findings for sure.

Hi Chris, the hammers would be about 3/4 years old, as the piano was in the shop for 2 years i think..its a new piano which has only had basic factory (probably a rushed effort being a cheaper RX and not a Shigeru)voicing. On the other hand the hammers may have hardened due to water cooled airconditioning in the dealers shop? (The strings were rusty) Cheers, Mike

"""First take a deep breath, get away from the piano, take in a movie or whatever."""
You have to be kidding!... What the...lol

Oh, I should mention - Don won't talk to me...

I've been reading the above posts and trying to think of a solution....
One line jumped out at me.....'the hammers have been perfectly fitted to the strings'....
After literally doing this exercise hundreds of times, and following techs who had 'fitted the hammers', I think it would be worth re-visiting this area....
It is easy to think the hammers are fitted...depending how hard the hammers are pulled up when testing...this testing should be done very lightly and when plucking the strings (in a very quiet environment) the slightest difference should be noted and the hammers filed until the fitting is complete....very easy to blow this off....and think that you are there....but it requires a high skill level to get this precise...
I'm not saying that the hammers do not need voicing....deep shoulder needling will relax the hammers and could make a huge difference.
Good luck..

PEBKAC

????

Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair

"Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair"............Really! How dare you say this!.. The only person between keyboard and chair is the pianist or tuner!! lol Are you having a go at me? Why? If so then this is absolutely rediculous. How dare you! Don't you guys listen to your pianos? Don't you hear the differences in timbre from note to note? Tone differences relating to voicing? Can you voice a piano? Don't you guys have any ears? For God's sake, my piano has voicing problems. Period. I just want to fix it and I am sure it can be done as the Kawai is a very good piano. (Don take note!)

BPD - what's wrong with you man?

Do you think us Ausies are all stupid? I am a pianist and a technician and I can assure you I KNOW what to listen for and I KNOW what a piano sould sound like in all of the 88 keys.
We are basically the same as you guys over the in the USA - we are not much different.

I really just want to share my observations and interests in attempting to resolve the problem of a very expensive Kawai grand with hammer voicing issues that unfortunately have not yet been able to be fixed my any techs. This website is all about sharing ideas and problems etc is it not?

Why should we not chat about ways and means to improve the tone of a pianos "voice". I think it is a very good subject.

After reading Andre's book "The VOice of the Piano" I am quite cetain my piano has hammer problems. I will experiment and try out the "cushion" voicing and go from there. Then maybe string line shallow needling. Or very shallow needling on the strike point. Something has to work.

...Yes ....I agree! wtf!

I posted this as a response on page one, August 2009.


If you have questions for André regarding any of the procedures or informative materials in the recent publication, you can email him directly. In reality, the above remedy should resolve the issues you are experiencing.

Hi Dan,

Thank you very much for this messsage. I am sure you are right. I am still studying Andres book and it is a great study on voicing! I am very determined to get my piano right and I will eventually. The tinny sound in those mentioned notes is so obvious to my ears it is amazing that the problem was not fixed in the factory or ages ago! . The tone is stunning in the tenor, and as I play down towards the lower G it becomes horrible and metalic, thin and brassy, then it gets great in the low bass.....By the way I played a lovely Shigeru SK6 the other day and tested the voicing - PERFECT! No tinny notes around the low G area (second octave on the piano). It was very, very consistent in tone, timbre and loudness. And of course the beautiful Kawai action was sublime. Maybe my next piano when I win the lottery...

It's the Kawai, nothing more, nothing less. There are so many complaints with this product's overtones. I've heard it on ALL Kawai grands, even Shigeru. The design is faulty in some way. I can't imagine them, or you, ever fixing this problem. You had it on your previous Kawai's and now the RX6. I had it on the RX1, RX2, RX3 and the RX6. I've heard it on the Shigeru and the G series Kawais.

IF you confront Kawai and press them, they will simply stop returning your calls. Don Mannino and others will say it's your "obsession or compulsion" to take the heat off the product.

It's sad but if you have a problem with a piano, the dealer, distributor and/or manufacture will eventually ignore you because you're too much trouble.

Mike, Steinway has a 5 year warranty for a reason. Bluthner piano's lids warp, Kawai has abrasive ringing tones, Steinway has cracked soundboards, Estonia's actions...etc., etc., My point is pianos are expensive and hardly worth the price because pianos are fickle and break and there are so many variables that there's no such thing as a stable design. You might get lucky, but, there's no telling.

Just my .02

I just recently worked on a Kawai RX-6 with the same problem. It was about 6 months old. It is common for even pianos of fine reputation to need some work, so don't take it out too hard on the factory -- they do as best they can, but they have few full-fledged piano technicians.

The problems I encountered were twofold:
1) the strings were not level (seems typical of Kawais along with some others). There was much improvement through the low tenor after a quick string-leveling.
2) Minor needling finished the job. Just a single insertion from the side under the ends of the string marks on each hammer produced a fine, solid tone.

The piano owner was absolutely delighted.

Yes, you are right about the dealers - they run the other way when I visit the store....Don won't talk to me any more, he thinks I am obsessive or something, I told him how much I love Kawai pianos and he didn't answer me. I am sure it is a good piano which just needs some special attention in the right places to make it great! I have even compared mine to 7 ft Steinway's and I have been very disappointed! Steinway's can have ringing notes and brassy, thin low tenor notes also, and the action is not as nice as the Millennium 3 Kawai action! However - Steinway's are still very good! Maybe I will keep trying to win the lotto and buy a Bossy!

That sounds great Keith! I am reading your article over and over. It is fascinating! The more I read it the more I understand and appreciate so much what your are saying. Just one question: When inserting the needle into the side of the hammer at the ends of the string marks, 1/ how far in do we push the needle? 2/ Do we needle the other side of the hammer in the same spots, or just needle the one side only?
3/ When doing other side voicing (for example in the middle of the hammer) I am wondering how far to insert the needles and again whether or not to do both sides of the hammer?
Thanks greatly for your help.
I am reading and studying and thinking before I attack my RX6. I played it today and became aware of great inconsistencies in the tone quality generally of the piano. I just do not enjoy playing at the moment.
Regards,
Michael

there are plenty of asons inclueding poor string quality, that make the zone around the break less than satisfing.

strings are often not level, as the hammers have an accentuated compas due to the largest drilling angle.
The soundbard taking moisture in summer, rise and get a more curved shape. that reflects on the bridge, then the original setting made under the controled moisture plant is disrupted.

having at the same time a nice hammer shape , a good stroke shape, and the same force on left and right string while the hammer rise in compass (more or less corrected by the flange shimming and artistic gluing of the heads) is a job for a seasoned tech.

Indeed fitting and a little voicing would help, at worst it can hide the unwanted rings.

The needle should go all the way through the hammer and just stick out the other side far enough to give you a bit of a poke if you had your finger there or so you can just see it peeking out so you know it went all the way through.

thanks very much Keith for the info - I am sure it will make a difference!

Hi !
I forget to mention, that many times there where a complain in that zone, I vefind excessive pressure on the glide bolt (tone is too percussive and close, not enough legato), or at reversE not enough (bland tone,too open, mating problems exacerbated)
It is often difficult to trace on those actions with aluminium rails and light key frame (it will be evident on a Steinway)
RX frames warp high in summer so it may be the second solution more probably.
the fact that you where able to mufle the tone with some kind of moderator does not mean that the voicing is responsive, unless all the piano is too percussive and thin.

Regulation and checkIng are modified with uneven glide bolt pressure, but tone radiation also, and particularly, what you feel under your fingers, which is 50% of the pianist hearing.

be sure to take that in account in your evaluation.

I would press on the balance rail and see if the front of the keys are moving, before any other search.

aftertouch may be minimal if you want the high bass to be pleasing, Rx often have a large dip, if the keyfRame warps high, the firstbregion where it is noticed is there.

better lower the extremes if possible, than lower the center glide bolts and add paper punchings under the keys. But any solution apply well as long the key height is not too far from the original (65mm ?) measurement.
how much key dip ? above 10,25 you are in trouble unless you like a somehow mushy keyboard.
May be Kawai changed their punchings now but they where very soft so you can have end of letoff in the punching, as on one of the traditional German action setup. they dont like too firm punchings either, as the attack have to becut down on Kawai

YES, check the glide bolts. It still boggles my mind why those don't need to be adjusted at least twice a year. They need more attention and with the humidity changes, if they are too tight, the piano will feel and sound horrible, however, if in the winter, where the humidity is low and they aren't mating there's a huge loss of power.

FINALLY, someone pays attention to "Glide Bolts".

Thank you !

IdEally we should not manipulate the bolts so often. It is possible after some years to obtain a stability, but some instruments are better than others.

The glide bolts check is part of the procedure before tuning. Not a so easy to learn technical gesture, as we need some moderate firmness, without bending the balance rail excessively.

The glide bolts give stability and fundation to the hammer rail , they even the action pressure, and a good part of the tone is influenced (on
a good piano)

btw in my experience in winter Kawai tend to warp down with front key rail that tend to knock near the keyboard blocks.

all the difficulty is to find the neutral state for the aaction and keyframe, and work from there. There is a very etudied procedure for Yamahas. the screws tightening order also play a role.

I would not use the glide bolts when what is needed is a key leveling with paper punchings, this is a good source of uneven warpage and trouble.