Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum grandpianomuffler.com - any opinions?

Hi,
Has anyone seen or had any experience with the grand piano muffler (grandpianomuffler.com) that Steven James has developed? I know he had a booth at the California State PTG conference, and has some instructional videos on his website.
Any opinions about this? I'm looking for a simple way to make a quiet practice mode for a grand piano, that won't involve any extensive modification to the piano or the action regulation.
Thanks.

I had a chance to see the product and talk with Steven at the Conference in Burbank. It worked quite well but has a tendency to 'click' a little. I think with a bit of fine tuning that could be remedied. I have a Kawai grand coming in the shop today that we will be prepping for resale. I'm planning on installing a mute on it. I'll keep you all posted.

Thanks, Ryan.
I'll be interested to hear how it goes.
When you say it clicked, is that while playing? Do you know what was causing it?

I was talking with Steve at the show, and brainstormed a little modification which would prevent the click of the brass rods in their guides.

I think it is a good idea, one which perhaps can be developed a bit further yet. I am not sure about the size of the market and therefore the long-term feasibility of the product. We shall see. Power to the developer for moving ahead on it anyway - I wish him success.

Yes, the slight clicking occurs when playing with the mute in the on position.

Jurgen described it accurately. The mute is mounted on brass glides that slide in and out of a brass tube. Some sort of heavy lubricant might eliminate the clicking. My Kawai Grand arrived today so I'll check into ordering the mute. I think its a very useful feature. When I had an upright with a practice mute I used it quite a bit since I live in a small house and have kids that have to get to bed. When I moved a grand into the living room I found that I actually played less because I worried about bothering my family. I hope this mute will get me playing more.

Lubricants such as a heavy oil or crease will attract dust and turn into sludge. I suggested a more elegant solution to Steve, he was going to look into it... You can PM me on that, Ry.

Some vital sludge may be just the thing to stop the clicking! Don't underestimate the usefulness of high-quality sludge.

Re-surrecting this thread as I'm wondering if anyone has had an opportunity to install one of these in a grand piano and could comment on how well they work.

It's a secondary issue, but I'm looking into a small grand piano for our house, and would like to be able to quietly play at night after the little ones have gone to sleep. A couple local technicians I've spoken to in the course of the search were unaware of any way to accomplish this, while a couple others have stated that such a mechanism exists and would run anywhere from $100-300 to install (they did not mention the grandpianomuffler specifically, however).

I have yet to install one, but I will say that I was impressed with the one that I saw at the 2008 conference.

I say, go for it. Have one installed. Let us know how you like it.