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Hi there,

The place where I play music of Bach and more......



and what's up.......Bach French Suite BWV812



Best regards,
Johan B

Even with a rug under the piano, there's a lot of sound coming from the instrument (both off the floor and directly).

One thing that can ruin good sound is too much reflected sound. In a hard room, you can have sound from the same initial source (say, the attack of a single note) reflecting multiple times around the room, interfering with itself, and hitting your ears at many multiple times. Too much of this can make the sound muddy, brittle, or otherwise harsh. It gets exponentially worse when you play lots of notes and increase the overall sound level and complexity.

It's not so much about volume as it is about clarity. But the un-clarity can make a reasonable volume sound uncomfortable and louder than it really is, not to mention generally harsh and unpleasant.

In my case, I just had too many reflections off too many surfaces and it didn't sound good. The rug was only the first necessary step.

It's important to note how much this treatment improved the intelligibility of the TV at the other end of the room. We used to sometimes put on the subtitles because it was hard to catch the dialog at times when there was background noise or music in the program. The loudspeakers are very very good, and sounded spectacular in a different room, but this room was live enough that it was hard to understand simple spoken words if there was a "busy" background. We used to turn the volume up to try to understand more easily - but then it was too loud.

The panels directly behind and above the speakers made this problem go away. Dialog became perfectly clear, even at low volumes and with lots of background sounds in the program. The early reflections off the ceiling and walls were making everything garbled.

Without some reflected sound, a room sounds dead, which is also unpleasant. The best thing is to balance reflections with direct sound, and to have those reflections diffuse the sound rather than reflect it linearly (meaning: surfaces that don't reflect sound like a clear mirror reflects light in straight lines, but more like a frosted mirror disperses it incoherently).

In this case, the room is pretty good now, but could be even better with a little less hard, smooth reflective surface.

A monster has overtaken my dining room:

Larry B: Is your piano a S&S model C? In the picture
it looks biggger than a B.
The room looks great.


Uncle Geore

Wow, AlphaTerminus, what a lovely room, lovely piano, lovely picture! I love the reflection of the trees in the music desk and the dreamy "soft focus" effect makes the whole thing look like a painting.

Thanks for the explanation Larry. Many of us spend lots-O-cash on good pianos. We spend additional money on good digital recorders but seriously drop the ball on proper acoustic settings. This is why I ask.

I've been told that EVERYTHING is important but I'd bet a lot of us only score good on piano tune and recording quality. (although I haven't perfected the latter either). When it comes to setting up proper room acoustics, we may not be as well informed.

I'd love for someone to do a spoon-fed tutorial on setting up proper room acoustics sometime. Most of us just play with a floor rug (or not) under the piano and see what happens. That's about it.

Mr S.H.,

There's a pretty good discussion of piano replacement and acoustics in the Piano Buyers Guide, pp. 110 ("How to make a piano room sound grand"). Click on the Piano Buyers Guide icon on the right hand side of this page and then go to the table of contents to select that chapter.

In addition to Larry's excellent explanation, one thing I'll add is that are three areas that need to be paid attention to with respect to music (either a piano or audio) in a room: high frequency reflections, mid-range timbre and low frequency wave propagation. Larry touched on the first two which are usually dealt with via a combination of soft surfaces and irregular items (e.g., book cases or plants) in a room but an area that is frequently ignored is the bass. A grand piano (especially a BB ) is able to produce thunderous bass. The problem is that the wavelength for bass is much longer than for midrange or treble so that low b-flat that you hit is going to be around for a long time. If you're playing say an Alberti bass at a fairly low register what you'll hear is "muddy" sounding bass. This is because the bass is reaching your ears at a later time than the midrange or treble and, being of a longer wavelength, if you play e.g., B1, C1, B2 the first B is still "sounding" while the C and second B are also reaching your ears.

The solution to this is usually something to absorb bass energy. The company that Larry provided a link for sells "bass traps". These absorb some of the low frequency sounds and keep it from reflecting. These are generally placed in corners.

You're right that most pianists (and audiophiles) ignore the room acoustics. I've seen people that have spent deep 6 figures on a stereo system and put it in absolutely the worst acoustic environment. They'd be much better off with a $3k system and $1k in room treatments.

I'm in the process of tuning the room that my piano is in now - it suffers from all of the maladies but most especially "slap echo" (go into your piano room, clap your hands, listen) which abnormally accentuates the mids and treble. Once I have that under control, the bass is next. It's an iterative process but the result will be worth it!

very interesting BB.. my piano sits in a corner with a lower ceiling.. the area fans out into a high ceilinged huge area. close to me when i hear the piano, the bass is heavy.. further away the tone is balanced. i don't know that i'd change the acoustics for the player since the listeners could hear nicely.

Thanks for the in depth info BB. I was aware that different frequencies travel at different speeds but never really though further about it. Especially how it applies to the low and high frequency speeds transmitted from a grand piano.

It now makes perfect sense although many of us will need to do some room tuning to correct for our current challenges.

Good info from both of you. Thanks.

i think this is my favorite...im sooo jello. This is what i want my house to look like. What brands are these beauties?

Sound waves. no matter the frequency, all travel at the same speed in the same medium.* Air is an *almost* perfect medium for sound. If there is a difference in arrival time, it is because the later arriving sound took a longer path to the arrival point. When a room is muddy it is because as BB said, there is time smear from the longer wavelengths/low frequencies arriving again and again as they bounce back and forth in the room. Higher frequencies are at somewhat of a disadvantage because they are more affected by the friction of the air molecules so they can't carry on as long bouncing back and forth. In a home sized room, even in a small auditorium, high frequency attenuation from air friction is a non factor. When we talk about acoustics, we are never worried about the direct sound, the sound from the sound producers going straight to our ears. It's the sound that goes past our ears, hits something and comes back at us again that we have to capture, control and redirect to give us the right amount of smooth balanced reverb off the walls and direct sound.

If the room is bass heavy you can move the piano away from the walls and the corners. If the piano is thin you can move it towards a wall or corner or just to a different point in the room. It may improve the sound if your ears are moved out of the anti-node caused by a room mode (based on dimensions and unfixable) A harsh sound can be mellowed by some absorptive surfaces and even better, plenty of diffraction (scattering) by adding more unevenness to the surfaces. If it's fluffy, it'll absorb high frequencies. If it's flat and hard it'll bounce highs and mids. Bass frequencies can only be partially tamed through trapping.

In a general purpose music room, I think absorbtion and non-parallel walls are over sold and what most people need is more diffusion. If I was going to record in the room, I would certainly want a "tighter" room with more traps and bass control. Of course there are times, like as cited above, where a few well placed absorbers are exactly what is needed. I think however that because so much of what we learn and read is based on recording studio design that some rooms are needlessly made too dead.

Oh, someone mentioned, the clap test. It really does work but you kind of have to know what to listen for and that takes some time and having clapped in a lot of spaces.

Another thing that comes to mind is the use of furniture grade eggcrate foam for panels. It's cheap but it's not fire rated and when it burns, it burns fast, releases toxic smoke and drips burning globules that spread the flames. Please don't use it. Get your absorbers from sources that certify their foam and name the test standard.

Auralex makes some not too hideous looking, not too expensive traps and diffusers and they have a really good intro to room acoustics and the differences in theory and use of traps, absorbers and diffusers. They also go into sound control both into and out of the room. On their site, look for the Acoustics 101 pdf. They'll do free analysis, where you send them a sketch and the intended use of the room and they make recommendation of how much of which of their products you should use. I didn't check it out but you can also record the results of an impulse test that you download, send it back to them and they send you a more in depth analysis. This however, is not free. Check the site for more info.

Crutchfields, the home and car stereo people have a good, really tight, and accessible 5 pages on acoustics on their site. The slant is towards home theater but the principles are sound. (forgive the unintended pun)

Kurt

*sound travels at about 768 miles per hour or a mile in 5 seconds.

Nope...that's a plain old 1999 New York B. I can only hope to grow enough as a player to do it justice...

Oh, here we were all impressed and everything but if it's only a Steinway B well then, never mind.

Excellent advice.

I'm so impressed by all of these! Here's my setup. Wish it were in a gorgeous oceanfront cottage but my four room duplex has to suffice for now.
My keyboard is a Casio PX330. Lately, I've been using it mainly as a controller for my new fledgling hobby of collecting vintage synths (notice my custom made synth rack that my boyfriend just completed).

Ok I will be able to post my pic on 21 October, after delivery.

Hello Konzert Patrick,

As lovely as your piano pics are, what caused me to go say O.M.G was the photo of your lab, Tom. My stomach flip-flopped, & my heart skipped a beat at seeing your Tom. His resemblance to our poor departed Forest is uncanny. I would say Tom is a cloned Forest, but that is impossible since Forest was never bred, & we live in Canada. Tom's head size, the angle & size of his ears, his muzzle, chest and facial expression are that of our poor Forest. Would I be correct in assuming Tom is an English lab? Forest was an English lab (black) with both parents being champion gun dogs. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your point of view, Forest was gun shy,& we're not hunters, but he excelled in obedience trials. I surmise from the date the photo was taken that Tom was no more than 2-3yrs, just getting into his prime. Our Forest died last year at 15 1/2 yrs from old age, & we are lucky to have him buried close by. We have no plans to get another lab -too soon still- but we do have 3 cats, 1 of whom, like Forest, enjoys listening to me play. Enough of my babbling. May you have many, many happy years with Tom, and of course Puk.

2P4M

What is the art work the by the piano? I really like it. How many panels does it consist of?

KurtZ, thank you for the additional explanation re room acoustics. I clearly understand what you are saying as well as I have taken a ported subwoofer and moved it approx 2 inches away from a corner in the room and the bass can get almost too much. Really deep and exceptionally boomy.

Just moving it a few more inches away from the wall/corner makes an INCREDIBLE difference. (I capitalized "INCREDIBLE" on purpose!).

If just such a minor change in position of the sub woofer in the corner of a room can make such a HUGE difference in sound it produces, imagine how improved the sound from a thunderous grand piano could be improved if it's just "tuned" for the room correctly.

Again,(worth repeating), I'd bet a LOT of us screw this area up. (room tuning). I know for a fact I am!

While it may be easier to pay more money for better pianos and higher quality digital recorders, that still does NOT solve one of the main problems.........yup....ROOM ACOUSTICS.

I guess I am somewhat of a hypocrit as I totally agree that room acoustics are paramount, yet I am still screwing up my own. Probably because it it not easy to get set up correctly and will take some time experimenting with trial & error. I should probably start spending more time in that area as opposed to messing with mic placement and gain control settings (although they're both important too).

Nothing is easy anymore!

AnotherSchmoe: I made the hideous mistake of clicking on "the llama song" in the presence of my 11 year old son, who became immediately captivated by it and insisted on replaying it roughly 2,445 times. You owe me.

Hahahaha Monica!!!
I saw the llama song and thought "Thank God, I don't have to listen to that any longer!!" My children were obsessed with that song, memorized the lyrics, incessantly played it on the computer and made references to it when they weren't around a computer, for at least 3 months straight (this about 2 years ago). Hope I have given you a little light at the end of the tunnel, although three months is an awfully long time! Fortunately, the novelty of that (along with the dreaded hamster dance song, and anything by Crazy Frog), has worn off. They are now super into the Old Spice commercials. If one of my sons claims that he is on a horse one more time........ahhhhhhh!