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Just listened to your recordings, and I think you're doing a good job with those pianos. Lester spinets certainly are not the most popular pianos on this forum, but I must say that yours sound very good. I've done some tunings at my school using EBVT 3, think I'll have to try it on some more pianos.

For the past few days, Roy Peters RPT from PW has been visiting me here in Oregon to work on my piano. Roy installed the Wapin back in 2009. Roy was on his way to see his brother-in-law in Portland, so I asked if he would not mind stopping by and give the M&H RBB a good working over He has done a super job in all aspects...Thank you Roy!......the piano was due for some normal maintenance, re-seating strings, string leveling, minor voicing, and some action adj.

Roy used my Ipad Verituner and Bill's EBVT 3 tuning figures for my piano. Between Roy's excellent tuning, Bill's EBVT, Ari Isaac's Bass Strings and Classical West Hammers, the sound is fantastic..tone, sustain, resonance are all just amazing. The piano has such a great resonance in the bass, thanks to Bill's stretch, Ari's bass strings and the Wapin, it's really quite something to hear live. I have tried to capture this, but it's not easy. EBVT has such an expansive tonal palette.....it shows in these recordings, especially when the tuning is fresh, unisons are super clean.... Roy was right there touching them up after just about every recording.

After watching how Roy uses the tuning hammer, and asking a lot of questions, I hope I can improve my stability with the pins....what a pro.... btw, Roy used my Joe Goss "Platinum" 20 deg hammer with a no#3 SOLE tip for the whole tuning, he liked the hammer.....that hammer was Bill's suggestion to me 2 years ago, and I have not used anything else since.

I did a lot of recording, had to...the sound was so amazing...and I want to share that here with everyone. The best is to listen to these files with headphones.

The recordings were made with my Zoom H4 and a pair of Avenson STO-2 mics, all played on the Live-Performance LX system...My Korg MR-1000 digital recorder was out at the repair shop.....there was no processing or adding of any reverb etc. The only thing I did was to normalize and Amplify the file. Enjoy, and all comments are welcome. There are a lot of files to go through...here are a few, with more to come.

The piano is a rebuilt 1927 Mason & Hamlin RBB, with a Wapin bridge modification, Ari Isaac's bass strings and Classical West Hammers, and Bill Bremmer's EBVT III temperament. Enjoy!



1. Debussy, "Arabesque" https://www.box.com/s/779410351d406081a22a

2. Debussy, "Clair de Lune" https://www.box.com/s/911fb2bbba23223e7535

3. Debussy--"La Cathedrale Engloutie"-- in EBVT 3 (amazing bass) https://www.box.com/s/6b48ea7771facc06efef

4. Debussy "Minstrels" https://www.box.com/s/cdaceffed80b60d30c0e

5. Debussy "Reflets dans L'eau" https://www.box.com/s/ee8ed0494be06e30cfdd


1. M.Garson Jazz 1 https://www.box.com/s/a9f0481fd12b498a5cb5

2. M.Garson Jazz 2 https://www.box.com/s/11b7e96c2d98f30ea772

3. M.Garson Jazz 3 https://www.box.com/s/dd9b8a134505fd9dc442

4. M.Garson Jazz 4 https://www.box.com/s/9ee6fbbd21a7a8af17b4

5. M.Garson Jazz 5 https://www.box.com/s/2554c2d1523b4f927d8a


1. Ravel Miroris, V. "La Vallee des Cloches" https://www.box.com/s/d599cd06050a36c7f2bb

2. Ravel Ravel Miroirs. IV. Une Barque Sur L'Ocean https://www.box.com/s/d599cd06050a36c7f2bb



1. Earl Wild Chopin 1 https://www.box.com/s/03583c62bffb560e9912

2. Earl Wild Chopin 2 https://www.box.com/s/e80d7f801a986f8e2ed6


1. John Arpin playing "Unchained Melody" https://www.box.com/s/546f630e02238a0b52c9




Roy seated at the M&H RBB doing his thing.

Here is Roy noodling around right after he finished tuning it.
Roy's Noodling...unplugged version...."it's ringing!"
https://www.box.com/s/27b5c8f19b9f1f0b2124

[i][/i]

Bill, could you point out places in the recording that show close M3s which are too wide, and remote ones which are too narrow? I'm distracted by beating unisons and octaves, and a flat treble, so I can't determine exact widths of M3s.

GP, Wow! Your piano sounds so excellent!!! I listened to at least one of each group--what a treat for the ears! Nice job, ROY! (Liked your noodling, too!) I especially like the way Debussy and Ravel come out on that instrument in that tuning.

Yesterday, the birds were in town for a singing convention in my neighborhood as I was trying to lay down a recording of Bach's French Suite No. 1 in D min. At one point, in need of a brain break from Bach and tired of recording between the chirps that I was sure were getting picked up in the background, I threw open the windows and embraced the chorus. I am not going to call this "Three Coins in the Birdbath," but I could...

https://www.box.com/s/a5ee639c09a361249dfe

I hope you enjoy my backup singers (a robin, a young cardinal with a lot to say, and some sparrows)!
--Andy

P.S. The arrangement is from "George Shearing Interpretations for Piano, no. 4" [the green one], (New York: Robbins, 1955). 1940 Lester spinet in EBVT III, two Sony ECM 220s through a Yamaha Audiogram USB interface, into CuBase AI4, with DC8 noise reduction and Switch file conversion.

Thanks GP and Andy. That BB is such a wonderful piano. A big resonant bass. I could sit at that one for a long time. I'm not very good, but I do enjoy playing. But there's nothing like sitting there listening to Art Tatum and Oscar Peterson on the LX. It's an amazing experience. It's like they're right there in the room.

This was an exercise in "mission creep". It started out as an effort to clean up the tone a little, and we got carried away.

The Classical West hammers were really nice. I had never worked with them before. We thought that they were too bright, and I did some voicing. Needles went in very easily, and side needling at 3 and 9 o'clock had ample affect. I really was trying to be careful not to do too much.

As GP said, I just tuned it to what he had loaded in the Verituner. I do like it. I tune ET most of the time. But I can also hear why some of you like EBVT so much. It seems like much of the sound has to do with the stretch. There's alot of stretch at both ends. There's so much esonance in the bass.

GP, I've downloaded the files, but haven't had a chance to listen yet. Will save that for the flight home.

Mark,

I can't hear the RW in the music any better than you can. When I heard it was when I first approached the piano and played M3s F3 to F4 the way anyone would do to test ET. I heard the tell-tale unevenness, although slight but once again, as almost always, there was that C4-E4 M3 way faster than either B3-D#4 and C#4-F4. The G#3-C4 M3 was also too slow. That is RW.

Nothing prevents RW from also being present with drifting unisons and a flat treble. I am not saying the unisons were tuned poorly by the last technician. The Midrange had climbed in pitch and it probably did make the Treble sound flatter than it had been tuned. If you or anyone thinks, however that temperaments naturally morph unevenly into RW, that is up to you but I think all of the RW's I have heard were tuned that way initially.

It would be a better idea to focus on the improvement that could be made in the piano from the way it was to they it is heard in the recording than to dwell too much on how poorly it may have been tuned. I believe that all too many tuners do, in fact put a bit of RW in their temperament and don't put enough energy into making the Treble hold on to the pitch they intend to give it and the result is what you heard and is not at all uncommon.

Please do take a listen to Grandpianoman's recent recordings where another technician used my data. Some of the sounds are absolutely phenomenal! (Especially, «La Cathédrale Engloutie»). Also, take a listen to the UW Men's Choir track I posted wher I used the same kinds of techniques. The extra stretch in the Bass makes the fairly small Yamaha C3 sound like a bigger piano. The extra stretch in the Treble makes for very pleasing sounds to the ear.

There have been more than a few people who have looked at the numbers and thought them to be wildly out of line with what they "should" be on Grandpianoman's M&H grand and if you saw the numbers for that Yahama, you might think the same thing. However, the actual pitches for both the Bass and High treble are generated from the piano's own inharmonicity, not some calculation and certainly not drawn from a set of theoretical figures.

I am doing some desk work while listening to Grandpianoman's postings and enjoying them very much. I wish I had more time to post and to respond to more private messages than I can handle right now but I can't. I appreciate these recordings that demonstrate very clearly to me that the techniques and methods I have used for so many years now do, in fact, enhance the sound of the piano and they work for virtually all kinds of music.

Thanks for your comments, Roy. Indeed the sound that I get is a result of both the stretch and the temperament. The fact that you, Grandpianoman and at least one other person that I know of has used the same data that yielded the same beautiful sound also tells me what I have long maintained: that a custom tuning can be stored for a piano and used over and over again with the same results.

Really enjoyed your piece and the birds!

Thanks, Goof! Did you happen to listen to any of Grandpianoman's recent offerings? If you liked "Three Coins," try "Reflets dans l'eau" in the Debussy list.

It's got to be a point of pride in being able to bring such a wonderful sound from a piano that most folks dismiss! Very very nice sound (and playing too!)
I just ordered a large collection of Shearing solo arrangements. Fun stuff.

Forrest

Thank you, Forrest. The birds seem to like it! For me, it is an strange mix of quirky pleasure and sheer determination to do the best I can with what I have! I am so grateful to Bill for believing in the Lester and helping me get to a point where I can take care of it myself and begin to tweak to the Nth degree! Enjoy your Shearing!!!

--Andy

hey that was really nice !!!!.. it reminded me of "We Kiss In A Shadow"

Bill,



Oh, so it's not evident from this recording? This seems to be at odds with your earlier statements that reverse well is all over youtube, and can easily be discerned as such.

Your response above seems to confirm what I've been thinking for some time: when listening to a typical recording of a piano in a typical "not tuned for some time" situation, like the thousands of non-professional and amateur recordings on youtube,
1) one can, in fact, not readily make out temperament issues such as reverse well;
2) rather, one can make out bad unisons, bad octaves, and flat or sharp sections in the piano;
3) if one wants to say something about temperament, one cannot go by such typical recordings, but one actually has to go and test it, e.g. with chromatic M3s.



Oh, I agree! For my part, I would have left it at a simple "Wow, what an improvement!" But it was you who specifically drew our focus to the poor prior tuning by calling it out as a reverse well passing for ET - when one can't even make that out in the recording Andy posted. This prompted my question.

Mark,

Sometimes you can clearly hear the RW, sometimes you can't. For example, when I tried You Tube and several examples of the 1st prelude from Bach's WTC came up (C Major) and I could hear extremely fast, M3's, much faster than they should ever be in ET, that was the first clue that it was RW I was hearing. All I had to do was listen a little more and it confirmed it.

I heard it again when somebody posted a clip of a Yamaha and asked if it was out of tune. Yes, it had some poor unisons but also M3's that beat too fast for the key the piano was being played in. I didn't say anything about it at the time because I knew what people would say. It seems to me like there is some kind of denial that RW could ever exist, that there is no possible way that anyone could or would ever tune a backwards WT but I am assuring you that it is far more common than you think it is.

The Erik Satie piece, (I think) is in a moderate key signature like 3 sharps. So, whether the temperament is ET, WT or RW, the key of A Major would still sound pretty much the same. That's why it is not so readily evident in Andy's recording but the recoding does get to the point where the harmony does not sound so good at all.

I tuned 5 pianos today. Three were in WT, one ET and one RW. I wonder if the person who previously tuned that piano in RW notified in advance the church it was in that the tuning would be a non-standard one and if they didn't like it, the tuner would come back to actually tune the piano in ET for free?

Glad you are all enjoying the recordings.

Roy, thank you again for your great work!

As I go through them listening on my headphones, I am amazed at how clear sounding the piano is in playing the loud complex passages of a piece...I hear all the complexity of the music, not just a bunch of loud sounds or the melody line. I suspect this is due to several factors, EBVT 3, Wapin, the LX, the bass strings and hammers, all contribute to this, as well as the M&H BB.

Here are a few more, played on the LX.

For changing these 3 original WAV recordings to MP3's, I used "Audiogate".....before, I used "Audacity".... Audiogate is software from Korg that transfers Wav files to MP3 and other formats. I hear a better sound, a bit less brightness, compared to the other recordings above......anyone hear that as well?


1. Maurice Rosenthal playing "The Harmonious Blacksmith" This was taken from an extremely rare late 1930's Ampico piano roll, and as it was explained to me, one of only 2 rolls that exist. It was then translated into the LX format.

https://www.box.com/s/7ecfed24231eb42ef2fd


2. M. Garson playing "Jazzical Suite" https://www.box.com/s/af88f16f9cea23c42e9c


3. M.Garson playing "My Funny Valentine" https://www.box.com/s/442a4b13305a0d1a257f

Ron Koval pointed out that I had the wrong url for the Ravel "Une Barque Sur L'Ocean"....thanks Ron....here is the correct link.


Ravel "Une Barque Sur L'Ocean" https://www.box.com/s/7585cba244b118a71bb8

No problem, GP. I'm glad you like it.

I do think it sounds better with the Audiogate conversion. Audacity seems to accentuate the brightness.

I agree with RoyP, GP. I compared the Harmonious Blacksmith with the one you posted 3/23/12, and the new Audiogate version has more depth, like listening in 3D, if that makes any sense.

Do you take requests? When you have another recording day, could you play this one again? I'd like to hear it with the upgrades!

https://www.box.com/shared/bl2lxx90xb

Thanks!

Thanks Roy and Andy,

I agree...it may be due to the Korg "Aqua" dither that Audiogate applies to the conversion from WAV to MP3, which is what I used for the last 3 recordings. Unfortunately, Audiogate is only available if your have one of their digital recorders.

Sure, I take requests! ...in fact, I am going right now to pick up my NEW Korg MR-1000....this !000 has been what is called a "lemon"....3rd time in the shop for the same mother board problem. Korg has come through and given me a new machine...my faith in the company has just tripled.

It will be interesting to hear the difference between the H4 and this Korg...in the past, the built-in preamp of the Korg has always sounded better than the H4's preamp.

As far as brightness is concerned regarding the hammers...I think they still need some voicing down.


Will touch up the unisons tonight and record your Rachmaninoff request!


More to come..........

Andy, here is the newly recorded Rachmaninoff with the new Korg MR-1000.

Rachmaninoff Korg/Avenson mics https://www.box.com/s/8649fef2c31a6598fcd5


I let the live-performance CD run...here are a few more. Let me know what you think.

1. Rachmaninoff-Live-Performance LX 2 https://www.box.com/s/e9e196aa40b46af4a234

3. Rachmaninoff-Live-Performance LX 3 https://www.box.com/s/042e77215f7a35325e10

4. Rachmaninoff-Live-Performance LX 4 https://www.box.com/s/8239af8aac4cc8c56a56

5. Rachmaninoff-Live-Performance LX 5 (Flight of the Bumble Bee) https://www.box.com/s/e193959c049343e7a51c

6. Rachmaninoff-Live-Performance LX 6 https://www.box.com/s/0dd18298ae1c9b756d18

7. Rachmaninoff--Newport Music Festival--1999 https://www.box.com/s/7901178713e555e45130