Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum Yamaha Grand Piano Hammers

Good morning to all. I need your help.

I have a big 7 foot, duplex scale, 20 bass grand piano that I just feel underpowered. I have tried Abel, naturals, renners, but I feel them improper for my scale design (and I'm not the only one). But in my country a mellow tone is fashionable, almost all the technicians like very mellow tones, they use quite ever soft hammers, overtune yamahas to make them mellow and mellow and, believe me, It's quite hard to obtain what I want: a modern grand piano sound without buying a brand new steinway concert D. And even if you ask precisely what you want to the technician, in the end they do what they like to do; in other words, mellow tones. you see, enought is enought...
You can feel it, it's just there the sound I want, but no one have done the right hammer choice.
So, on your experience, is it possible to buy yamaha grand hammerheads as spare parts? Or are there factories that make the exact hammerheads as yamaha does?

Thank you very much for any suggestion.

Yamaha will not willingly sell parts for their own pianos unless they were made for the country they are in, let alone sell parts for other pianos.

I think that if you have tried a bunch of hammers and they have all proved unsatisfactory, there is a good chance that the problem is not with the hammers. It could be the design of the piano or the people doing the work, or both.

For me the standard Abel hammer sets are not soft and mellow. Maybe the naturals and some other felt types would be but in the general assessment I find Abel to be hard and dense.

Just goes to demonstrate that changing out the hammers is not the quick fix some think it can be for tonal qualities.

Thank you. Yes, they are two right hypothesis, but I have had the chance to test a friend's of mine yamaha C7 hammer on my grand and the sound was just perfect. So the technicians I called after, used hardener on hammers, but it's not the same.

How many techs worked on your piano? You state you tried renners and abels, and abel naturals, all good hammers. Maybe the problem is your tech?

I am pretty sure renner and abels are on the same qualitative level like Yamaha. But if you want their heads, you can order it from BK Baumgartel. If memory serves they cost about 1000 eur. But in the end it is all about who is working with hammers. Andre Oerebeck states in his Voice of the piano he uses Abels with wurzenn AA felt for Yamaha. Great results he gets, but, he is a great voicer, I am sure he would draw good result from any hammer....

Yes, I agree. But, believe me, I called well known technicians. when I put the c7 hammer the problem was solved.
You see, the matter is vaste, but I know clearly what I want, how good is my piano, what have been done in it and what is wrong on the hammers installed. I just need those very hard hammers that here every technician hates.

Did you contact Yamaha? I have bought some sets of C3 hammers from Yamaha Europe.
http://it.yamaha.com/

Thank you. I agree with all of you, but the mine is a matter of taste. I just don't like the results, but the results are not bad or uncorrect. Abel and renner are top quality, that's clear. But I want something different and I was just wondering if someone in the world thinks it like me and produces the hammers that I like. I mean, It's very simple.

Ti mando io i prezzi in un mesaggio privato. Ti do anche indirizzi web. Pero, per me non e il problema in qualita dei martelli, il problema e in tuo accordatore. Per me e troppo dare 1000 euro per i martelli yamaha e lasciare lo stesso accordatore di metterli su....

No, I didnd't. Thank you, I'll try right now.

Thank you Mariotto, you are very kind. I have called more than one tech, but they are all quite the same. The only one, very old technician here that has understood me. I'm very secure that I'm in the right. The quality of the felt changes the sound of my instrument completely.

Just get rid of this piano and buy one you like.

André Oorebeek does not state he uses Abel hammers. He uses Renner hammers. And yes, the skills of a voicer are as important as the type of hammer, if not more so. A good voicer, incidently, will listen to the concerns of the client and voice the piano accordingly, even if that does not equate with the voicer's personal view of what the piano "should" sound like.

Yes, I like my piano at all, but I like it with the hammers I like. That's all.

Yamaha grand hammers are VERY dense and compact, and need a lot of needling to get a tone allowing to play softly.

They are "harder" than most Renner and than some Abel, but they also have a different shape and a different pressing.

If your strings are old they tend to give less partials or a pinched tone so the voicer kills that part of the tone, keeping the more mellow part that is yet there,; that is just a tendency to fight overly bright tone due to older strings and soundboard.

ON a Yamaha C6 C7 Renner heads can be used, buit they will be thicker in the treble. I use Yamaha original parts now on those instruments. Very powerful (too much) possibly short fiber felt, but they need anyway a huge job with the needles.

Then the brilliancy will be there after the hammers have been packed enough, filed, played, etc.


If you need a more crisp tone with the hammers you have ask to have them impregnated.

Thank You Kamin. Yes, I just need hard impregnated hammers. My instrument is new, bigger strings gauge and requires dense and impregnated hammers. Even a child could undestand it.
I haven't said "I don't like their work at all" but I just said: "It could be even better".

I think, he sais in the DVD on that particular Yamaha he uses as a sample there are Abels, maybe I heard it wrong, I will look at the DVD again. I know he praises Renner and use them, he made them to produce some hammers for his own taste if I understood well...

Well if the instrument is new, just Yamaha hammers... Impregnation is necessary if your hammers does not provide enough, but the original Yamaha are really hard enough.
There are a few tricks to fasten the compacting of the felt. impregnation addresses a certain lack of partials and power, but it will change the dynamics, change also the shape of the the tone at low level of play.

Regulation also can open the tone way more than many techs believe.

I am not sure I understand what you mean with "bigger gauge" . if you want more power usually you use heavier hammers, and usually it lowers the partial level and raise the fundamental.

My experience for what it's worth for the OP:

I once had a Yamaha U2. It had a bright tone, which I wanted to change to a mellow. I tried voicing it down by needling but it was rock hard and I could barely get the needles in. Tried the alcohol:fabric softener route and got it to mellow down a bit but there were still some bright overtones which made it sound glassy. Not my taste.

So I ordered some Abel AA wurzen felt hammers and replaced the hammers, expecting that the Abels would sound somewhat mellow right out of the box.

To my surprise, with the Abels, the piano sounded VERY bright, as in very bright. The sound could cut through steel. It was bright in a very good way, and much different in character than the Yamaha hammers' brightness.

But, of course, I wanted a mellow tone so I was able to needle it down to just how I wanted it and was very happy in the end.

So my point is that in my experience, out of the box, Abels could be bright and would even need some voicing.