Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum Consequences of a low ring tone soundboard

I want to make the members of the Piano Forum aware of a crowd-funded project that will launch on Indiegogo in 1-2 weeks. I apologize for jumping threads, but I should have posted this here instead of in the instrument section. The goal of the project is to build a custom grand piano to serve as a test bed for a ribless carbon fiber composite soundboard. The soundboard will be optimized with evolutionary computing techniques that will build and test 100's or even 1000's of soundboards entirely within a computer, and evolve the perfect soundboard shape, size and material properties according to fitness criteria describing optimum acoustic performance. The design team includes:

Del Fandrich, who will design the scale and provide guidance throughout the project

David Rubenstein, who will help design and build the piano

Chris Osbourne, who will build the custom composite soundboard, and me,

Jeff Petsinger, I am project manager and technical lead overseeing the computer simulation tasks.

The piano will also feature an expanded compass of up to 102 keys (not decided yet), bridge agraffes, a welded steel plate, a steel rim plate, and WNG actions.

Here are some links to a technical presentation on the project on You Tube and the project website:

Evolutionary Piano Technical Presentation

Evolutionary Piano Website

We are also on Twitter and Facebook.

The pitch video is almost complete. When we launch, we will be looking for contributors to the project, but more importantly, we hope you will inform other piano enthusiasts about the project. This forum has spent a lot of time discussing the potential merits of a carbon fiber soundboard, and an equal amount of time lamenting the fact that nobody is doing anything about it. Well, this is it! This is the opportunity to help technologically advance the piano in a way no major manufacturer is willing to risk.

I also wanted to ask a question of the forum related to the expanded compass. We are currently discussing how far to push the compass in both directions. I was wondering if the forum members could offer some insight into the effect of lowering the ring toe of the sound board in order to help the contra bass notes of a piano with 9 extra keys in the bass? Would it have a bad effect on the tenor and treble?

Please check out the links. I will be here as much as my job and time allow to answer your questions.

Sincerely,

Jeff Petsinger

Bumping this, as I'm a bit surprised that no one commented on this yet.

There are no links in your message, however I managed to find your video.

As far as having 102 keys, my humble opinion is that 88 is already more than plenty for a "normal" size grand. (ducks and covers) Actually, if more keys were added, and again this is just my personal preference, I'd rather have more than 12 keys per octave instead of a wider range. (ducks and covers while putting on a flame suit).

Good luck with your project!

Well, for my part, I'm a tuner, not a builder. Y'all build it and I'll tune it if I'm needed.

Where is this happening?

Hi, I know that Richard Dain of Hurstwood Farm Pianos fame has designed his own pianos with carbon fibre soundboard. ("zero downbearing") Also Wayne Stuart in Australia, and his latest model has 102 notes, also with carbon fibre soundboard.
I hope this project goes ahead. When I played the Stuart piano for a few hours I became increasingly aware of the huge dynamic range of the sound - having the two soft pedals was crucial for exploring 'ultra piano' horizons
Additionally, what I personally would like to see implemented in a piano is the ability to have wide timbral control of the notes.

Thanks so much. I totally agree.

Impatient to hear the result of that new project anyway. Congratulations...

This project is truly a byproduct of the capability the internet has created to pull teams of people together from all over the country to work on a project together. I am located in Wayne, Illinois. The simulation will take place in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The soundboard will be manufactured in South Carolina. The piano will be built in Los Angeles. And, Del Fandrich will consult from Washington state. We also have a film maker named Harry Bromley Davenport who did the the special effects on the original Alien movie making our pitch video, and possibly a documentary about the piano development. The piano will initially be located in Los Angeles at David Rubenstein's shop, and then move around the country to various piano shops for a series of receptions for the higher level contributors to see, hear, and play the piano. If no one buys it along the way, it will end up somewhere in Chicago on display and for sale. I will send another post out with links that work.

I posted over on the Piano Street forum and Richard Dain showed up complaining we were just following in his footsteps. I can look at the various incarnations of his carbon fiber pianos and say without knowing the details that what we are doing is distinctly different in terms of the soundboard. The primary goal of this project has sometimes got lost in the other things we are adding such as the extended compass, bridge agraffes, etc. The primary purpose of building this piano is to develop an optimized carbon fiber soundboard. All the other stuff falls in the "why not" category.

By chance are you talking about the lowest resonant frequency of a soundboard as talked about here?

Well, I'd say Mr Dain can go stick it if he's going to have that sort of attitude. If his design was genuinely being ripped off by your project then he'd be able to file a copyright claim. From what I understand, Dain's CF soundboard is a zero downbearing model, and yours is going the other way and using normal downbearing but with the structural virtues of the ribs being integrated into the entire area of the soundboard. It's very disappointing to see somebody who claims to have the old "pioneering spirit" with regard to advancements in piano technology reacting this way - especially when there is such a clear fundamental difference between your project and his.

My biggest concern at this point for you Jeff, is that you get your project going as soon as possible because Dain is no doubt already tooled up and capable of ripping off your idea and get it out there sooner than you can. Given that he already seems to be in a competitive and defensive mindset, this is a distinct possibility.

I know there are numerous people here on PW who are big supporters of Dain, so I expect some objections to this post. But that sort of attitude is uncalled for. There is room for different approaches - I find it highly disappointing when a new enterprise is shouted down before it even gets off the ground. It goes against everything progressive thinkers stand for.

Ando, I assume you would have read the thread on PS before publishing your considered opinion to the world at large. Would you let us know which parts of Richard Dain's posts are referring to?

See: http://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?topic=54854.msg592421#new

As "not a piano technician" but someone who has read this thread and your other thread (as well as the Dain exchange on PS) I am not quite understanding why you ask this question;
"I also wanted to ask a question of the forum related to the expanded compass. We are currently discussing how far to push the compass in both directions. I was wondering if the forum members could offer some insight into the effect of lowering the ring tone of the sound board in order to help the contra bass notes of a piano with 9 extra keys in the bass? Would it have a bad effect on the tenor and treble?"
{edited typo; changed "ring toe" to "ring tone"}

As I understand your expectations of your project (perhaps poorly) the computer modeling should answer this - and more.
It should also be able to "solve" any such bad effects - or am I expecting too much of this phase ?

All the bits about being so far ahead that it's all a waste of time looking into anything because he claims to have already considered everything. I'm not buying the idea that he has already considered, modelled and rejected everything that Jeff is proposing. And to just state outright that it is behind before it even starts - largely on the basis that he is already building an all-CF-piano, well I smell a lot of defensiveness.

I believe there are differences in what Jeff and his crew are trying to do, compared to what Dain is doing. Both are very valuable directions. I just think it's unbecoming of somebody like Dain, who already has a solid reputation in the field of composite piano materials, to be so glibly claiming that he has modelled and rejected this idea years ago. If it's such a dead-end line of enquiry he might as well send Jeff the results of his unsuccessful trial and save him the trouble. I don't think he's about to do that. I think he was simply being defensive and territorial over something that he considers his domain.

Ando, I read what Richard Dain wrote somewhat differently. He actually points to some of the Hurstwood results that might he helpful to the new team.

It is clear from Richard Dain's background and patents, which are available on the internet, the work he describes, and the Phoenix instruments themselves that he has not just obtained some carbon fibre sheets from the local store.

Potential investors want to know what they are investing in and a frank description of prior art is part of the process of convincing them.

I am not so sure whether it will be possible to come up with an "optimum" soundboard or piano. My guess is that there will a range of good solutions that will depend on the parameter values you feed in. I suspect a model that can point the way to achieving different blends of tonal characteristics would be more generally useful.

I don't want to be on bad terms with anybody, including Richard Dain. I think he has done more simulation and engineering than anybody out there to date, and I respect that. But I just want people to know that we are doing something different than he has done, and in my mind, is as good as it gets. We are starting by throwing out any preconceived notions of what a piano or its soundboard should look like, and just letting the computer discover the optimum perimeter and cross-sectional shape. So, it might end up looking kind of odd. But, what is the point of doing this if your goal is to achieve something that must look conventional. I think the piano manufacturers who have done simulation have told their engineers to do anything they want, as long as the result "looks" like a piano. Our project is totally off the hook, no constraints, no marketing people setting boundaries, nothing is off the table.

I am just hoping to tap into the accumulated knowledge of the people on this forum. The kind of answer I am expecting is that lowering the ring tone of the soundboard makes the tenor and treble muddy sounding. But I don't know for sure. I have noticed that many people in the industry don't like to speak in terms of a ring tone of the soundboard. And so I wonder, do piano manufacturers target a particular ring tone, and if so, why have I read that it is set high enough to cause some grief for the lowest notes on an 88-key piano.

The answer to the rest of your question is that yes, the computer software should be able to sort it out, but I want to know what I am walking into.

OK, but I have to ask;
What if the modeling comes to a conclusion that a VERY different shaped piano would be optimum ? (however optimum is defined)
Square... That MIGHT gain some market acceptance, after all pianos have "bin there" so it could have some "retro appeal".
Oval... Too weird.
Triangular... also weird.
Sound board not horizontal OR vertical... ?

I think the market will force you to the traditional shape and SOME size limit too - so you might as well set market acceptance limits as design constraints on day zero.

A young man is Australia (or New Zealand, I forget which) built a nice big piano a few ears ago... it weighed a LOT, sounded quite good, wasn't very practical to move though.

The whole reason for making the custom piano is to give the computer complete freedom to find the perfect shape. If tht shape happens to fit inside of David Rubensteins existing piano design, I will probably just use his piano as the test bed. If it comes out way different, I will build it to that shape because there are already enough pianos out there following the leader. If it turns out to be a one off, so be it. But if it sounds better, the market might have to rethink their prejudices.

Sorry, but IMO the "market" is SO bound up in the past that just about any different sound will NOT be perceived as "better sound".
If you get rid of artifact X, Y or Z it will be rejected as having some sort of a "synthetic" or "artificial" sound.
ESPECIALLY with the involvement of materials other than wood.
I'm not saying that a better sound board would be a bad thing, just that the market is very reluctant to accept change, ESPECIALLY if it is to the sound or the shape.
We can DREAM of getting the market to rethink, but I think anything radical would need to be presented as a different instrument.
e.g. Flameno, Concert, steel string acoustic, solid body electric (sub-genus Strat, Les Paul) are all very different "Guitars" and some of their adherents barely acknowledge the existence of the others

I believe that the shape is dictated by the scale and are the string straight or crossing.

WHat are your reference lectures to know what to ask the computers ?

That kind of project may involve piano designers with some experience, but open enough to forget the weight of the tradition particularely where there is no good argument for it.

The extra long piano with one size of strings sounded and played horribly, it is a good demonstration why the strings and the soundboard are short/smaller in the treble, shortening when going to the bass, and even then having a light soundboard is not always granted)