Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Just regulated my piano...

So the piano tech left about an hour ago. I'm talking about an upright, an Ottostein (has anyone ever heard of this brand before? Because I haven't anywhere )

I'm not sure it's the same piano. Yesterday, certain keys were lighter/heavier than others, so I would play a passage and the low A would either not sound, or the middle C would be too loud. The pedal had a squeaking sound whenever I pressed it down any faster than 1 cm/hour. When I pressed the middle (mute) pedal, one register didn't actually mute. I didn't think there was anything wrong with the tuning.

I'll try to explain some of the things without using terminologies (since I don't know any :P). The hammer has a little lever thing on the bottom right? The tech told me those were too far away from the hammer, causing a problem where I would press a key and have movement in the key but the hammer wouldn't respond until I reached a certain depth of the key press (I hope this is clear ). So I would see the hammer moving when I pressed the key until I reached a certain point, it would START moving then.

So he brought the lever thingies closer to the hammer pole (?) so that when I started pressing a key, the hammer wold immediately move. He adjusted those as well as the hammers, not sure to what, but apparently something worked. Then he tuned the piano (which I didn't think needed tuning to be honest, but apparently the sound I'm hearing now is a lot different).

Here are some observations that I made last hour after playing:

- In general, the sound of the piano is slightly quieter, but if I try to play ff there isn't any harsh sound.
- The bass register sounds a bit... "cushioned". I was playing a Chopin waltz and from the first chord I couldn't tell it was the same piano. It much more subdued, so that worried me. I tried to play in the bass register as it there was a melody, and thankfully it was amazing. So basically, I suppose all the hard work I've spent on making my LH quiet is finally showing here :P
- Pedal is squeaky-less! However, I noticed that even with it being fixed, I don't find myself pulling it all the way up and down too much. Maybe this is because I got used to playing in a way to prevent the sound from happening, but I think this is better, to be honest (doesn't create a break in the sound, and doesn't create a blur either).
- The action is generally SLIGHTLY heavier, but surprisingly easier to control. Faster passages might take more practice and I can't play as lightly (physically).


And most of all, this regulation and tuning has shown be lots of things. Many things I thought were wrong, appeared to be due to the piano. OTOH, many things I used to blame on the piano where due to my lack of skills . Some notes which were giving me trouble have been finally fixed, thankfully.

In general, I'm really happy with it. The sound does seem a lot different from the tuning, but I think it'll settle down in a few hours. I urge anyone who hasn't regulated their piano in a while to DO IT NOW! It's such a great feeling when all this happens at once. It doesn't feel like the same piano anymore!

Anyone experienced something similar? Perhaps some surprising drawbacks that happened? Share your experiences if you want

And I'll translate into tech speak.



The little lever is called the jack. The jack is basically the transfer point for the energy input into the key to propel the hammer to the string. The space between the jack and hammer butt is called "lost motion" - ie, any motion in the key that happens before the hammer starts moving is lost, because it's not directly controlling the hammer. Most uprights are designed to work best with just a very slight amount of lost motion, to ensure that the jack will return back under the hammer after playing. If there is too much lost motion, you lose some dynamic control because the motion you input into the keys doesn't immediately transfer to the hammers. When playing loudly, the jacks can accelerate too much in the space between the jack and the hammer, leading to a harsh sound as the jack kind of smacks the hammer up into the string. If you play softly with too much lost motion, you may let go of the note before the jack has had a chance to push the hammer to the string, or the jack might start escaping before the hammer reaches the strings, greatly diminishing control and leading to notes that don't sound at all. On the flip side, if there is no lost motion at all, the jack may not reset under the hammer, meaning you lose the ability to consistently repeat notes.



He raised the jacks closer to the hammer butts by turning capstans on the keys. Capstans are basically brass screws on the back of the keys that contact the wippen/jack assembly for each note. You can adjust the height of the capstan, which in turn adjusts the height of the jack. Basically you turn the capstans up until there is just barely any lost motion left. One common way to test this is to pull back on the hammer rest rail (that felted rail that the hammer shanks rest on). When you pull back on the rail, the hammers should follow just a tiny bit (1/32" or less, just a 'wink' really) and then remain in place. If they follow the rail more than that, there's too much lost motion. If they don't contact the rail or don't move back at all, there is not enough.



That's one of the immediate benefits of regulating lost motion - you gain much more control over the dynamics - especially soft playing.



Your body is likely just adjusting to not having to work so hard to get a soft sound in the bass now.



There was probably a lot of lost motion in the pedal beforehand (very similar to how lost motion works in the keys) - there was probably too much motion in the pedal before the dampers actually lifted off the strings, so you had to press the pedal down a lot further to get to that point. But now the dampers lift much sooner after you press the pedal.



The reason it feels a little heavier is that you feel the weight of the jack pushing the hammers pretty much as soon as you press a key now, instead of having that lost motion space before where the jack was traveling freely up to the hammer butts for a good portion of the keystroke. And since you are actually controlling the hammer motion more directly and immediately now, it gives you a greater overall sense of control.



Agreed! It's unfortunate that regulation often gets overlooked by many piano owners. It isn't just worth it only if you've got a nice grand - every piano benefits from some basic regulation upkeep!

Great story, thanks for sharing. The key is that just getting your piano tuned isn't enough. Make sure you have a qualified tech who can regulate the action, adjust the pedals and dampers, and voice the hammers. If you aren't doing this, your piano is probably much better than you think it is.

adamp88: WOW! Thanks for the wealth of information! Everything you said really clarified things for me and explained everything I wasn't sure of. You pretty much gave me a complete walk-through of what happened, and my tech didn't actually do that in this great detail. I appreciate the effort, thank you very much!

Steve: Exactly. My main reason for bringing the tech in the first place was for regulation since I knew things were not like they should be. Now, the piano is much better. In a few days I will become very comfortable and used to the "new" action and hopefully the results will be much better!