I'm so upset. I went away for the weekend and when I came back and sat at the piano I noticed that when I first pressed down on the damper pedal I could faintly hear the felt inside brusing against all the strings as it was lifted and it made all the strings ring.

Not like if you actually hit the key and played all the notes. But it just made the sound of all those felt hammers insided brusing against the strings causing them all to kind of ring very quietly, but I notice it now, and now it's driving me crazy.

Do I need to have them replaced. It's a 21 year old Yamaha Upright U3, and I just got it not to long ago. The only thing that I can think of is that it may be a little to warm in my room for the piano with not much ventalation when I'm not home, and no humidifier yet because I haven't gotten around to buying one. So maybe all the felt dried out and expanded a little, causing it brush against the strings...????

Maybe it needs to be regulated??? I'm not even sure how you know when a piano needs to be regulated...

Wish i knew more.. If anyone has any advise thanks in advance

Well, the way you describe it, it wouldn't surprise me at all if the ambient conditions in the room have caused this especially if has suddenly come up.

Best to contact your local tech and perhaps changing the hammer/damper timing might correct.

Worst case scenario: having to replace all the damper felts cause they're so dried out that replacement is the only viable solution.

Mark Mandell www.pianosource.com

It's not all that loud or anything like that. But I can hear it, and now I'm so upset. I don't think i have the 2000? dollars it costs to replace the damper felts..!!

I'm getting an humidifier within the next two days and putting it in my room and hoping somehow that will make it better, but who knows.

My guess is that 'annoying' sound produced by the damper felt brushing against the strings is always there. You just happened to notice it recently. Believe me, this is very common and has happened to many people. A somewhat 'perfect' piano at the time of purchase will become more and more 'imperfect' the longer you own it because you will start to find little things that are wrong with it when you have time to inspect it more thoroughly and meticulously.

The faint twanging noise you hear is very common among Asian made production pianos because the damper felt used in these pianos is not of the highest quality and thus has a (relatively) high friction index. The culprits are almost always those wedge or double wedge shaped dampers in the upper bass, tenor and midrange section of the piano. You can comfirm this by holding down all the keys with the wedge and double wedge shaped dampers before you press on the sustain pedal to see if the twanging noise disappears. If it does, a little lubrication may help. Just apply a *small* quantity of Protek at the damper felt/strings interface and you should see an improvement. This, of course, presumes that the dampers are perfectly aligned with the strings (i.e., all the dampers are squared with the strings and no sideways movement occurs when they are lifted off the strings.) If they do, a thorough damper regulation is in order.

Although Protek is an efficient lubricant, its long term effect on pianos has not been thoroughly studied. If the noise is not too loud, my advice to you is to do nothing and try to get used to it.

Eric

[ December 27, 2001: Message edited by: EricL ]