I recently purchased a used Yamaha G1 grand piano, to which I had a silent system installed.
I have placed it in a room that isn't very large, about 18sqm, where the acoustics are not great.
The sound of the piano is rather aggressive, very bright, and when playing the notes of the last 3 octaves, I hear a strange metallic fizzing that seems to come from the central area of the keyboard. In fact, if I try to lower the fallboard a bit and put my hands underneath, I don't notice the noise. I only notice the noise when I am sitting down, and not, for example, if I put my ear near the soundboard.
That being said, I noticed that by pressing the left pedal (una corda) which shifts the keyboard to the right, the sound becomes softer, sweeter, and this fizzing disappears.
This sound would be ideal for me; I like it very much.
What do you think I should do? Play while always keeping the left pedal pressed?
The technician had advised me to perform some work on the hammers to fix the sound and make it sweeter.
I don't know how much such a job might cost. If we are talking about high figures, I would like to find a temporary solution, e.g., fixing the left pedal to the floor...
What do you advise me?
Thank you very much
Martina
HA
Historical author
Reply 2 by Historical author
Hi Martina,
Your technician is right, the hammer rail needs to be voiced to remove those roughnesses that have developed over time.
In fact, when you press the pedal, a string, the mechanics shift and this causes the hammer to strike the string on a less grooved part of the felt. This creates a softer and sweeter sound.
Be careful, however, not to go against the characteristics of the Yamaha sound: bright and rather metallic.
The cost for the voicing must be quantified with your trusted technician.
Forgive my ignorance, but is tuning a very complex operation?
Does one need to completely disassemble the action and extract the individual hammers? Is it possible to quantify it in hours?
Furthermore, what do you think about the zero-cost solution which consists of fixing the left pedal down, for example with tape or something similar...
Voicing can be a complex operation when preparing a new hammer set. In your case, the Technician must limit themselves to NOT modifying the general voicing, but rather performing what I would call a minor voicing. Such harshness originates from the fact that the hammers have become grooved and need to be softened again. Voicing is a delicate and irreversible intervention, and it is better not to modify too much the setting provided by the Manufacturer. It is known that Yamaha uses very hard and impregnated hammers, and it is unthinkable to obtain good results by radically modifying this setting. The Technician, in my opinion, must limit themselves to intervening very close to the striking point and not too deeply. Even on the striking point, one can intervene minimally by creating the so-called "piano and pianissimo cushion." Therefore, a light intervention. However, the sound you desire can be achieved. Generally, this correction is performed during tuning. This is important: first the piano must be well tuned and regulated... then voiced.
The fact of playing with the "una corda" pedal modifies the general timbre of the sound. The strings are 3-2-1 precisely because the soundboard needs a certain amount of energy to overcome its "impedance to move." When we use the left pedal, the sonic energy is lower and the timbre also changes slightly.
They are not trivial at all! The technician's competence and experience matter a lot. Samples are tuned on different regions of the keyboard and the sound is listened to. Chalk is the best help. On each key, the harder or softer part of the hammer is indicated. Everyone has a way of marking and remembering through the mark. After an initial "pass," one listens, erases the marks, and starts again. When satisfied with the proportion of tone between bass, middle, and treble, one moves on to working each hammer by listening to one string at a time (muting the others in turn) and intervenes near the mark of that string which sits above the others.
The fact that you cannot play pianissimo is because the hammers "scream too much" or because, when gently depressing the key, the hammer strikes too far from the string? It could also depend on the regulation. Let me know
