How to reduce the sound

A few topics

https://www.pianoconcerto.it/forum/index.php?/topic/1791-isolare-una-stanza/

Anyway, rubber (linoleum) under the piano feet... but... upright or grand?

I insulated the room, or at least I thought I did. The builders created a room within a room by padding the cavity with rubber/lead and other specific materials given as acoustic insulators, plus rock wool. They also did the ceiling and floor, all decoupled. They say they did it professionally. But the sound still gets through....the moral of the story...I believe it is impossible to truly insulate a grand piano. Perhaps you attenuate the passage of sound, but nothing more. In any case, assuming a good level of tolerance from the neighbor, you can use the usual tricks. Lid closed, blankets on top, and a thick rug underneath (I put two down!). Insulating pads. I used several specific decoupling materials that were left over from the room insulation work. But the best advice I was given right here in this forum (holy forum) was to start appreciating a good digital piano. And I finally solved the problem, although being able to use the grand piano freely without restrictions remains one of my favorite dreams...locked away in a drawer!!!

This is why, in the other topic, I was talking about soundproof booths

Anyway, digital simplifies the matter a lot

Yes, I regret to death not having taken one of those booths... a missed shopping opportunity. I would have solved it with the same amount!!!...but it's done now and I settled for digital. Moreover, the discussion about normalization being made in the other Topic is also very true, and to resolve a whole series of reflections—stationary and dry sound accentuated by the soundproofing treatment—I had to also install many speakers... spending even more.

The advice regarding digital was exactly yours and Simone's

Memories of Technical Physics suggest to me only one solution: Lead.........But do you really think we should put ourselves in a lead room????? Puh!!! Naturally, digital is an excellent solution. I have prepared concerts on digital and I must say it is very useful. Of course, it can be alternated with acoustic whenever we want. The neighbors don't hear the digital... or rather.... An acquaintance of mine ended up in court with the tenant downstairs. In reality, he, the first one, doesn't play. He "stutters". It means that every little fragment he repeats, constantly correcting himself, and ends up making the listening experience atrocious and incomprehensible for the people surrounding him. All this at any time of the day. The neighbor couldn't take it anymore! He, the "pianist," can no longer open his excellent upright, which sounds wonderful, and has bought a good digital one. The fact is that the neighbor hears the thumping of the digital keys!!!!!! It's a damnation!!!!! .....and also a "stuckness"... which however slows down the performance of the ruthless "torturer pianist".

A funny little story... that doesn't want to prove much, but can be a smiling way of thinking that if we truly want to isolate ourselves, it is difficult. A classmate at the School of Pedagogy and Musicology in Fermo told me, several years ago, that Richter, when he was in Germany, used to study in an isolated villa in the countryside, owned by my friend's brother-in-law, a musician from the Berlin Philharmonic. ......he needed to isolate himself.... perhaps by pitching a tent in the garden to listen to him!!!!!

Anyway, as a charming elderly lady who rode the elevator with me in the building where I lived in the '70s, while I was preparing for a piano exam, jokingly said: "...better a sad tenant than a piano or violin player".... naturally it was said in jest, and she accompanied the phrase with a smile. The same lady, however, when I moved house, told me: "I will miss the sound of your piano" ........A beautiful gift for me!

Extraordinary Paolo as usual. I was also struggling with preparing the 5th, but that's life. I was using blankets and similar things.

yes, I agree with everyone. digital solves (especially it solves without regrets if you pair it with a real piano instead of replacing it as I had to do)... in the end, the only thing that truly isolates is a villa (not a terraced house)

the noise of the keybed bottom of digitals (which also bothers family members at home) is something that usually isn't noticed when trying and buying a digital. It would be enough to try playing it with the piano turned off. Although, personally, it would be the very last factor I would take into account when deciding between purchasing one digital rather than another

Total isolation is pure fantasy. In a construction, vibrations are transmitted through structural paths. It is certainly possible to significantly reduce the transmission of these vibrations, but to isolate them completely is not. Nancy's solution is the one most commonly adopted and already allows for good isolation. To isolate further, one increases the number of wall and insulation layers: the room within a room within a room. The ceiling becomes a system of pendulums and the floor a system of springs. The operation is veeeery costly. Today, I honestly no longer understand this need to isolate, when digital pianos are on the market that are far superior to used upright pianos. By all means, use these types of solutions. Certainly, in my opinion, the digital does not replace the acoustic piano. By definition, it is not possible to achieve an entire series of nuances that can be done on an acoustic with one's eyes closed, but it must be said that managing to play something well on a digital makes us feel like Horowitz when we then move to the acoustic, both for expressive and technical reasons.

On a digital, which does not possess the entire lever system of an acoustic, cleaning up a piece implies that in certain passages gestures must be exaggerated. Once you reach the acoustic piano, those same passages will require minimal effort. In essence, it is like walking around for a month with a 5 kg weight on each arm. After this period, when we remove the weights, picking up a bottle of water will feel like lifting a feather. Exactly the same thing happens in the transition from a digital piano to an acoustic one.

The digital piano disturbs no one; it can be played at any time, and even the quality of the samples has reached extremely high standards. Nowadays, the sounds of digital pianos are record-quality. It is truly difficult to recognize the difference between the sound of a performance made on an acoustic versus one made on a digital; here on the forum, there was also a small test I had proposed which, just to refresh everyone's memory, no one guessed correctly, where in a series of listenings I had created and proposed with different libraries, an acoustic recording was hidden. No one managed to identify the correct source of the sounds: acoustic or digital, the errors were always just around the corner.

Therefore, I think I can state with certainty that if one were to find oneself at a crossroads where one must choose between soundproofing or buying a digital, the second option is certainly more convenient, while still maintaining the dear old acoustic piano, without which it is not possible to perform the 'labor limae' on pieces being prepared for an exam/concert.