Greetings, Rick Clark gave good advice. If you have control problems at pp levels, it is probably that your let-off is too far, springs too tight, and/or drop is excessive. Here is how to check:
take out the music rack so that you can see the hammer's approach to the string. Slowly depress the key while watching the hammer come up. In the middle of the piano, it should come to approx 1/16' of the string before you feel the escapement 'trip', at which time the hammer should drop about 1/8' and then rise back up to the 1/16' distance as the key reaches the bottom. If the key bottoms out before the hammer's escapement happens, you haven't enough keydip or too much hammer travel. Strike the note a moderate blow and keep the key down. The hammer should rebound from the string and be caught about halfway between its rest position and the string. If it is too low, it will have slow repetition. Now, slowly allow the key to come up and watch what happens to the hammer. It should rise up about as fast as an audience can come to their feet. If it doesn't, you may have slow repetition. If it jumps up so strongly that you can feel it in the key, the spring is too strong for pp control. A well-regulated action will also have all hammers showing the same behaviour, though the bass hammers may let-off slightly farther from the strings, and the upper ones will come closer. Good luck, don't be afraid to change techs, like Rick said, the field is full of half-baked piano mechanics. Regards, Ed Foote RPT
http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html Well-tempered CD's at Gasparo.com. GSCD #332, 'Beethoven In the Temperaments' GSCD #344 . 'Six Degrees of Tonality' Caution, these CD's contain pure intervals and extensive liner notes!
