should you regulate before voicing?

Colleagues

THE QUESTION

I hesitate to ask this after the recent thread about voicing, but this is a serious question. I'll pop the question first. My tuner wants to tune and check the regulation of the piano before he voices it for me. He estimates up to a days labour. Tuning makes sense, but regulation?

THE BACKGROUND

My Yamaha C7 is a little over a year old. When delivered, it was bright enough to cut through reinforced concrete. I have had it tuned by the 'pro tuners' in my town. You know, the guys who charge 40% more and who are booked up 2 months in advance because all the owners of grands use them as does the local conservatorium. The guy who did the first two tunings voiced it straight after delivery, even though he was ultra-conservative and according to legend would never do voicing on a new piano. Even he could see that it was way too bright for a home environment (sorry, Jon). He seemed to use mainly shallow needles in the 10 - 2 o'clock region. The initial effect was quite nice.

So far it has had 3 1/2 tunings. The first pro left town and I am now dealing with the remaining one, who is more modern in his outlook and he at least agreed to trim the damper felts (Lisa to note - this did not eliminate the problem entirely, but it is now tolerable). He did the last 1 1/2 tunings as well, so he is familar with the piano.

After the initial voicing, I got the effect described in the previous voicing thread. Mellow at p and bright at f, with resonable graduation. Over the last year (and especially after a rather LOUD concert on it just recently, not by me), it seems uniformly bright, even at pp, especially in the mid to upper frequencies. I find that this makes it hard to control.

I explained all this to the tuner, and he said no problems, but he would want to allow up to a whole day so that he could check the regulation and tune first. He explained that these three are all closely related. I'm no technician, but I think its regulation is pretty good. The first guy set it up well only a little over a year ago, and the second guy has never made any adverse comment about it.

Now I do *really* want this graduated tone, but (up to) a full day for a pro tuner is not cheap you understand. Hence before I take a deep breath & commit, I would like a second (and third and ....) opinion about whether this sounds reasonable. Views?

Thanks

Brian

<<My Yamaha C7 <>The guy who did the first two tunings voiced it straight after delivery, even though he was ultra-conservative <> He seemed to use mainly shallow needles in the 10 - 2 o'clock region. The initial effect was quite nice. Mellow at p and bright at f, with resonable graduation. Over the last year (and especially after a rather LOUD concert on it just recently, not by me), it seems uniformly bright, even at pp, especially in the mid to upper frequencies. I find that this makes it hard to control.<<

Greetings, It doesn't sound like he did more than kill the felt on the top of the hammer. This will take the high-end zing out of the attack, but it is a very short-lived voicing and now the hammers will have to be reshaped and voiced again. Deeper needling, farther from the top, will give a lot more durable voicing, as well as increasing the fundamental, rather than just reducing the higher harmonics.

I'm no technician, but I think its regulation is pretty good. The first guy set it up well only a little over a year ago, and the second guy has never made any adverse comment about it.

Now I do *really* want this graduated tone, but (up to) a full day for a pro tuner is not cheap you understand. Hence before I take a deep breath & commit, I would like a second (and third and ....) opinion about whether this sounds reasonable. Views?>>

It may or may not need a whole day. That seems like a lot, but if you are looking at 100% performance level work, it could be a normal amount of time. Before you let anyone loose with your hammers, familiarize yourself with their idea of voicing. This means playing two pianos that they have done similar work on in the past month! There is no subsititute for actually hearing the work instead of the sales pitch. Regards,

Ed Foote Nashville, Tennessee

Specifically addressing a Yamaha grand of the age and condition you describe: If you are saying he will resurface the hammers (due to string grooves), touch up the regulation, do some additional needle voicing as needed, and tune, all in one day, I would say that if the work is good he is a bit high on the time estimate but not outlandishly so. To me, it seems like about 4 hours work (+ -).

He may be allowing some latitude in time in case the regulation turns out to be worse than expected, or maybe he has not developed much speed at this kind of work.

If the hammers are grooved by wear (the usual cause of voicing need in Yamahas), then resurfaced, it's good to touch up the regulation to make up for the lost dimension at the hammer felt. The regulation is done *after* the resurfacing, but ideally before any needling. To do it before resurfacing is folly. And there may be some additional regulating need based on general wear. Probably not much, but it's nice to go ahead and do it while you're in there. I wouldn't expect much on one as new as yours, unless the piano is worked unusually long and hard. I would expect to do hammer stroke, drop, and perhaps some repetition springs, as opposed to a full regulation. One or two hours on regulation touch-up, perhaps less. But that is based on speedy techniques which may not be known or practiced by all.

I wouldn't call regulation an absolute requirement but it is certainly recommended if the hammers are resurfaced, in order to keep it 'to spec'. It is part of my normal procedure after hammer resurfacing taking care of a fleet of Yamaha grands. You might notice the declining regulation, you might not.

That is the overview as I see it. My gut feeling is that he may not exactly be a specialist in this kind of work else he would give a tighter time estimate. But one may not always be able to find a specialist because of one's locale. It then becomes more important the work is done well as opposed to quickly. Regulation is recommended highly if the hammers get resurfaced, but it is of less concern on such a new Yamaha piano if they are not resurfaced. In either case my position is to inform the client of the facts, and if they don't want the regulation work done that is their privilege- I would merely state my disclaimers.

And the disclaimer in *this* thread: The above addresses a specific piano of specific model of a specific age. Actual mileage may vary significantly in other situations. A piano which is old and needs a lot of regulation may need a significant time factor more work.

Rick Clark

I tried to keep the initial post short. There were a lot more caveats in what the tuner actually said to me, which was along your line above. While he too wouldn't expect that much regulation work would be needed in this situation, he needed to allow time in his diary just in case. He also needs to determine how precise a voicing the customer might want, as those with a discerning ear will have more precise and therefore more time consuming requirements. I gather I am quickly gaining the reputation of just such a customer. Pity that my playing doesn't match my ear.

See above comment. I wonder just how tight an estimate he could give unless he was already intimately familiar with the instrument. He initially said 1/2 day to a full day, but later in the discussion was talking more like a full day. I guess the real issues for me are the time out of my own diary, as I will need to be there at least for the voicing stage, and the cost. I realise that I need to confirm with him whether I am paying by the hour, or paying a flat rate for a whole day of his time, as he won't schedule other appointments that day. The recent thread on paying for cancellations and the opppotunity cost of time is remotely relevant.

Thanks to Rick and Ed for their thoughtful replies.

Brian Downunder

It is just acupuncture, but I would ask a few questions too.

dimension to their approach is that they believe

I'm a fan of the 'Yamaha Sound' even though it's much brighter than people used to Steinway's prefer.

And when I had my 6 month old C-7 voiced, it was to make it sound more *even* across the entire range, and not to substantially alter the way it sounds. There were a few notes that just stuck out, and they were voiced to blend in better with the neighboring notes. It gets played between 1 and 3 hours/day, so I suspect it will need to be done again as grooves are worn in, etc.

If you don't care for the sound as-is (modulo some slight adjustments), then you should consider another brand of piano!