Year-old piano leaves something to be desired

I have a 6' Schimmel 182 for about a year now. I have read on this news group and other boards that this is considered a fairly good European piano. However, I find that the touch is not as 'crisp' as I would like. It has a similar feel to playing a Yamaha C2 or C3, and I can't seem to do trills as 'cleanly' and quickly as on my piano teacher's Grotrian.

While I understand that my Schimmel is not in the same league as the Grotrian, the piano dealer had said the stiffness is due to the piano being new and it would get better with playing. After a year and at least 10 hours of serious practising every week, I am still not satisfied with the touch and getting increasingly frustrated.

Is there any way that a technician could improve the situation? What should I ask the technician to change/regulate?

Or should I be thinking of trading up?

Any advice would be very much appreciated

would get better with playing. After a year and at least 10 hours of serious practising every week, I am still not satisfied with the touch and getting increasingly frustrated.

Greetings, Your piano is out of regulation. This is normal for a new piano, in that the felt and leather used to keep the action quiet has packed down and the levers are now out of place. At the least, you will need the jacks, let-off, drop, hammer blow, and perhaps, spring and repetition levers reset. Any new piano, after 500 hours of serious practising, will need to be regulated. 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!

I agree with Ed Foote. But you must align yourself with a good technician who regulates often. Don't be someone's 'learning experience'.

Ofyten, dealer technicians are not up to snuff on regulation or otherwise preparing pianos. It's not unusual at all.

Since you seem to be saying the piano has not been great since brand new, there could be other issues beyond normal regulation- such as friction or humidity issues. Another argument for needing a very sharp tech.

I have a suspicion, though, that the new 'stiffness' may relate to the repetition springs being too stiff. It is a normal part of regulation to adjust them, but not all technicians do all the normal things. Mention it to your regulating tech. This particular problem will express itself as obnoxious extra resistance after jack escapement- which is to say the last 1/3 of the key travel. Also, feeling a 'bumping' sensation through your finger when you let go of the key.

I suppose it is possible that after getting the Schimmel ultra-tweaked out, you may still long for the Grotrian. I don't know. It's hard for me to believe that someone could play beyond the abilities of that Schimmel. But musicians sometimes can have extremely particular needs.

Regards,

Rick Clark

Having read past posts on the effects of humidity on pianos, it occurred to me that the ambient humidity might be in part responsible for the unresponsive action in my piano.

I live in the tropics where the relative humidity indoors is between 80-95% and temperature 26-30 Celcius year-round. My Schimmel is in a corner of a large living room, which has no air-conditioning, but there is nowhere else I can put my piano. The room is very large and the windows are usually opened for air circulation. To reduce the ambient humidity, I have installed a de-humidifier on timer that blows dry heated air under the piano for 30 minutes every 2 hours. The air is not directly blown at the soundboard, but sort of passes in a parallel line under the piano. My piano already has a heating rod installed somewhere near the keys, and there is also a pot of dehumifying pellets inside. I have been keeping track of the humidity inside my piano with a hygrometer, and it is usually fairly constant at about 75%.

It has been suggested to me that I might need more than one heating rod in my piano to bring the humidity down to 40-50%. My Schimmel dealer is also the agent for Damp Chaser, so I could get them to install the system.

Woul d I need to install the entire Damp Chaser system (humifier as well as dehumidifier) or would I simply need more heating rods (may or may not be Damp Chaser brand)? Where would the extra rods go, since I already have one rod near the keys? Can I put another in the vicinity?

Here's what should work in your situation. Do not expect others to neccesarily confirm this advice. But I have developed this technique in the humid subtropics, and it works:

Either one 50 watt or two 25 watt 48inch rods mounted under the soundboard. positioned for even distribution. (If the piano is 7 feet long or more, a third rod under the soundboard bringing the total wattage up to 75 may be called for.) A 35 watt 36 inch rod mounted under the keybed, situated approximately mid way front-back under the position of the piano action (as shown in installation instructions supplied with the product). A 15 watt or 25 watt rod (24 or 36 inches) mounted to a plate strut (on top where the strings are). These 3 or 4 rods all should be powered by a Dampp-Chaser humidistat, installed in the proper fashion under the soundboard. You will need a mult adapter for all the plugs to go into the one humidistat jack.

In addition to the above, you will need a proper piano string cover. It works in concert with the rod which is lashed to the plate strut. Without the string cover, that rod makes no sense. Dampp-Chaser does not sell string covers. (They should.) But they are available to piano technicians from Edwards String Covers or Accent Piano Service, both in California.

So we are talking about 3 or 4 rods, a humidistat, and a string cover. In the situation you describe, I would not expect anything less to work well.

If anyone tries to sell you on the idea of rods without the humidistat, blow them off. Dampp-Chaser specifically warns against this practice, and with good reason.

Regards,

Rick Clark

I bought a box with dehumidifying pellets. It has a part with the pellets and the water accumulates in the lower part. My piano tooner was terrified and said that he saw rust on strings at somebody who used the same pellets.

Michel de NostreDame

Rick, very grateful for the detailed suggestion. I will certainly try this out plus the other regulating advice to see if I can bring my Schimmel up to scratch. If after I have tried everything I am still unhappy, I might have to move to a bigger house with an extra room (for climate control) and get a better piano!

And thanks very much for introducing me to string covers (first time I have heard of them); they sound like a good idea; keeps the dust out, if nothing else. One more question though: I did a search for both companies, but they do not seem to have websites. Do you know how I might get in touch with either so that I might buy directly if I cannot find them here (in Singapore)?

At this juncture, I would like to add that I really appreciate all the help people on this newsgroup have given. I have not really been impressed by the few techs I have met in Singapore. Perhaps it is because most people here view them as nothing more than piano tuners and therefore do not expect a higher level of service, so they in turn offer nothing more. Before I started reading this and other piano boards about 6 months ago and bought Larry Fine's book, I never imagined there were such concepts as regulation and voicing. I always thought that all pianos needed was a tuning now and then! All I have to do now is to find a good tech...