Perzina 112 - some notes sound muted

[Fostel]

Hi,

I bought a Perzina 112 from Dawsons almost 2 yrs ago. When it arrived, there were several issues, straight away. The damper pedal 'clicked' against something internal once pressed, making it unusable. Also when the damper pedal was pressed, all the keys kind of hummed slightly, as if something was snagging the whole lot. Also, some of the keys (around the F-sharp key to the left of middle C) sounded muted. They didn't 'sing' as it were, like the rest of the keyboard. There was an annoying squeak too when the mid range keys were pressed. All in all, I was pretty annoyed that this brand new piano was far from perfect.

Anyway, had the piano tuner from Dawsons out straight away to look at the issues. He came to look at the piano about 5 or 6 times in total over the course of a few months. He only managed to fix the humming issue and the squeak.

I eventually used a non Dawsons tuner, who was much better. He fixed the pedal problem straight away. There was a nut completely loose inside the piano where the pedals are and he used some felt to resolved the clicking problem.

Currently all the issues are resolved, apart from the muted keys around F Sharp (to the left of middle C). It is annoying as hell as they really stand out when playing soft pieces. I had one of the Dawsons sales engineer guys out and he had a good look at the issue. The issue is with the keys where the strings change from 3 wires to 1. The Dawsons guy concluded that one of the 3 wires (making up the F Sharp note) was out and needed tweaking. I had my tuner guy around again and he said no that isn't the problem. He said with such a compact piano, I will probably have to live with the sound as is.

So, I don't know what to do now. It's been 2 yrs since I bought it from Dawsons. They said it should be resolved via a very thorough tuning. But their tuner guy was no good and my tuner guy (who is excellent) confirmed he doesn't think so.

Do anybody have any ideas, about the muted keys and also any suggestions about what I can do, if I cannot fix the piano?

Thanks

Jason

[NewAge]

Was your Perzina chosen after having played the very same piano in the store, and did it sound perfectly at that time? Or was it new and uncrated at delivery?
Can you post a few detailed (close-up) photos of the strings at the F sharp and either side.
It sounds to me as if the piano may benefit by a thorough regulation by someone who knows what he's doing.

[Barrie Heaton]

Hi,


Do anybody have any ideas, about the muted keys and also any suggestions about what I can do, if I cannot fix the piano?

Thanks

Jason

I take it you mean change form 3 to 2 strings at the treble Bass section.

NewAge as pointed out that it may need a good regulating often Perzina piano do go out very badly set up . Ask your tuner to look at the split wedge damper it may not be clearing all the strings when the key is down

is the note muted when the sustain pedal is pressed

Barrie

[Fostel]

Was your Perzina chosen after having played the very same piano in the store, and did it sound perfectly at that time? Or was it new and uncrated at delivery?
Can you post a few detailed (close-up) photos of the strings at the F sharp and either side.
It sounds to me as if the piano may benefit by a thorough regulation by someone who knows what he's doing.

Thanks for your reply. The piano that was delivered to my house came from a Dawson's warehouse I believe - it wasn't the exact one I saw in the showroom, if that it what you mean. I will post some pictures when I am back home in a few days. What is regulation? Is it something a normal piano tuner can carry out? Just wondering why my piano tuner didn't think to do it after I brought the issue to his attention.

[Fostel]

Hi,


Do anybody have any ideas, about the muted keys and also any suggestions about what I can do, if I cannot fix the piano?

Thanks

Jason

I take it you mean change form 3 to 2 strings at the treble Bass section.

NewAge as pointed out that it may need a good regulating often Perzina piano do go out very badly set up . Ask your tuner to look at the split wedge damper it may not be clearing all the strings when the key is down

is the note muted when the sustain pedal is pressed

Barrie

Thanks for replying. Yes I do mean the section where it goes from 3 to 2, sorry. The F sharp key is the last of the 3 string notes.

I think the split wedge damper is clearing OK actually. This was looked at by the Dawsons tuner way back and that made an improvement but there is still a dull sound coming from that F Sharp key. Even with the sustain pedal fully pressed the note still sounds shallow. Is it possible to post a sound/video clip on this forum?

[Barrie Heaton]

Yes you can upload 5meg is the limit

Barrie

[rxd]

You have been very patient. To send the same person to you 5-6 times to no effect is not rational and it is most likely too late to exchange your piano for the one you selected from the showroom floor. It shouldn't be too late to have your piano replaced anyway, particularly since you registered your dissatisfaction early enough.

It's time the head office of Dawsons took an interest. Failing that, the importer then the manufacturer.

Somewhere along this chain of responsibility someone should respond to your request to send out at no cost to you, to you a trustworthy technician familiar with and experienced in tone regulation. They have paid for 5-6 ineffectual visits so far, it would have been less expensive to send out the right tech in the first place.

Such a person will check the stringing, tuning, action, clearances, etc. and then, if necessary, skilfully adjust the volume, tone quality and sustain of the notes involved so that they more closely match each other and the rest of the piano.

[vernon]

If it has splt wedge dampers they are notorious for not completely clearing although they appear to have.
Are the first two or three bass dampers fouling the strings of the last couple of notes before the brak.Behind and underneath? You can;t see what they are doing and there is a quick test to check.
What I'm concerned about is that none of the technicians sorted it on the spot unless there is some drastic design fault.

[Barrie Heaton]

I think the split wedge damper is clearing OK actually. This was looked at by the Dawsons tuner way back and that made an improvement but there is still a dull sound coming from that F Sharp key.

OK. did any of the tuners swap the hammer with the one to the right of the F Sharp note to see it was not a hammer fault "over voiced". If it is the hammer, then it just needs juicing up then machining in.

Barrie

[rxd]

Where guarantees are involved, it is prudent to deal with Dawsons and have the local manager refer the problem to head office. In the best run companies, they would then enlist the aid of the distributer and ascertain the problem for themselves by sending out their most experienced tech. or hiring in a first class tech (not a 'sales engineer' whatever that is) and either correct the problem or have the dealer arrange an exchange of some sort.

A customer told to "live with it" might just as well have bought on line.

(While i totally agree with your provisional diagnosis, surely, Barrie, chemicals are still the last resort, not the first??? You probably did't mean it the way it read).

[Barrie Heaton]

A customer told to "live with it" might just as well have bought on line.

(While i totally agree with your provisional diagnosis, surely, Barrie, chemicals are still the last resort, not the first??? You probably did't mean it the way it read).

If it is over voiced then it the Iron or chemical no other way Nothing wrong with doing that way NY S&S start their life juiced up unless you voice all the piano to match that one note Which is not the best way. Myself, the best option now would be to let the client pick a new one AND DELIVER that one as he did not get the one off the shop floor in the first place.

it may not be the hammer could be a badly carved bridge or no side draft on the bridge pins...... But! you are correct he should be working with the retailer. Some times clients just get frustrated with being given the run-around which can happen with large shops probably not intentional but the way they are set up it just happens.

Barrie

[rxd]

Under the heading of "now you tell me", it is always a must to note down the serial number of the piano you have selected. Since this is a public forum, I thought it a good idea to mention this,

'One to show and one to go' is a common marketing method where one piano is well prepared on the showroom floor and another one from the warehouse is sent to the customer. works well for fridges and microwaves and much of the time for smaller pianos but, as we have seen, not always.

Also under "tell me about it"...I used to laquer Steinway hammers by the truckload....literally. In the years before they started dipping the hammers in a vat of the stuff. Every month, when the 18 wheeler truck pulled in from New York two of us would be waiting to start work immediately because the stuff we were using took 36 hours to dry enough so that we knew what we had to work with. There were faster drying methods but slow drying solvents produced superior results.

You are right, it was the first thing we did before the rest of the prep. 20-30 piano actions drying. We had a production line The place stank. Health and safety would never allow it now. This was in LA so it was most likely illegal even then. NY Steinway pianos varied around the country in those days from a local store policy of no hardeners, allowing the piano to be played in, through plastics and acetone solutions to the style I was taught in LA which gave great depth of tone and sometimes needed an additional brightening agent. The trick was to judge the ammount and strength of the laquer so that no needling was required. If we misjudged, there were so many pianos that we could shunt the piano into a corner and deal with it later when the hardener was thoroughly dry.

In proceeding direct to hammer hardeners, I am assuming that you have already tightened the buttflange screw, much volume and attack can be gained from just doing that. Checking the centerpinning, of course. Seating strings both ends and mating hammers to strings will also have a positive effect, particularly in mating the hammer to the string, an infinitessimal shaving of felt is taken from one side or the other of the strikeface. Everybody knows the ancient long proven Wolfenden single long needle method as described in his book that must be nearly 100 years old by now. There is a shallower version of almost the same thing which is even more effective. My German needle holder has a plastic plate at the opposite end for tamping down the felt on and around the playing surface...I could go on..., not forgetting the Hamburg pre-voicing method. All these preliminaries can be done on the offending note in less than 2 minutes.....Oh, burnishing the playing surface with a cold, flat piece of steel or I have used the back of my plastic papps wedge case.

You are absolutely right, though, Barrie, chemicals are usually only necessary if someone has already had a go at it beforehand but for factory fresh hammers, if all or some of the above is carried out, the offending note can quickly become the best sounding note on the piano.

Having a propensity for travel, I have done a lot of store work and consequently guarantee calls. There is always work for a tuner-tech all over the world. When I was in Manchester as a trumpet player in the '60's, (Opera house, Palace, Halle Granada TV, NDO, Tower Company Blackpool),The Ajello factory had just closed. I did some piano work for George Vincent's in Ashton-u-Lyne, Remember them? In their upstairs room was a whole library of 'the Pianomaker' magazine dating back to the early '20's. There were articles on just this sort of stuff written by factory foremen and workers from all the great factories. I wonder what happened to that library when they pulled the building down. Anybody any Idea???

[rxd]

In dealing with a piano this morning that had some spillage in it, (yes, I start early at conservatories, it leaves the day free). I automatically flicked a string in order to quickly determine the extent of the damage to the stringing and I realised that none of us had mentioned this simple diagnostic device in the context of the particular problem in this thread.

Jason, if you're still out there. This is something you can do for yourself.

While silently holding down the offending note, pluck its strings with the corner of a credit card or some kind of improvised plectrum. Each string should ring clear. Rather like a banjo but with sustain. If you are not certain what you should be hearing, do the same thing with a neighbouring note that you like the sound of and compare. A copper wound string will sound slightly different from a plain steel string but not much.

I deliberately didn't suggest using the fingernail to pluck because piano strings will discolour within days of touching them. It takes time for the chemIcal reaction between natural oils and metal to take place so the discolouration is not immediate. In a severe case where strings are touched a lot, or a finger has been run along the entire length of the string, the tone will certainly suffer.

Anyway, that's the basic diagnostic.

The spillage? Quite ironic, really, I had spent 2 hours last week instructing students on safe ways of preparing pianos for John Cage works, it being the hundredth anniversary of Cages birth, and left them to continue the preparation by themselves.
The festival went well with no damage to the pianos but the spill happened later as an inquisitive person at the reception afterwards got too close to the prepared piano with her drink. I selected pianos that were due for restringing anyway.

[Fostel]

Thanks for all the recent comments.

I tried the credit card tip and as far as I can determine, each of the 3 strings sounds OK when individually plucked. In fact this is the technique the Dawson's Sales person (who came out to see for himself, way back after several complaints from me) used. And it is after plucking the individual strings that he concluded that one of them was 'out' and that this was the cause of the muted sound when the note was played.

I been having a fiddle around with the position of the split damper on that F5 sharp set of strings and it appears that the issue isn't as bad as it was. I have been trying to listen out for the issue for so long I don't know if my ear has become hyper sensitive to it. So at the moment, it sounds OK. It has definitely sounded a lot worse. I am going to pop into Dawson's and have a look at the showroom 112's to compare.

Thanks again for all the advice anyway, great to know there is a wealth of knowledge out there.

Jason

[Barrie Heaton]

Thanks for all the recent comments.


I been having a fiddle around with the position of the split damper on that F5 sharp set of strings and it appears that the issue isn't as bad as it was. I have been trying to listen out for the issue for so long I don't know if my ear has become hyper sensitive to it. So at the moment, it sounds OK. It has definitely sounded a lot worse. I am going to pop into Dawson's and have a look at the showroom 112's to compare.

Thanks again for all the advice anyway, great to know there is a wealth of knowledge out there.

Jason

Not for you to do but sound like the spoons need regulating and damper lift with pedal this should have been spotted on day one if he use the CC to pluck the strings

Barrie

[Fostel]

Can I just check, are all the techniques you have mentioned something a standard piano tuner should be able to administer?

Thanks

Jason

[Colin Nicholson]

I tuned a Bosendorfer Grand 275 (9ft 2/ 92 key) last week - wonderful sound, and came across the same problem with ALL the split wedge dampers - about 10 of them on this piano. Sounded reasonable when all 3 strings sounding, but when I muted the outer strings, the middle strings only lasted a few seconds (became more noticeable when all 3 sounding later). Basically this was down to some wear & tear on the cushion felts at the backs of the keys - very slightly tweaked the damper spoons down a taj - and all dampers work fine now. A simple job for a piano technician - but the split wedge dampers often need a little more clearance than the rest.

[Barrie Heaton]

Can I just check, are all the techniques you have mentioned something a standard piano tuner should be able to administer?

Thanks

Jason

Pedals is just turning a nut. Spoons most tuners should be able to do this with no effort if they are members of the PTA or ABPT its part of their test. There are 2 methods, through the action or over the top and in from the back.

Barrie

[vernon]

proper Piano Regulation is a trade on it's own.
Generally, piano tuners should be able to adjust defective notes and remedy everyday faults.
A piano technician is different.Plenty of analogies spring to mind; the GP and the surgeon-- the skipper and the leading seaman. All specific skills .
When there were apprenticeships in actual factories one would work hands-on at each trade in turn and then specialise in one., but coming out with a broad knowledge that cannot be learnt by rote.

[rxd]

Exactly, Colin. Thats why I suggested pressing the note to release the damper instead of using the pedal. I would hesitate to adjust at the spoon on a small upright. As you know, further travel on the tenor damper can cause the lower end of the tenor damper to be forced back into the string by contact with a bass damper stem. I'd rather trim the excessive damper felt. Easy on an upright. Not quite so easy on a grand but I'd still do it that way on a grand if there's time on order to forestall noisy release and reseating during playing. KIlling two birds with one stone.

[Colin Nicholson]

Absolutely.... agree there on an upright, especially as the dampers nearly clash. I've sometimes taken a slither of felt off aswell. No need for that tho on the Bosendorfer, mainly split wedge around the scale area, I think just the one crosses over.