Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum I'll be doing a Music Sorb test

At one of the colleges I tune for, there is a practice room that has two identical Boston uprights in it. The seasonal pitch fluctuation of the two pianos is pretty much identical (30c flat by January, 30c sharp end of August). I'm going to put Music Sorb in one of them at the onset of the humid season this spring during the last batch of tunings. When I come back the following late August/early September, I'll check and see if the one with Music Sorb is any less sharp. I figure it should be a fairly accurate test since the pianos are identical model and age, and are both in the same room. Should be interesting!

Sounds like a great opportunity to collect some data for comparison. Any chance you could put one of those humidity data loggers in one of the pianos? That would make the whole experiment much more valuable.

Thats a good idea, thanks!

Awesome idea! I'd love to see the data! I would be very surprised if there was much difference in the pianos. I just can't imagine Musicsorb could take enough moisture out of the air to make a dent in the soundboard's EMC.

I'll try to keep an open mind though...

Thanks for being our "Mythbuster"!

Thanks, Ryan! I'm just curious, so I figure I have a fairly decent control situation (though by no means scientific), so why not? If Music Sorb DOES help in low-to-moderate humidity fluctuations, then it's probably worth it to add to our list of things to provide to customers.

Maybe in a home that has AC and a whole house humidifer, Music Sorb would give an added layer to help smooth things out between the seasons.

Hi Loren,

I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that MusicSorb might of "some" benefit. After all, it's not unusual for a new piano to be shipped with desiccant bags.

My suspicion is that MusicSorb will tend to slow down the transition from humid to dry and vice versa. Though not as good as a D-C system (because there is a limit as to how much moisture MusicSorb can absorb or give off), it might at least slow down the effect on the soundboard from sudden changes.

Edit: It might be more effective at stabilizing the piano from day to day variations rather than from season to season.

My understanding is the desiccant bags are for condensation in shipping overseas. The pianos are sealed up and the bags are designed to absorb moisture only. Very different application.

I'm looking forward to the data. My prediction is that Musicsorb will be shown to be useless. How much water can a Kleenex box worth of pellets hold? When I had a dehumidifier running in my shop, I would empty almost a gallon of water out a day from that thing! Musicsorb could maybe hold a pint?

I attended a presentation on Musicsorb years ago, and was told that it was origianlly designed for museum exhibits and art that are sealed. It makes sense in that application, but a piano is completely different.

Ryan, some crystals are pretty technologically advanced. Look at those newer cat litter pellets, for example, that hold like 100X their weight in water, etc...

Now of course, it's not going to be as effective as room humidity control; that's a given. I"m still curious to see if it makes some difference, though. Who knows, you may be right!

Loren, I did something similar to this test a few years back. I have two small G. Heintzman spinets that are identical in the same room of my home. Being a gun collector, I had purchased 5 lbs of bead silica gel dessicant (reactivatable) for my gun safes and took some of it to put inside one of the spinets. I did this in the summer where our humidity goes fairly high in this area. Normally both of these pianos went sharp of 440 about 15-20 cents during the summer. I used two small containers of dessicant in one, with about 8 oz of dessicant in each and it did nothing to change the pitch rise. When I doubled up the amount I noticed a small decrease in the rise. I gave up on the experiment because I could not spare any more to see if the results would improve.

My conclusions were that the structure of the piano was not tight enough to make full use of the dessicants abilities. Since then I put a DC system in one of the pianos and it very easily handles the humidity swings with far less hassle than having to recharge the dessicant beads every 2 weeks. I also figure that the soundboard has two sides to it and with my set up I was only reducing humidity exposure to one side. I still dont understand how the DC system is so effective with the same one sided exposure.

I"m getting ready to contact a distributor to get what I need for the experiment. The only thing I haven't decided yet is if I'm going to do the experiment on grands or verticals. At the college I'm going to do the test in, I have two different control rooms I can choose from. One has two verticals, the other two Steinway grands (one a B, the other an L).

Please, do both! But if you only can do one set, I vote for the uprights. Since most pianos we service are uprights and because it is more likely to work in an upright since they are more enclosed than a grand.

Tell us more about how you plan to run your experiment.

It would be really great to put a USB data logger in each piano to take humidity measurements:
http://www.microdaq.com/lascar/humidity/usb-humidity-logger.php

Good luck with the experiment. I'm looking forward to the results!

Thanks Ryan! I agree with you about the verticals vs grands.

Here's the plan. A practice room in the lower level at one of the colleges I service has two identical Boston uprights. These pianos were bought at the same time and are the exact same model. They're about 7 years old. When I go in in late August to tune, I'll find the tenor sections of these things 30-40 cents sharp, and just as flat by the time January hits. What I plan on doing it equipping one with Music Sorb and leaving them through the summer, after which I can note the difference when I go back in for the fall round of tunings.

Not exactly scientific, but I think it helps that the control pianos are the same make, model, and age, and are in the same room.

I'm interested in the results! I'm always looking for ways to minimize the effects of the humidity swings here, and I think Music Sorb looks promising. Certainly better than no control at all, and better than the mason jar full of water in the bottom of the piano. :p Oh wait, most of those only contain dust any more...

go with the verticals

@Loren: Go for it - by all means, I would think anybody here would be most interested in a "hands-on" research like yours.

As for dampp-chasers there is probably a lot of field response already, but I've had a chance to monitor a few almost identical grands side by side, tuned by me, one dampp-chasered, the other one without humidity control. There is a huge difference on both ends, during peak humidity (85%) as well as during extreme dryness (<15%). If anybody's interested I will dwell further on this.

Hi Loren,

Were you able to run your tests? If so, what were the results?

Thanks,
-Joe

http://musicsorbonline.com/product/music_sorb_brochure.pdf

This brochure from their website explains that the MusicSorb also release moisture, targeting a 40-60 Rh in the piano. Regular dessicants only pull the moisture...and run out of room! It seems like the idea is a good one....but I would dearly like to hear how the results of your test came out, Loren.

Wassup? Got any news for us?

Trembling with,
antici--------pation!
I am,

I bet you could get silica gel packets from other suppliers for much less expense.

From the brochure:
Music Sorb should be replaced at least once a year to retain the effectiveness of the product. The
manufacturer will stand behind the effectiveness of
Music Sorb for one year from product opening. [Emphasis added]

Quite interesting! There is a warranty as to its effectiveness.

Obviously the test is as stale as this thread.

Is Loren D still around?

He was just on here a few days ago.

Sometimes, stuff just comes up. Maybe there was some reason he was not able to complete the test.

For myself, I resurrected this thread after seeing the my idea of treating the soundboard with M****k's did not work.

I am just looking for alternatives for clients that cannot afford a D-C system. I remembered this thread. The thing about tests like this is that they really can take years to generate useful data.

So, I figured I'd ask how things went, or, if the test is finished yet.