Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Nasal uprights

Wouter says all uprights suffer from a nasal mid range - I think I know what he means. Quick experiment to see if it's because they are against the wall and/or because the mechanism is boxed in.

1. Against the wall - recorder hanging over the back:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IX0yVMB7unQ

2. Against the wall - all front panels off including keybord lid - recorder hanging over the front.

http://www.sailwave.com/music/front.mp3

3. Piano square to room - recorder behind piano centre of sound box about 18" away and door open behind it.

http://sailwave.com/music/liadovop40.mp3

I'm really not entirely sure what wouter means by nasal mid range. The upright I have at home is currently against the wall though. I'm not really willing to move it since it's way to heavy. My digital piano is against the wall too but this nasal mid range doesn't effect digitals does it? Your playing is very pretty btw LaValse

In my view uprights are always a compromise - hopefully we all like them to sound as good as they can, but they are what they are. When I listened to the recital I got caught up in the music that very few of the pianos themselves caught my attention. Mr Super-Hunky's Mason & Hamlin was probably the one that stood out because that bass is kicking.

For the most part I didn't care whether it was an upright, grand or digital.

I just took a listen at #1 and #2 for interest. I do like the sound of the Kawai uprights and BenPiano's K5 sounds great to me. #2, which happens to be wouter79's Grotian 179 ... to my ears did not sound as nice a piano. Perhaps that's why I bought a K3

I should be working now, so I will be brief.. I work from home and not easy to cope with the enticement of the pW forum. don't you think it has a lot to do with the recording machine. mine is zoom q3hd. it does not record the ff as ff. i will experiment with my beethoven pathetique first movement. the ending has big loud bang... bang... bang.. Bang...! I am attaching the chords with my arms not with the wrist. i will see if it records as it is or it records more like mf. it seems like the machines seems to self regulate... if the sound is bigger than it can handle, it seems to be doing something to distribute it in the specified range. so i think your experience might have something to with the way your recorder works. borrow someone's recorder and try it.

@andy - good point - I think I'll let it go...

No matter what I do I can't seem to record my piano (Yamaha U1) so it sounds like it does when I am playing it. I've tried different mics and hand held recorders and different mic placement. I've about reached the point where I don't think it's worth the time it takes to fool with making the recording better.
The fact that my old ears are probably lacking in treble response doesn't help.

The digital users have an advantage in ease of recording...

And my wife would never let me move the piano around in the room or turn it to point out somehow. Everything has to be arranged just so...

But I know that my U1 (It's actually a UX1) does change tone right at the "break". Lift the lid and look at where the strings change from steel to copper wound. Play the notes right around that break and see if you can recognize a tonal change. On mine three or four notes on the treble side of the break sound stuffy.

Sam

I've played a few uprights before and must say that many of them sound incredibly good. The weak spot on just about every piano is the bass reproduction. This is usually diminished due to smaller scale piano dimensions as well as the piano itself being not totally 100% rigid.

Just like with stereo speakers, in order to get super bass response you must increase the size of the woofer (and magnet to power it) as you will be moving much more air.

With a piano, when it comes to bass response, size does matter as well as the rigid contruction of the piano itself. This is why only Mason & Hamlin uses a sort of solid metal spoked wagon wheel called a "tension resonator" built into their grand pianos. That along with a ridiculously overbuilt rim makes the Masons produce crazy deep and roaring bass. There is a reason the piano weighs 1,200 lbs! (not a misprint!)

I love going nuts playing with the incredible Ka-Boom bass.

Many thanks!

By nasal I mean that usually the midrange (c3 to c4) sounds damped, a bit like playing music through a pipe.

"this nasal mid range doesn't effect digitals does it?"

Not sure but I suppose that the speaker placement in a DP has a major impact, just like the placement of a soundboard in an acoustic.

*Deleted*

FarmGirl,

For the recording volume, always use manual control with pianos. auto volume control will mess up your recording.

LaValse,

What do you think when you hear these recordings and when you are playing?

IMHO recording 2 sounds way better. You seem to have more dynamic range and the piano seems to be more singing. I still hear some nasality but it seems much less.

I would also like to hear situation with piano both from the wall and all lids off!

Andy, I think your judgment of the pianos is confused. To start with, I think you can't properly compare two extremely different pieces, one played with full pedal and another without pedal at all. Second, there is extreme difference in loudness of recordings. Rule of thumb is that the loudest always sounds better.

LaValse, did you already try piano square to room PLUS all panels removed?

I'm not sure the recording an playback capabilities give an accurate representation of how pianos are sounding.

Maybe everyone should post their audiogram, so we'd know about any hearing impairments too.

Malkin,
My impression is that most mics, even the simpler ones, have no problems picking up the nasal sound we're looking for here. This is a pretty low frequency aspect I think, well within any mic's range. Provided that the setup is done properly. I think LaValse's setup is sufficient for this. I can clearly hear the nasality. I suppose LaValse can hear it in real too. In fact I noticed that you can often hear this kind of artefacts even better on recording than in real.

LaValse,

This piece has a lot of sustain and lots of notes together which makes it hard to hear the effect.

Can you play a piece without sustain, and with some articulation like staccato?

How about this very simple piece : simplified hungarian dance, I use it often for this test. Play the top part legato, the bass line staccato. All mf should be good enough.

http://www.8notes.com/scores/998.asp