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I bought a 1980 Kawai KG-3C in December 2019 and it plays great. Overall, I'm satisfied with the way it sounds, but I think it's too loud for the space that it's in. I live in a townhouse and the piano is in the living room area on the first floor, which also includes the dining room and kitchen. The whole first floor is 580 square feet.

I'm trying to see if it's worth it to voice down my piano so it sounds quieter and more mellow, as the sound is quite bright. I don't know when the piano was last voiced, if at all. I did ask my piano technician to voice down some notes that stuck out more than the rest here and there as well as during tuning, but I'm starting to wonder if I should just have the whole piano voiced down.

My question is, how long would a voicing last until the sound becomes bright again? I play about 5 days a week anywhere from 1-3.5 hours at a time, playing Chopin, Beethoven, some Bach, video game music, and my own compositions, among others.

I took pictures of the hammers and have a recording of the sound if anyone would like them.

I don't know if we could "voice" down the loudness... I would just use the left pedal and play lighter on the keys...

I would voice down the piano. Of course it is possible, and the effect is pretty big with very limited effort/cost.

What recommendation is this to just play softer?

These voicing discussions led to flame wars here in the past. The biggest problem is that we cannot know what your piano really sounds like, how you play, what your room looks like and so on. The most reasonable recommendation is to ask your tuner, and to be a bit cautious with at least the first voicing.

I'm no pro, but having the piano voiced down by someone who is highly experienced and good at it will indeed make a noticable difference. It will not, however, give the piano a totally new voice, but will make it less bright.

Also, as far as how long the voicing will last is an unknown until you have it voiced and see how long it lasts. I think anyone, including experienced techs, can only speculate as to how long it will last. And, IMHO, with the amount of playing you do, the voicing will not last as long as if you played less.

The strike point of the hammers is already compacted and compressed. The voicing needles or liquid felt softeners loosen the compacted felt fibers to an extent, making the tone more mellow and less bright, but they get re-compacted every time a note is played.

The Kawai KG3 is a nice piano.

Good luck!

Rick

For altering the loudness, as opposed to the tone, the first action is probably to put a nice thick rug under the piano and generally increase the amount of soft furnishing in the room. If that isn't enough you can then look at adding specialist sound absorbing material in the room, even inside the piano itself if nothing else is sufficient, but start with the easy obvious and domestically acceptable changes and see if those work for you.

Edit: Actually you may find that adding the soft furnishings actually mellows the tone a bit as well as reducing the volume :-)

If you are playing with the lid open, try lowering or closing the lid. It may help reduce both loudness and brightness.

You might try putting a thick rug under the piano. Also you might place some absorber/diffuser panels on the walls. Use thick drapes on windows, change the location of the piano etc.

Another often useful approach is to stuff a comforter between the soundboard and the beams. Effective, easy, cheap, and reversible.

I do have a large but thin (I'd say about a quarter-inch thick) rug that my piano sits on, and I've been playing with the lid closed or on half-stick most of the time to keep the sound down, but it is still loud. My floors are hardwood and I don't have drapes for my windows except for my sliding door by the dining room, which is on the other end of the room. I have my back to the windows when I play, but would having drapes still help in that case?

The lid open is one way for the sound to fill the room. The other one is the soundboard which propagates its sound to the floor - and if that's hardwood, that will reflect the sound directly and surely fill the room nicely. Put a really thick rug right under the piano and this will definitely mellow the sound down considerably. I had the same thing in my home and the rug made all the difference.

My solution was an almost full sized rug with a not too thick underfeldt.
My problem was a reverberation ,this gave the impression of a too loud
piano where I could not hear notes distinctly.
The piano was also moved so the bass was not so near the corner wall.
I have to say though it was the full carpet that made the main difference.

I think it’s easier on the wallet and has much more pleasant overall effect is to work on your room acoustics first. Thick wool or vegan equivalent rug under the piano is a great start. Drapes, acoustic panels and soft area rugs really help soften acoustics in the room. Then ask your piano tech about voicing adjustments to your piano. If your 40 year old piano hasn’t been well maintained over the years, then it maybe long overdue for a thorough voicing anyway. Your piano tech can best advise. Many piano owners don’t know that pianos need regular voicing and regulation along with tuning. My tech includes small but regular adjustments with his tunings. I just need to ask. Which is really convenient.

My sister didn’t know that pianos need anything other than tuning.

*Remove music desk, close lid fully and place music desk on the closed front lid possibly with some thin fabric to protect the cabinet finish under the desk.
* As previously noted pack either a comforter or better still purchased carpet underfelt available from big box stores and cut into substantial strips and pack between beams and underside of soundboard , this latter will have the most effect.

What you are doing here is putting earmuffs on your piano. It’s like wearing earmuffs to a chamber music performance. Sure the music isn’t as loud but you disportionately mute the treble and loose clarity. Dynamic range is reduced with the ability to express pp compromised.

[quote=Sanfrancisco
What you are doing here is putting earmuffs on your piano. It’s like wearing earmuffs to a chamber music performance. Sure the music isn’t as loud but you disportionately mute the treble and loose clarity.[/quote]

All of those things are I think what the OP wanted to do :-)

But, yes, you can do too much and swing the other way. Some gentle and sympathetic changes to the room , plus just closing the lid, are good things to try first.

Maybe that's what the OP wanted to do, but the Devil is in the details.If I stuff cotton in my ears, I disproportionately mute the treble frequencies.Yes, I lower the volume, but not uniformly for all frequencies.So... e.g., it gets hard to understand what someone is trying to say to me.

On the other hand, if I get some earplugs like these,
,
the effect is more like turning down the volume while adjusting tone controls to keep the sound frequencies audible as they were at higher frequencies.

The ones in the picture retail for under $20. Similar ones, fitted precisely to the ears by an audiologist, are about 10x more costly.

The analogy extends to tuning the room acoustics for the OP's piano.

My opiion.

That sounds so extreme though Seeker. Surely some sort of voicing is better.

It is a 40 year old piano so some degree of voicing might be necessary. If it was a brand new piano and the piano didn’t sound like it did in the showroom, I would work on the room acoustics first. Nearly all 40 year old pianos could some voicing and regulation work. I’d do the room acoustics first, then have the piano tech work to bring the piano to its best. So you’re both right in my humble opinion. Experienced Piano techs can work wonders but you want the room to play its part too.