New engineering concepts on Piano Sound Production

Clair de Lune sounds a bit like V-piano's silver steel feature.

I can imagine a future new feature on pianoteq.  Bridge hardness adjust, or even a impedance adjust too, to try to replicate this effect of "nice sparkling hints".

Anyway I wouldn't call it as a revolution, but call as a new option.  The piano lose some warmth, some woodness.
A revolution would the ability to enable or disable the feature on a real pianso.

It's inovative, yes.
To see in person (listen and play) it's probably more impressive, as you said.

Good luck.

Heh.

The difference is pronounced. Starting at the topmost, there's less click followed by a hiss of noise, more note, and that continues all the way down into the baritone. Practice will pull in the force needed to make these affected ranges sing rather than blast, with a bass-rebalanced new coloration the result; not so metallic as now comes across.

New. Piano still evolving.

Added: you'd suspect more forceful music would clatter, harpsichordish. Maybe hammer-tech will evolve alongside. A quieter, maybe nimbler instrument, with extreme lengths of notes held by sostenuto pedal thrown in - new fruit hanging off the tree for players.

Still, the future's surely digital.

To really judge the performance of this bridge, I think we would need videos of the same pianos before and after they had one.

The rigidity of the stone acts as a support system while keeping the crown intact in spite of weather changes that typically drive tuner techs crazy by the elasticity of wood. Stone is not affected, for instance I am in Naples Florida "humididty central"and when we transported the 5'1 baby grand to chicago that travel took 3 1/2 weeks and didn't go out of tune.

The granite helps eliminate several issues that wood bridges have where the degradation of the crown cannot happen as the granite has no elasticity and is in direct contact to the sound board.

Not at all.

The pop term "rock-on" will go nearly literally for this piano.

I was thinking ...   piano evolution use to be somewhate froze, no new attempts that really got space and popularity, like if all great musicians and pianists were happy with great pianos brands like Steinways, and concluded that no new alterations or modifications were need.

Do you think this time will be different, and classic pianists will be more open to new ideas?

Interesting videos, including the ones on still another page linked to the 2nd link above at: http://www.cymascope.com/cyma_research/musicology.html

Reading the slide at the end of the first video helped me to understand what I was watching a bit better:

"Lower harmonics are in the area of the outer boundary while higher harmonics are represented in the center region of each pattern."

But I'm still not sure what I'm seeing:

Sometimes I see, briefly, symmetrical patterns, as though I was looking through a kaleidoscopic.  Often I see a pattern of 8 repeated "things" that I want to call nodes, but if they are nodes or partials, I'm not sure why they would be repeated. Is the shape repeated for each multiple of the fundamental? Thus the pattern of 8 is the octave? Often these shapes appear near the center, so they are instead the 8th partial?

Some of the notes at http://www.cymascope.com/cyma_research/musicology.html (the videos that play when pressing the keyboard) seem more chaotic than others. The pattern of 8 seems to vanish. But surely the octave should be there, unless the inharmonicity is much higher than what is expected?

I wonder about the tolerance of this device--how far off the octave or other integer does the freq have to be before the shape is irregular?

One worry is over how the recordings were made and how the recording was played back for the device: was the mic over the string, over bridge, or over the soundboard? Over what part of the string, bridge, soundboard?

Interesting, regardless. And your bridge does seem to change the sound of the pianos. Do you do guitar bridges as well, or did I misunderstand part of one of your posts? (Not a casual question. I play guitar.)

I don't like the sound much - too harsh.  (this doesn't mean that I don't like bright pianos in general - I do, but just not this one)

Greg.

@Stonetone: If possible, perhaps you should make a recording with the best possible microphone you can get your hands on. For example, here's a recording of the Yamaha CFX which I believe uses a special microphone designed for pianos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpt7ep-08Oc  and it to me it sounds fantastic.   I know the CFX is a very good piano, but perhaps part of the reason I like it is the quality of the recording as well.  (and obviously it hasn't been done in any special hall, so I believe I'm mostly hearing the piano in this recording - not ambience)

Apparently they could be using the Earthworks Piano Mic   

Ah - here we go - quote from this Pianoworld post:  "The next piano will be a 1965 Baldwin SD 9' concert grand recorded professionally."
Re: Stone Tone (Granite) piano bridge?

Greg.

Here is the article from the wippenpost october issue from the PTG [Piano Technicians Guild] Chicago chapter.

REVIEW of the SEPTEMBER
CHAPTER MEETING
by Jeff Cappelli, RPT

   Dr Richard Bosworth (long ago a classmate at IU) and
Robert DiSanto of Stone Tone Music, came to Chicago
to show off Mr DiSanto’s solid granite treble bridge and
granite-capped bass bridge, which he installed on a Story
and Clark production piano.  Thomas Zoells acted as host
at his beautiful Pianoforte Salon in the Fine Arts Building,
where Dr Bosworth drew interesting tonal comparisons
between a new Shigeru Kawai 7’6” grand and a production
model Story and Clark small grand, modified with the new
bridge material.

   It was quite clear that for the Story and Clark, the before
and after samplings (the former recorded) were of vastly
different sound qualities—the latter being more in focus,
with greater sustain.  The granite bridge did produce a
lovely, clear sound at lower dynamic levels.  Mr DiSanto
commented that the project will require further R&D.

   Many questions arose during the evening about how the
mass of the bridges and the sensitive nature of the piano
soundboard might coexist over long periods of time.  This
made for energized conversation, with interesting
observations and comments from several of the
technicians present.

  Future innovation is essential in all industries and we are
delighted to have had the opportunity to visit with these
two—now pioneers in piano technology.  As this is the
beginning of their journey, there will undoubtedly be more
discovery and developments in the future.  Perhaps one
day we will see more modifications intended to transfer
energy as efficiently as possible to the soundboard—and to
our curious, waiting ears.
   Jeff