The following was posted by Thomas Kaduk on the PianoWorld forum...
Dear all,
First of all I want to say that I am amazed by the fact that we appear on such an international big forum so suddenly.
As some did mention the website was just quickly compiled after a spike of attention after a pianist for whom we made the interface was invited at the international epta conference in Vienna in last October. Photos are indeed taken by mobile phone of the stuff that was around at the workplace at that moment. Judging from the reactions some clarification might be welcome. And, Hans, thank you for informing us about the thread.
As for our standard products we basically offer keyboards made in different ways and in any size. If the keyboard is straight, which means the regular size, not much is wrong with wooden keys and felt bushings. You can get our wooden keyboards for it, or many other keyboards on the market. Obviously there still is space for improvement from a wooden keyboard performance wise. But only if the pianist is interested in quicker response and more precise feeling. Not all are, some just prefer a good amount of mass.
Together with pianists and physicians we have been doing research on ergonomics. For me it is an absurd thought that people of different sizes have to play on the same size and shape of keys. It appears that in many circumstances the regular one has enormous drawbacks in terms of musicality and health. For that reason we offer all our products in all layouts and sizes.
When only the size (or shape) of the keyboard changes a lot in a normal piano, the keys are not straight anymore and serious drawbacks are introduced in the performance since the keysystem is not stable anymore since the center of mass shifts outside the base of support in normal set-up. The keys start to swim around in their normally soft bushings and get very irregular -and in some parts of the trajectory- sudden very high friction. Also they get a lot of torsion on the wood which together results in a very indirect and muddy response. In order to solve the problem there are several things that can be done. Stability of the system can only be solved using the vertical axis. The support can be lifted and the center of mass can be lowered. Or the bushings can be made harder and more precise and the keys can be made stiffer but not heavier. As long as there is only wood and felt to rely on there is nothing that can be improved on the stability since you cannot change anything drastically enough to solve that problem. Also nothing on the bushings can be done as long as felt is used since with tighter tolerance the keys would simply get stuck. With wood it could be made somewhat stiffer, in most cases not stiff enough, but in any case way too heavy.
For this we have the 3 Series. Wooden keys, which are by default the cheapest to make, cheap composite reinforcement and way more precise bushings. It solves a reasonable amount of the problems but certainly not all since wood is still the core material. For many people the performance on a let's say 7/8 keyboard made in this way would be good enough though and that makes it what I believe the best wood based keyboard that can be made. The price is, as I may say, very low for a completely custom keyboard that performs really well. Still such a 7/8 would never perform as good as the original straight keyboard. This keyboard we make in two flavors, which is related to the properties of wood. The performance variant uses viber directions that give the best mechanical properties but is very susceptible to humidity changes. The stability variant uses half of the wood of each key to remain in shape while humidity fluctuates and therefore has to be made of stiffer and thus more heavy woods in order to be as stiff as the performance variant that uses all the fibers for stifness.
To solve it all we have the 5 Series. A custom keyboard made of high quality composites, calculated to perform exceptionally well on the instrument of choice. There is no wood anymore and there are only space grade appropriate materials, techniques and tight tolerances used. This keyboard has all the characteristics needed to perform as the best straight wooden keyboards, but will be better in many cases even when applied as a 7/8 keyboard compared to an original one. As a normally sized keyboard it is more direct than any wooden one for sure. Also we put tremendous effort into making this product much better maintainable then any other one to guarantee that in real life it stays better then any traditional one and that if something is needed it is much easier and faster to do.
The 7 Series is for freaks like me. It is simply the best we can do. It is also the keyboard with the smallest financial margin. We are far more happy to sell 3 or 5. And yes, 7 is still extremely expensive (as is literary written on the website).
I hope this gives some understanding about the standard products we offer. Apart from that we work on many different custom requests and above all on research.
Furthermore the action on the photos is a wng. As for all actions they have positive sides and downsides. We believe though that out of all commercially available actions these actions have much more plusses than minuses in most applications, not in all. Therefore we would be happy to use them often. We did create however several very different actions ourselves for experimental purposes. This includes wire driven actions, hydraulic and electronic actions but also regular double repetitions. For our very own instrument that is still in development we are testing on our own magnesium double repetition action. The main reason we won't use wng for that is mainly because we needed very different internal ratios. And on top of that we have been trying to solve some minor issues. Since we ourselves are the only ones that have seen it, there might be little feedback on our action on this forum. Also, our own action is not interesting for existing pianos since they are designed for different parameters.
In general in our approach we try to make the best we can and base it on extensive research and testing. We also do that for the production process so that we develop good mixtures of very high quality and at a price that makes the product interesting to many more people that want and or need it. We do not believe so much in extensive manual labor, marble and gold. We try to achieve better products with the use of the most modern technologies, including production technologies and thorough research, hence products as 5 Series which by now are automatically being designed and calculated on the computer (including finite element analysis for the stiffness, weight and vibrational properties). All we need are measurements of sizes and weights and the computer designs the system for us. The high design and production efficiency makes it possible to deliver a product like this for the price of a wooden one.
I hope this clarifies what we are doing. If there are any questions please contact us via our website. I don't know if I will be able to keep an eye on the forum.
Kind regards,
Thomas Kaduk
Last edited by sigasa (27-08-2020 15:06)
