Johnstaf,
There are lots of absurd things that make life more fun! To each his own, and it certainly sounds like you really don't have interest in this pursuit with respect to the topic of adding a transducer to a piano's soundboard.
Here is a brief background of why I am interested: I have only started to learn to play a keyboard instrument as an adult about 3 years ago. I started with a hand-me-down Casio WK-3000, which I found quite limiting in dynamics because each note only had four separate possibilities: none (not pressed), piano, mezzo, and forte. This is when I discovered the Pianoteq software, back in version 5. Since that time, I gave away the Casio keyboard and bought an antique Steinway Model F upright. I had already become so enthralled by Philippe's synthesized pianos, as compared to the recorded sampled ones, that I installed a QRS MIDI strip under the keyboard of my Steinway for use with Pianoteq.
Good simulation [such as with flight simulators that now let companies like Boeing design planes from mere thought and fancy on through flyable prototype, without experimental "mules" along the way as test planes] has been absolutely fascinating to me. So, when I realized that Philippe and the Moddart team have been doing the same thing for pianos, this sparked the idea that my goal would be to create a playing digital piano that was otherwise undiscernible from the acoustic piano on which my Steinway is based.
Therefore, sitting in front of me up against the wall, I have an upright piano that has MIDI output and possesses a soundboard. The soundboard works great when I play the real acoustic piano, but when I move the stop bar so that the hammers no longer strike the strings, and I only have MIDI output, I route the sound through speakers. I am using some decent monitor speakers made by Emotiva, but because of my space and arrangement within the room, the speakers are to the right and to the left of the piano and not behind or on top of it. While I have been able to tweak things so that I get a pretty good stereo image, I thought that the ultimate would be to have the soundboard itself be the radiator, similar to Yamaha's trans-acoustic series (as well as now, as I learned, the Kawai's and the Steingraeber's). If I'm able to get a realistic sound out of the piano's keyboard, then it should make no difference whether I play just the acoustic piano, a combination of the acoustic piano plus the synthetic piano, or just the synthetic piano. That would fit my 'absurd' goal of being able to have someone sit down at the Steinway's keyboard and start playing, ideally not being able to tell whether they are listening to hammers striking strings and producing resonance in a purely acoustic fashion, or keys talking to a MIDI interface and driving a soundboard in a digitally synthesized fashion.
By the way, I have contacted the company that makes transducers that Steingraeber uses, driveable by 80-100 watts, so I will buy these +/- some 40 watt ones from Dayton Audio/Parts Express.
- David
- David