How far voicing can change the sound of a piano

[nyonyo]

Hi guys and gals,

I originally bought a Yamaha YUS1, however, Yamaha could not sell at the price that they had promised my dealer. It is actually a good thing for me. Because I always want to have a disklavier so that I can listen to my own performance. However, since it is a used disklavier MX100 II, the sound between middle C and the next two octave is brighter than the rest of the keys. The kids who owned this piano was a beginner who just played those two octaves (they took lesson only for 2 months and quit). My question is "Could a piano technician  voice all of the keys to make sound the same again?

[thalberg]

I'm guessing the answer is yes.  Just a little needle work.

[nyonyo]

How much is the going rate to do that little needle work?

[jinfiesto]

Ummm... It's not cheap. I pay my tuner about 200 an hour. But he's steinway certified and he has to fly to my place... So that number probably doesn't reflect the average price. I would say that if you shop around you could get that done for about a hundred bucks.

[amelialw]

the average is about $75

[thalberg]

Yes, about the cost of a tuning or maybe a little less.  If you watch them do it, it doesn't take that long.  Not super labor intensive, I don't think.

[faulty_damper]

A little needle work for about two octaves of white keys?  This could be more labor intensive if you just want to match the tone of the other non-compressed hammers.

Voicing is an extremely delicate task and requires a great amount of skill of the technician.  It's very easy to voice incorrectly (stick the needles in the wrong place, stick too far in, sand too much felt off) and it could easily cause the tone to be uneven or more muffled than is desired.  This could mean using hardeners to harden the hammers back up to the required tone and then more needle work.  Or you could have a technician who voices with vodka (but this would be for hammers that are evenly matched) and this much less labor intensive and pretty quick.

What's worse still is that how much labor can depend on the quality of the hammers.  I don't know what kind of hammers are on your MX but low quality hammers can be the worst to voice.  I've voiced my hammers and it was a strength training workout trying to stick the needles into the felt.  I could stick it a dozen times and the tone would remain the same - these hammers were hard like rock.  But these were low quality hammers.

A complete voicing (not just matching the tone of a couple of notes to the other hammers) can cost $200USD or more depending on the technician.  This is an area that a piano-lovin' piano owner should not price-shop for; shop for the most skilled technician you can for the desired tone you want.

Anyway, if you haven't purchased this piano yet, have the piano store pay for it.  They should be more than willing to without cost to you.  And when you buy it and you like the tone, get the technician's contact number.

[nyonyo]

Faulty Damper,

Thank you very much for the info.
I have bought the piano but has not been delivered.
The dealer will do one tuning at their place and then one in home tuning.
Maybe I will ask the dealer to do voicing in the home tuning.

Thanks, RS