Tom Williams
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Posts posted by Tom Williams
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Good advice, all -- thanks!
The Levitan and Fujan brands are a little higher than I am aiming.
Any suggestions in the $75-and-under range? Or is that just too low?
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So now that I have a (baby) grand piano with real strings, It seems reasonable to stock a tuning hammer and wedges for the occasional small tweak, perhaps even to resume learning tuning (I started, and stopped, in the late 1970s).
Back then is was "go to my favorite music store and order a tuning hammer." Now it's "Look online and find 30 tuning hammers and kits to choose from."
Do any of you do your own tweaking or tuning? Are there any recommendations for tuning hammer? Is the $120 model significantly better than the $12 one?
Any other advice on DIY piano servicing?
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Brought me to tears, even through my laptop's 4mm woofers.
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All post-Mirage Ensoniq samplers. The EPS 13-minus had amazing sample editing and real-time performance capabilities, and I assume its successors (16+, ASR) were even better. My beloved Kurzweils can't touch Ensoniq sample manipulations.
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As of this writing, clearly Elton John, as Liberace's dead.
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Boy, this seems like a lot of ado.
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P.P.S. Thank you, KC forum buddies, for the very useful advice, and the generous offer to help me fund a professional service. This is an unusually caring online community.
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TL;DR summary: My first (post childhood) piano is now at my house.
No one nearby was into moving pianos. My original plan of hiring a moving crew at each end of the run fell through. I ended up with three resourceful middle-aged-to-old guys on the personnel list.
A trip to Youtube University netted me an excellent demonstration -- by a single (strong, experienced) moving guy in Pittsburgh -- showing how to break down, pack, and load a baby grand. The "leader" of the crew also watched the video(s) by this guy. Established a need for a piano skid -- a sledge with ratchet strap connections, built expressly for moving grand pianos.
I could buy a piano skid from the midwest USA, for about $150. Unfortunately, the shipping time might or might not make it to my house in time for the scheduled move. Fortunately, a local music store, which has suspended its own piano relocation services, agreed to rent me their piano skid, hardware, and some tools over the weekend for $50. Since I don't expect to move that piano again (planning to retire and die in this house), I went with the rental.
We left around 6:30 this morning, arrived at the site by 9. We did all the pad wrapping and securing (music stand stays inside piano, lid stays on), and locked down the lid. Then we quickly learned how to remove the left-front leg from the piano. The professionals recommend using the lyre as a fulcrum for tipping the piano on its side, unless the lyre's obviously old and weak. Tip piano onto the skid, remove two more legs and a lyre, put the skid on the dolly, and Bob's your uncle.
Well, almost. There was still a 50-80 foot (15-25 meter) stretch of sidewalk and lawn to cross before we could get to the trailer. We built a path of plywood, and then we got to the trailer's non-slip coated loading ramp,
... ... ... a wheel on the dolly broke. No harm to man or machine, but we had to think fast and build another plywood path up into the trailer.
Total time for us amateurs to knock down and load piano safely into the van: about 2 hours.
Trip back was uneventful. Got it to the house, went on level ground and concrete through the garage to the music room.
Then, while I was out of the room, the piano lid (which I believed I secured and locked at the seller's house) slipped, opened, and fell onto some drum hardware.
Yup, the only cosmetic damage to this pristine piano was the final 18 inches. AAAAUUUUGGGHH! When the piano is open for playing, the marred portion is not visible. It's still a respectable gash though. Call it a victory scar....
Reverse the process, put on the lyre and two legs, tip the piano back to the "upright" position, reconnect the third leg. Minor adjustments to pedals.
Total cost to move the piano: $125 gas money for the truck, $40 to feed the troops, and $50 to rent the piano skid, total $215. Trailer and laborers were free. My buddies saved me somewhere between $800 and $1000 dollars, and I now know how my piano fits together. (P.S. the Young Chang damper pedal control rod is about a centimeter shorter than the other two pedals. Who knew? I learned that after the lyre was bolted into place and upright, of course. 🙂 )
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- A Hauptwerk or Allen organ with a full complement of diapasons and flutes (16'-1') a couple ranks of strings and reeds, two or three manuals, pistons for each manual, and of course an AGO pedalboard.
- Behringer X32 and SD16 for playing out. I've concluded that I like pushing real faders whenever possible.
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I don't know if I replied in previous years, but my current chronological list would be:
1970s -- Farfisa VIP 345 -- I could even play piano parts on it, after a fashion.
1980s -- Ensoniq Mirage -- Picked it over the DX7, and never regretted it.
1990s -- Ensoniq EPS Thrteen-minus -- band in a box. I ran two of 'em at a time.
2000s -- Alesis Fusion -- If only it weren't so buggy, it did a little of everything.
Now -- Kurzweil PC4-7 -- Hammond, check; piano, check; E-piano, check; Orchestral strings, check....
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I'd anchor a bowl with velcro, and put the shakers in the bowl. That way the velcro doesn't eat the HF from the shakers' sound. If you are going with a mic stand, get a cup holder and just drop them into that.
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4 hours ago, Reezekeys said:
Totally spitballing here... what if you rented a small truck that could fit the piano and drove it yourself? Hire local piano movers at each end. Maybe that would be affordable? Obviously you'd want pro movers to get it from the house and secured safely in the truck - and the same when you get it to your place.
I looked into something like that. Even a small "$19.95/day" U-Haul truck runs about $150 -- plus gas -- for the trip. The mileage eats it up fast. Add workers at both ends, and the moving cost quickly exceeds $400 which, like it or not, is about the top end of the moving part of the budget.
P.S. I'm still waiting to hear back from a nearby music store that claims to do piano relocation. I really am taking y'all's advice to heart.
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Thanks, all. I know that the advice is good and wise.
I'll see if I can get local quotes on pro movers, but some of the numbers quoted above are just plain beyond my means. That's why it quite literally took me 40 years to find a decent piano I could afford in the first place.
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17 hours ago, Tom Williams said:
how to get it to my house in two weeks without breaking the bank
Those four words may affect my ability to take the sage advice about professional piano movers. This move isn't across town -- it's a hundred mile run from one small town to another.
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Update
It's real.
I took a day trip to the Pittsburgh area today, visited the seller, and played on the piano. I brought along a buddy who has some piano tuning skills (post-grad studies, believe it or not) and had moved a few pianos when he was college faculty.
It's in pretty good shape for being ~3 years since its last tuning. The finish is flawless -- pretty good for a piano purchased new in 1999 (I saw the receipt. Seller kept meticulous records.) Some lower dampers are a bit sluggish, and there's a little sticking between the F# and G a 12th above middle C. Oh, and Una Corda doesn't move the action far enough.
Like the YC pianos I remember from the 1980s, this 5'2" (157 cm) piano sounds like a 7' or bigger. Gorgeous timbre.
Now all I gotta do is figure out how to get it to my house in two weeks without breaking the bank on the logistics end of it.
P.S. -- does anyone know how to remove the legs from a YC baby grand?
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12 hours ago, ProfD said:
Surely, manufacturers did not consider this when moving to external power supplies for KB instruments. 😁
IEC cables are relatively universal and cheaper to replace.
The problem for manufacturers is that the inclusion of an internal transformer power supply adds not only engineering time, but certification time (FCC I think) before they can bring the model to market -- I'm guessing (SWAG) six months or more. It may be worth it for a flagship workstation, but for lower-end stuff, say less than $2000 US, getting the product to market fast gives a better overall payoff.
(The above is more perception than actual knowledge. Corrections are welcome.)
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22 hours ago, DeltaJockey said:
How do you find the keybed noise on the GPX88? But then if you're gigging in a loud environment, maybe that's not a problem?
It's never bothered me. Of course, now that you've brought it up, I'll probably be miserable tomorrow.
Regarding the loud environment, it's been my quiet (no louder than mezzo forte) music room for a year and a half, even when I have a band playing there. When I gig I use(d?) IEMs, so key-clack would not have been a problem anyway.
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I have a little bit of arthritis starting -- certain bend positions on my wrists can be quite painful -- but my problem is mostly wimpy forearm muscles. I get tennis elbow pretty quickly, and have had my thumbs cramp into immobility while driving home from gigs. The villain seems to be my PX-5S, which has a lovely sound but a pretty heavy (for me) action.
So now for piano I have gone with a Nektar Impact GXP88 controller to drive a MIDI channel in my PC4-7. It's semi-weighted, almost identical to the Kurzweil. I seem to be able to go all evening playing piano on it.
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On vacation, I just visited the Guitar Center and (next door to it) Sam Ash stores in Richmond VA. (Interestingly, there is another Guitar Center 10 minutes away in Midlothian.) Both stores looked a bit bleak.
GC: Keyboard dept had a lot of home-grade portables, ala the Casios and Yamahas people want to dump for $25 on Craigs List. And one minimoog -- which was not plugged into anything. The Live sound room was dark -- 80% of its lights were off. Many display cases were empty. Staff were courteous and helpful. I think this GC is per Craig's model -- lower rent strip mall, and three lessons rooms. Not sure what percentage of their income comes from lessons.
SA: Also a bit sparse, though there were some half-dozen pro keyboards (mostly Yamaha and Roland). Regarding unplugged keys, they have a problem with wall-wart powered keyboards, because "customers" come in and steal the power supplies. I asked the keyboard guy if they were shutting down, and he said that this store was remodeling to accommodate stock that they'll receive from the stores shutting down elsewhere.
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3 hours ago, Melving said:
There are a lot of fraudsters on Facebook. Does the profile check out? Not made last year? Lotsa friends, reasonable bio? I would meet the seller in person and look at the instrument. This one sounds like it might check out, though. I've waded through a bunch on facebook and reported as fraud a whole bunch with profiles made in the last 12 months. At least this person spoke to you and presumably sounded like the gender they claimed to be...
There are some pretty good deals on facebook. I picked up a set of speakers for just a couple bucks from someone who was genuinely downsizing...
This actually started on Craigs List. I looked her up later on FB. Her telephone voice matches the FB picture, a plus.
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17 hours ago, TommyRude said:
I understood JazzPiano88's post better than I understand this.
C'mon guys, help me out here.
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17 hours ago, jazzpiano88 said:
I would say look up the names Sam Hess and Lorne Malvo before attempting to meet anyone in person.
WTF?
Best to presume I have no knowledge of popular culture, and just say whatever it is you want to say.
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I know, I know.
So, I came across a Young Chang 5' on CL, price unspecified. E-mailed "What do you want for it?" and received the response "about $1700."
I responded "Seems right; I love YC pianos, but that's out of my reach." Seller responds "What's in reach?" and I write "$500 or $600., using my real name in e-mail.
Seller writes "Hi Tom - is there a possibility that we could set up a time to talk? Just by your messages, it truly seems to me that you love pianos and music."
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So far, we're proceeding along the scam zone, potentially. Here's where the plot really takes off.
Seller provides a (rare) name, and I find seller on FB. One posting on hr FB page was "Hey, anyone want this YC piano for $1700?"
Seller tries to call me -- leaves voice mail. I return call, get voice mail, then seller calls me. Explains that she had bought it for her late daughter (seller in her 60s, daughter died in her 40s)
Does she try to interest me in shipping? Nope. Does she suddenly live too far away to go pick it up? Nope. Is there a rush? Nope -- I have the month of April to pick it up.
It's purportedly a Young Chang model TG157, sold in the late 1990s. Seller says she has the receipts.
Is this too good to be true, or have I stumbled upon the one actual nice piano on CL being sold by someone who is honestly downsizing?
My dad played a gig with Liberace. In 1960.
in The Keyboard Corner
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Eric, that's fantastic. I can only agree with the preceding superlatives.