[The Making of a Steinway – A Steinway & Sons Factory Tour Narrated by John Steinway] (Viewer #1,388,050)
Watching this makes me wonder how pianos ever got invented in the first place.
[The Making of a Steinway – A Steinway & Sons Factory Tour Narrated by John Steinway] (Viewer #1,388,050)
Watching this makes me wonder how pianos ever got invented in the first place.
I worked as an engineering technician for a few years at Rogers Organ Company, building and testing million dollar church organs, Amazing machines. Even more amazing when we went digital. They can emulate any musical instrument known to man.
Yes they can. But there is something missing from the emulation. The sound of a grand piano or a really good guitar is so much richer than the sound from the amps and speakers. Just something about those vibrating strings.
Probably true in a small venue, but only about one in fifty (literally) performances I have attended in the last 25 years haven’t been amped – and most were to a “fare-the-well”.
Given that “live” performances are being squeezed through semiconductors and speakers, finding that “real” sound is a chimera.
If, OTOH, you’re claiming that there is a difference between a mic’ed Grand and, say, a sampled digitized version run through the same electronics, you’re getting into religion, akin to those who claim that “oxygen-free” cables make a difference. IIRC, (it’s been awhile since I looked specifically at Rogers) Rogers digitization is close to an order of magnitude above Nyquist. IOW, a hell of a lot better than I can distiguish. If you say you can, I’ll allow it, but I’ll also cite the placebo effect. 🙂
Organ makers have been claiming their organs can sound like other instruments for centuries. My Hammond M101 on flute or trumpet settings still sounds like a Hammond organ. As for digital emulations, my keyboard playing friends who own high end digital keyboards say they are close but they don’t quite sound the same as a real Hammond B3.
And vice versa. I remember the Marine Band (finest symphonic band in the world) playing a Bach piece, and it sounded just like an organ.
Ten bucks it can’t emulate dueling banjos.
I say that any grand piano sounds better if you have a young Michelle Pfeiffer sitting on it.
I heard Batman got jealous when she, as Catwoman, sat on a piano instead of him.
So he wanted to be on the piano? Damn, English can be confusing at times.
This would make an excellent addition to Leonard Read’s “I, Pencil”.
They got invented, because some folks who actually deserve elite status, put their minds and time into the process.
That Steinway is the result of a couple thousands years of incremental improvements and innovations, going back to the very first keyboard instrument(s) in ancient Greece.
The process is a wonder, still.
If you are a human being I would tell you, as well as every other human being that, as you are the descendent of 5,000 generations of tool users and makers you ARE capable of figuring out at least one step. Your very brief bio claims you were in the Navy for four years. So if any one step of this is utterly beyond you, then your LPO’s must have never let you have any tool more complicated than a wire brush to clean rust off of metal (yeah, there was one of those on my ship). Admittedly, a lot of the steps involved take thinking about, which can be done if your head is not too messed up. Is it?
If you are not a human being then I might concede that it’s beyond you.
So what you are not saying is that we might be Aliens but…we are Aliens?
My modesty, false as it may be, was my shot at paying respect to those who actually put the effort into making Steinway great