Disklavier

Hello Disklavier,

I bought a piano bar and was not impressed with it. As usual, I
probably bought too soon as I got something like serial number 30.
They kept promising firmware upgrades to improve the velocity sensing
but I gave up waiting and returned it.

-- 
Best regards,
Spencer Chase       mailto:spencer@...

I went to that website and it certainly looked
interesting.  My first two thoughts however were 1) the
sensor bar is located too close to the center pivot of
the keys and therefore has not much key movement to
measure.  Better to measure key movement from the end
of the key. and 2) NO amount of room is available in
front of the fallboard.  As it is, most people scratch
their fallboards with their fingernails when playing.
I thought that photo showing how far away your fingers
would be is misleading.

However, I'm all for new toys.  If all you ever want to
do is listen to the piano playing and not needing to
record, QRS makes a vorsetzer that sits on top of the
keys and the solenoid fingers rest on the piano keys.
Unlike the free standing Pianocorder vorsetzer that
pushed up to any keyboard, AND operated the pedals,
this thing weighs about 30 pounds and sits across the
keyboard on the cheek blocks.  It is also ugly.

What did Piano Bar use for sensors?  Mylar fingers?

Carol Beigel

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "MCN" <spencer@...>
To: "Disklavier Group" <disklavier@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, December 17, 2004 11:48 PM
Subject: [disklavier] piano bar


> Hello Disklavier,
>
> I bought a piano bar and was not impressed with it.
As usual, I
> probably bought too soon as I got something like
serial number 30.
> They kept promising firmware upgrades to improve the
velocity sensing
> but I gave up waiting and returned it.
>
> -- 
> Best regards,
> Spencer Chase       mailto:spencer@...
>
>
>
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On Dec 18, 2004, at 12:22 AM, Carol Beigel wrote:

> What did Piano Bar use for sensors?  Mylar fingers?


All the functions of the Moog PianoBar are included in the Disklavier, 
so this discussion is of only very limited applicability here on a 
Disklavier list.

The PianoBar was shown at the Piano Technicians Guild convention last 
summer to what surely must have been a very skeptical crowd. Moog was 
very pleased with the response it got and will be showing the PianoBar 
to next year's PTG convention as well.

The PianoBar was developed by Donald Buchla, a very important figure in 
the history of electronic music. The PianoBar has no moving parts, no 
fingers, but rather uses proximity sensing for both keys and pedals.

The PianoBar requires no installation but simply sits on the keyboard. 
This means it can be moved freely from piano to piano and requires only 
a minute-long calibration routine to adjust itself to a new piano. One 
would think that it would get in the way of some pianists, but it 
provides little obstruction, and in any event is immediately removable.

I own a PianoBar and am very pleased with it and its performance. My 
only issue with it has been the pedal sensor which required some 
fussing to work properly with a Steinway pedal lyre, but Moog is aware 
and has been responsive to the issue.


Kent Swafford
Vice President
Piano Technicians Guild

On Sat, 18 Dec 2004, Kent Swafford wrote:
> All the functions of the Moog PianoBar are included in the Disklavier,
> so this discussion is of only very limited applicability here on a
> Disklavier list.

If this was on the DUG mailing list then I could understand the concern 
(ie Yamaha sponsored / censored), but it is not. All sorts of "irrelavent" 
things get discussed on this list without anyone complaining.

My posting was in response to someone asking about alternatives to the 
Disklavier, so it is a relevant topic. In any case, it may be of interest 
to someone that owns a playback only dkv and wants to upgrade without 
replacing their instrument.

James