Feurich High Speed KAMM Upright action

Who said you needed a grand piano action to have fast repetitions and the ability to replay notes without releasing the keys fully!

I’m impressed!

That's interesting. I'm surprised that modification wasn't developed earlier. It's such a simple tweak.

God Bless,
David

It looks simpler and more efficient than putting a pair of magnets with opposite polarity to "speed up" the engaging of the jack (I think it is Steingraeber that has this in their top line of uprights).
CG: do you think these springs are DYI friendly?

vagfilm

Feurich themselves say the system can be added to any upright and costs €600 and can be provided to technicians. Definitely a doable DIY thing. I’m wondering why systems like that are not more popular. Many people say they prefer tall uprights such as K500 and U3 to baby grands in terms of sound but the grand piano action is better. But when you improve the upright repetition, then there’s not much difference. And an upright has much smaller footprint than even the babiest grand 😉

Imagine if Yamaha put these in the NU1X. It would not only solve the loud note issue but would make it on par with the N1X for much less money (only key sensors) and much more compact and beautiful. And I doubt these springs would cost more than €100 for a manufacturer. I’d personally swap the N1X for it in a breeze 😀

As a matter of fact I believe it’s easy to retrofit them in a NU1X if ordered from Feurich. I would only worry if the sensor system will generate sound if you repeat without releasing fully. From my memory that was not the case. The loud note happened because the sensing system thought you’ve released the keys fully whereas in reality you’ve released them just before that.

vagfilm It looks simpler and more efficient than putting a pair of magnets with opposite polarity to "speed up" the engaging of the jack (I think it is Steingraeber that has this in their top line of uprights).

That is correct, and it has the advantage that the magnets are easier to manufacture uniformly from one to the other and will not change their properties with time and use, unlike springs. So they are "better"

CyberGene Many people say they prefer tall uprights such as K500 and U3 to baby grands in terms of sound but the grand piano action is better.

Many people say that (including myself 😁), but in reality not many are really able to play at a level that makes a difference. What is really "better" in the grand piano action is that it relies very little on springs and a lot on gravity. The reverse is true for the upright action: gravity plays no factor, but springs do, even more with this mod. Fact is, it is very difficult to have uniformity in spring behavior across all notes, so the action cannot be very accurate. This is usually not a problem, because the action being wooden (see below) has other source of inaccuracies and so it does not matter too much. But many people who tried the WNG composite grand action describe it as "so incredibly accurate and predictable" that it'd allow a superior level of playing (I haven't tried one myself)

CyberGene I’m wondering why systems like that are not more popular.

The grand piano has the benefit of being much nicer looking (arguably) and of allowing the performer to look around to the public and/or other performers. This is the true reason why the grand pianos are "better" and more popular.

Moreover, the whole piano industry is driven by very weird things. For example many manufacturers claim a huge superiority of the "wooden action", which is clearly false. There might be arguably some benefits of keysticks being wooden, but composite actions are undoubtedly superior. Yet, they are very unpopular and the only "major" brand utilizing them is Kawai, which has a very small fraction of the world's market -- and they get unfairly bashed by people for having "cheaped out" the piano with "plastic".

Here’s the website of the inventor describing how it works (in German, so I used a translator):
https://klavieratelier-kamm.de/High-Speed-KAMM-Action

To my understanding this is very clever because the spring actually acts as a double repetition lever because it’s attached to the hammer and gets stretched when you are holding the key (hence the jack) up and the hammer has rebounded and is caught by the check. Usually on an upright when you release the key after that point, the hammer will fall back to its rest position which is why you have to completely release the key-jack to reengage it under the butt. However with this spring the hammer stretches it and thus the spring tends to to move the hammer forward (towards the string) in a similar manner to a double-repetition lever. Watch carefully the video in the first post where they show models of upright actions. This is so clever! I’m amazed. It’s much better than using magnets IMO because the springs have a double purpose: they act as a double repetition lever that prevents the hammer from falling backwards and then also facilitate the jack to slide under the butt. Awesome! And so simple at the same time.

Very interesting, it seems to work very good. It's a bit strange that there isn't more upright manufacturers that think of these things. Feurich isn't the first one though. Sauter have a similar solution in their uprights with an extra spring for double repetition and to get performance similar to a grand, they call it the R2 mechanism and it works very well.

https://twohundredyearssauterpianos.de/en/milestones

@ delvento: I don't see how gravity plays no part in an upright. The keys return because of gravity. And only because of gravity.

And so do the hammers. They don't move horizontally as is often claimed. They pivot, just as do those on a grand piano. The difference is that the hammers on a grand spend more of their time nearly horizontal, while those on an upright more nearly vertical.

As for springs: A grand rep depends on at least two springs for the hammer action ... one on the repetition lever and another under the jack. An upright has only the jack spring. It also has a damper spring, not found on the grand.

So it's mostly gravity for both, with judicious use of springs.

I, too, am surprised that this innovation has not previously come to market. I wonder why.

My first speculation is that in the past, before grand piano sales started to decline, the introduction of this technology into uprights would have put uprights into more direct competition with home and studio grand pianos, an undesired effect.

But, now that grand piano sales are down, seemingly for the foreseeable future, the manufacturer's priority now is on winning the battle between competing upright brands, and between the uprights and the high quality digitals and hybrids that have grand piano actions. This technology now allows the upright to compete with high quality digitals of similar footprint size without doing much harm to their already reduced grand piano sales.

Hello,

Some time ago I saw this:

Where also a new repetition (spring) system for uprights is presented.

Perhaps, in essence, similar?

Cheers and happy innovations,

HZ

HZPiano
Yes, there are a few similar systems already. Which is why I wonder why that is not a standard already. I tend to agree with Ralphiano it could be to not cannibalize the grand piano sales.

HZPiano I actually contacted Fujii Piano Service last year for a quote to install this Granfeel spring upgrade.

At the time I was going to turn an NV5 into an NV10 upright 🙂

Their contact details are:

Fujii Piano Service CO.LTD

15-11 Nishimukoda-cho, Satsumasendai-city, Kagoshima, Japan 895-0027

TEL +81-996-25-3320 URL　http://granfeel.jp http://fujiipianoservice.jp

It would probably make the NU1X playable as well - although it isn't much more expensive just to purchase the N1X.

Hello,

burkey At the time I was going to turn an NV5 into an NV10 upright 🙂

So did you?!

Cheers and happy DIY modding,

HZ

HZPiano So did you?!

Cheers and happy DIY modding,

They usually send out a trained/certified professional technician to install it. I think it takes them a few hours.

Although for me they said:

'Fujii, the developer of Granfeel himself, could visit Singapore for retrofitting, after the situation calms down…'

However due to COVID shutting down our airport for 5 months we couldn't return home (Melbourne), so the piano purchase was postponed.

Hello,

burkey However due to COVID shutting down our airport for 5 months we couldn't return home (Melbourne), so the piano purchase was postponed.

What an adventure.

Are you still planning of having him "upgrade" your NV5? That would be a very interesting and somewhat groundbreaking case. (Or didn't you even get an NV5(S) as of yet?)

Cheers and happy innovations,

HZ

I have contacted KAMM and asked if they had any Yamaha U3 or U1 pictures with their system installed, but no luck. But they say it should work just fine.

I know the U3 is not what limits my playing, though 😅

Jose

Do they sell it to anyone or just technicians? Did they quoted a price for the springs?

Surely (Shirley 😆 ) it changes the touch weight? Maybe it's insignificant.