Downweight, upweight, inertia, resistance, feel

CyberGene

QuasiUnaFantasia apart from the grotesque CLP *70 and *80 models with their ultra heavy touch

QuasiUnaFantasia I believe Yamaha chose that strange behaviour to prevent unintended grace notes, because the touch is only heavy on first impact, but once that initial resistance is overcome the rest of the movement is very light. In principle, their idea is good, but it feels terrible to me

I have similar opinion. Or had. My first impression with the CLP series was basically the same. I've been owning the CP88 for a few weeks now and I keep reaching to it while switched off and thinking that it's just way too heavy. There's also this initial resistance (although in the review thread I said it din't have one). However once I start playing it, it gets very natural and the keyboard feels perfect. I also think you're right they wanted to prevent accidental grace notes which has happened to me on lighter-keyed Kawais. I'm not sure what Yamaha actually did but I believe they tried to find a compromise with the typical digital piano action limitations (no escapement and constant push back against your fingers) and make it feel good for playing despite being heavy.

BTW, I was researching the Blüthner patent action in grand pianos and watched the following video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PETSPgZl9y4&t=2s

Where at 2:54 there's a very interesting captioning:

Blüthner upweight is higher than average, between that of roller action grands and most digital pianos

That's an interesting statement since many people (including me) have expressed how they don't like the typically high upweight of digital pianos.

But as we all know, downweight and upweight are just static measurements that won't tell you anything about how the piano feels. Because what matters is inertia. I also did some search on the Internet and found (of course on PW where the technicians rule!) an interesting thread where one of my favorite technicians Ed McMorrow said this:

The industry has a habit of attempting to reduce a heavy feeling action by adding front weight, (key leads), to the keys to "help" the pianist start the action moving. Once the pianist starts moving the keys faster than the force of gravity wants to move the leads down, the keys actually begins to resist your efforts significantly.

The upshot is you can have an action that measures "light" for static downweight but feels heavy when played fast and/or forcefully.

I have shown by example many hundreds of times that one can have an action with static downweights of 65-70 grams, that feels light to a pianist. It is all about the hammer weight.

Source:
http://forum.pianoworld.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/2907966/re-downwieght-upweight-friction-inertia.html#Post2907966

I think I appreciate Yamaha even more now because I believe that's what they optimized the most: the feel and the hammer inertia, it's just perfect. They probably sacrificed the downweight and upweight but it doesn't matter.

Drew-r

CyberGene

In trying to best avail myself to this kind of information, the situation of how there are these ratings of the various weights - down, static, up, moving, other, and perceptions there in - are so repeatedly brought up for discussion that it seems to me that one way or the other, these weight factors are A) somewhat relative but B) also somehow important but C) do not comprise the whole story. For DIY’ers like CG, and the intimate knowledge they have of how actions work, for better or worse, must also be a part of the whole story but i am inclined to wonder - how to rate, especially the for-better-or-worse?

Likewise, the piano playing experience & skill level of a given person must also play into the whole story, but how to rate? I rate myself a 3 on the scale of 0-10, but this is my simplistic rating system in which 10 is the highest possible level anyone can reach in terms of combined skill & experience.

PS. For sake of discussion, my rating scale could be 0 to 1000 in which i currently rate 300.

There are various things i can do in hopes of getting better - becoming a 4 or more. Increasing time practicing could be a relatively easy thing to do. Increasing quality practice time may not be so easy. Finding the best action/weights/feel, too me at my level, maybe as simple as winning at one spin of a roulette wheel …. or maybe needs a second spin, or more.

QuasiUnaFantasia

Interesting ... It makes me think of my family's Hornung & Møller (an 1880's grand); its downweight is generally above 75 g, but it still feels easy to play.

David B

It's interesting that he mentioned how the Bluthner action had a let-off feel that was more smooth (less notchy) compared to the standard/roller action.

When I was comparing the Novus and the N1X, the N1X had a more notchy let-off feel compared to the Novus. The let-off feel on the Novus was almost non-existent. Even the Kawai acoustic pianos in the store didn't feel like the Novus in that area. I considered the N1X as being more authentic in that regard. However, I might rethink that now as I have more experience playing the piano. I'd love to try a Novus now, but I don't feel like driving the long distance back to the Kawai dealer.

God Bless,
David

CyberGene

David B, having no notch feeling is not necessarily good. I think in the same Blüthner video (or in another one from the same channel) they also mentioned that the way Blüthner recommend regulating the action is without aftertouch, meaning the key won't travel 1mm after the escapement but will bottom out exactly at the escapement, however what they stated is all pianists requested from technicians to not regulate it that way since they prefer to have aftertouch travel. I say that, because in a similar way, the notch feeling is probably desirable since it gives you a tactile feel of where escapement is, so that you can feel the action and know when to release your fingers. I believe the escapement feel and the aftertouch are interconnected: if you have no aftertouch, i.e. the key bottoms out exactly at escapement, you may find that you have to unnecessarily push the keys all the way down and experience some shock in your fingers. On the contrary, if there is a definite escapement feel followed by 1mm of aftertouch travel, your fingers will internalize that and will start releasing the force off the key when they reach the escapement and thus will prepare you for when to expect the bottom and thus eliminate the stress from the bottoming out. I'm hypothesizing, there's no way we can discuss these things without having pianos to compare...

David B

CyberGene I'm hypothesizing, there's no way we can discuss these things without having pianos to compare...

It makes sense to me what you said. The Kawai dealer did say the he could have the acton on the Novus regulated to feel more like an acoustic action concerning the escapement. However, I didn't feel like driving back to the store again after it was regulated. There were other factors such as the ground-loop issued when I connected my computer to it.

God Bless,
David

Pete14

David, I wasn’t aware that you’d considered the Novus at some point; I believe you made the right choice with the N1X.

The NV-10\S is also a good instrument, but I’m not sure the ‘real’ damper mechanism justifies the price difference between the NV-10\S and the N1X. I know there are a few other things (slightly longer keys, etc..), but still.

I’m also not happy with the exclusion of damper sensors. This seems like a contradiction to me: real dampers, yet no damper sensors?

David B

Pete14 David, I wasn’t aware that you’d considered the Novus at some point; I believe you made the right choice with the N1X.

There was Kawai dealer in the Bay Area. I think it was the same dealer Gombessa got his from. It was an accumulation of several factors that led me to the N1X.

God Bless,
David

Khuja Wangtishvili

Static weight is really far far less important than: inertia, hammer weight, action regulation and total action condition. I have 100yo old piano and while my action feels extremely light, it's static weight is 55g on average. And I polished and lubricated all keypins and capstans few months ago.

And I feel tired after playing on a properly made new piano with the same static weight, as most of new pianos are feeling heavy to me. I found some ways to make it more heavy but it always comes with a price of some sort (increased upweight, slower movement, whatever). Adding 1g of weight on the hammers shanks right under the hammer is not possible in like 30% of keys due to not having place there.