|       Terry's Pianoworks           |           Terry Macham             |
|          Piano Tuning              |        Kimberley, BC, Canada       |

•Terry writes:

> Servicing of these instruments should not be a problem regardless of
> where you might live. At least no more of a problem than servicing any
> acoustic piano.

Tuning and your very basic run of the mill service is VERY easily
done.  There's no need for extra training or knowledge of the product.
Pulling the action on either the grand or the vertical requires some
knowledge of unplugging some plugs before hand located inside the
action cavity.  In rare cases, other "player hardware" has to be
removed to perform service but is easily done and the technician was
considered when these things were designed.  Re-inserting the action in
some brands of players requires a somewhat special proceedure but again
is not a major concern if prior knowledge of this is in hand.  If the
technician is considerate of these mechanisms, and takes the time to
really LOOK at the instrument before proceeding, then there will be
relatively little concern.

> instruments is the fact that the electronic circuit boards are not
> enclosed in a protective case.  If a string should break during tuning
> (or playing), there is a strong possibility that the string could fall
> on the printed circuit board, shorting out the circuitry.  At both
> seminars I pointed out this potential problem to the company rep. and
> received your typical salesman's blank stare.  The response was that
> this problem had never occurred. Well, that may or may not be true, but
> I know for sure one day it will happen.  If I ever have the opportunity
> to tune one of these pianos, I will make darn sure that it is unplugged
> from the wall.

That's a good proceedure to follow.  I never do and the factory
suggests that the power supply be turned off or unplugged when
performing service.  The voltage running around on the circuit boards
of concern is quite low.  This makes for a small concern regarding
electrical shock, however I see your point about causing electrical
damage to the circuitry while the instrument is turned on.  Usually a
string breaks curling upwards.  I've never seen one, that I can recall,
curl downwards into the piano.  I'd be more concerned about drinks
being spilled inside, but then another part of me says, "If you're that
inconsiderate of the instrument, I'll stand to make lots of money
fixing it!!".  Your point is well taken Terry, but they've sold a lot
of them, and I've never heard of such an occurance.

> Another comment that I will pass on is that you will have dificulty
> getting intelligent information from the piano sales person

Ah yes, it's nice to know nothing's changed much over the years.  Darn
few salespeople go beyond the selling of the product.  They make their
commission and move on.  The Disklavier sells very well, and the other
auto-players are selling fairly well also.  I'm finding that the sales
force doesn't have the desire to learn the product beyond what it takes
to sell them.  They are, after all, more than just a piano.  They have
all this other stuff they have to learn about the product and are, from
my experiences, unwilling to learn the features, the details and the
mechanics of the instrument just to sell it.  You and I, and other
technicians, find knowing about the instrument in a very detailed
fashion, very critical to proper service.

> There used to be software available which could convert midi files to
> the Disklavier format but I am not sure if the company producing it is
> still in business.  The last time I tried to access their Web site, it
> no longer existed and I erased it from my bookmark list.  I do not know
> how reliable a translation this software made from midi to the
> disklavier.

I'll look into Giebler Enterprises and see what I can find for you.
The reports that I got were that his software was not only the only
software that would do this translation, but that it worked quite
well.

>Of course the most serious drawback of the Yamaha disklavier is the price.

Everything has a price eh??

Lar

•                    Larry Fisher RPT
   specialist in players, retrofits, and other complicated stuff
      phone 360-256-2999 or email larryf@pacifier.com
         http://www.pacifier.com/~larryf/ (revised 10/96)
           Beau Dahnker pianos work best under water
•
 [ Editor's Note:
 [
 [ Giebler Enterprises' home page is at:
 [
 [       http://members.aol.com/giebler/index.html
 [
 [ There does appear to be a wide variety of conversion software
 [ available.
 [
 [ Jody