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The Music Trade
Review
OCTOBER, 1929
here PIANOS are kept from
getting into the RUT! _
1 H HE business of building fine pianos
is not, as some may imagine, a cut-and-
dried, moving platform, factory job. Some
of America's best brains are constantly at
work with highly developed scientific
apparatus, ever seeking to improve this
greatest of all musical instruments. The
picture at the left shows a part of the
research laboratories of the American
Piano Company, in New York City.
Below you may see some of the inge-
nious devices which the laboratory equip-
ment includes.
The Chronograph—Microscope of the Ear
The Piano Touch Analyzer
What the ordinary microscope does for the eye,
the CHRONOGRAPH does for the ear. i oo times
more sensitive than the keenest human hearing,
it is used to determine hammer velocity, to make
such fine measurements as the time required for an
Ampico Valve to travel from its upper to its lower
seat—and to measure other intervals of less than
the i /ioooth part of a second. The CHRONO-
GRAPH makes it possible to achieve finer degrees
of piano tone than could be reached without it.
This device records exactly what takes place in
the action when you depress the piano key fts
3 /8" downward stroke. It shows on a graph; the
increasing resistance as damper, jack, repetition
lever and knuckle are successively encountered.
Only with the help of such scientifically accu-
rate record is it possible to overcome needless
resistance, so that the player's hands may not
be unduly tired.
1 HIS scientific work, carried on quietly but
persistently, month after month, year after year, has made
possible the smoother working actions, finer tone and more
enduring quality that characterize the pianos named below.
AMERICAN
PIANO
Making Movies of the Tone of Middle C.
. . . and Testing the Piano Before It's Built
The Oscillograph, on which the observer's hand
rests, consists of a prism with four mirror sides,
revolved swiftly by an electric motor and wired to
the microphone seen on the observer's left. A note
is struck on the piano. In the revolving mirrors
appears a sharply waving line . . . wide . . . then
narrowing as the sound diminishes and dies. That
line shows the eye what the ear is hearing. It may
be photographed, and by mathematical and graphic
processes its complicated curves can be analyzed and
reduced to their elements. The Oscillograph makes
it possible to study tone quality, learn what it con-
sists of, and how it may be improved.
In the foreground is the Piano Unit Tester, with
which it is simple to try out sounding boards of
any size or shape, strings of any length or gauge
— and any other departures from time-tried prec-
edent, and learn exactly what may be expected from
them when built into the piano.
COMPANY
MASON 8c HAMLIN, KNABE, CHICKERING, J. Bi C. FISCHER, MARSHALL & WENDELL, HAINES BROS. —AND THE AMPICO
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F I F T H
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