Visiting Petrof Piano I started the tour in the milling room where they cut wood into usable lengths and sizes. Adjacent to that is their cabinet making shop. It brings a smile to my face when I… Read More
Laoureux Dampers When your finger depresses a key on the piano, the string vibrates allowing us to hear the wonderful tone of the piano. But what happens when we lift that same key? The key returns to its upright position and the tone stops resonating. Why?… Read More
Hailun Piano Factory ~ A First Glimpse It’s simply overwhelming the stature and size of the Hailun Piano Company. They manufacture roughly 38,000 pianos per year. Now if you do the math, that’s just over 3,150 pianos per month in 4.2 MILLION square feet of factory space.… Read More
Interview with Norbert Abel – Abel Hammer Abel is world reknown specializing in hammer manufacturing. It was my pleasure to meet Norbert Abel last month and have him shed some light on the piano hammer making… Read More
Making Bösendorfer More Austrian When queried about this, he said that areas which had been outsourced are now being made in Austria. He referred me to the man who specializes in this at production level, Simon Oss (Premium Piano Market Development Manager for both Yamaha & Bösendorfer)… Read More
Testing Pianos Like a Pro Going back just over 20 years, I was a new upstart that just got hired by the local piano store. With 2 Classical degrees behind me I felt confident I knew my way around the keyboard. Fortunately my boss at the time… Read More
Weickert Felt for Hammers But this one man’s company has single-handedly infiltrated most of the major names of pianos in the world. 200,000 pianos per year to be exact! Who is he? Jack Brand.… Read More
