Comments for Tilman Skowroneck

Comment on Skowroneck harpsichords by skowroneck

skowroneck — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 07:18:22 +0000

An interesting question. If the instrument indeed has plastic jacks and guides (which you should double-check), it has been modified at some moment of its life. Both are not part of the original outfit.
1956 is a very early date and you should make sure how the instrument’s overall state is.
Replacing jacks and guides is something any competent harpsichord maker will be able to do for you, should this really be necessary.

Comment on Skowroneck harpsichords by zelenka

zelenka — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 23:51:55 +0000

I was asked to buy Skowroneck’s instrument (made in 1956) by one of my friends.
But it has plastic jack and guide and I think it’s not good.
Is it possible for you to replace them with wooden jack?

Comment on voicing, complete pdf by David Martin

David Martin — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 08:44:33 +0000

interesting article I have a Dulcken with a strongly voiced lute stop I will apply some of your suggestions,
regards DAVID

Comment on first CD production remembered by skowroneck

skowroneck — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 21:44:10 +0000

I agree with Erik here. I admit I didn’t like how the editing procedure was handled, but I suppose that the recording issues, and especially the noise, were due to a lack of experience.
In the meantime, I had another friend (see David Pickett’s blog link in the blogroll. Yes, Erik, I’ll let you hear the results!) experiment with a moderate and up-to-date noise reduction, and what emerged from under the blanket of original hiss was (in the Italian fragments) a feedback of action noise through the floor – a previously undetected problem.

…this simply weren’t the most brilliant days in the history of recording harpsichords.

Comment on first CD production remembered by Erik Sikkema

Erik Sikkema — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 21:30:29 +0000

This has nothing to do with dishonesty. I think the engineer has even acted as the best he could. The first problem was the far too low recording level. The engineer treated the digital system as an analog tape and did not use the last 20 dB from his converters, or he had completely misaligned his analog mixerdesk. In those days, AD converters were not better than say 13-14bits, so rather noisy when not used at their maximum. The only way to reduce the noise afterwards was using a dynamic filter, but in those days these things were not as they are today. Probably there was even an additional digital to analog to digital conversion step involved making it even worse. So the noise was eliminated, so was the decay of the sound. It was hard to hear the differences between the three instruments. After re-editing the original “noisy” tapes, we found the sound so much more natural. About the noise, that sounds about as a good as an analog tape recording with a Dolby A from the 80s.

Comment on chest organ tuning sense and nonsense by skowroneck

skowroneck — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 21:36:31 +0000

Right, I didn’t mention the blower heat. Very true – after a whole day of rehearsals, the pitch is in the skies, no matter what the temperature of the room has done in the meantime. Thanks.
Now I actually don’t agree with Paul about the word “just” and about the effect of changes in the wood. I have made 10 recorders albeit long ago. One of the things that make these instruments work is that by reaming out relatively little material, or filing about in the holes just that much, one can tune them (or thoroughly mess up their tuning, for that matter). A wooden pipe that changes shape due to heat/dryness/humidity certainly changes its pitch.

Comment on tuning: overthinking inharmonicity by skowroneck

skowroneck — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 14:09:40 +0000

Thanks, this explains a lot.

Comment on first CD production remembered by skowroneck

skowroneck — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 14:09:10 +0000

I can’t speak for the guy, but I believe that the harpsichord adventure was an exception in his activities.

For someone who has lived in Amsterdam and had to deal with Dutch house owners, plumbers, previous apartment occupants and car renting firms, this level of honesty is impeccable…

Comment on tuning: overthinking inharmonicity by Thomas D

Thomas D — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 12:30:02 +0000

What people don’t realise (and I didn’t either before working out the maths) is that inharmonicity of the ’stiffness’ type *doesn’t* necessarily lead to any lack of coincidence between partials in whatever interval.

In fact, if the inharmonicity coefficient ‘B’ increases smoothly with pitch (as the square of the frequency) then, theoretically, the partials of different notes are stretched just the right amount so that you *can* tune pure intervals with every partial nicely coincident, as if there wasn’t any inharmonicity at all. Of course the frequencies will be ’stretched’ but no additional beats will appear.

This ‘theoretically perfect’ behaviour of inharmonicity is obtained if 1) every string is equally thick and of the same material and 2) the scaling is exactly Pythagorean; i.e. length doubling at each octave.

Problems arise when there are too-large deviations from either condition. This happens not in the treble (unless the scaling gets too long), but in the bass of every harpsichord except perhaps a long Italian. Surely you’ve noticed bass notes having some ‘fudginess’ in their sound such that they can be edged up or down a bit and still make some kind of reasonable octave. This is (I believe) due to their partials being *more* inharmonic than would be required to match with the tenor notes.

Stretching the treble beyond the call of duty is mainly psychological, I would say.

Comment on first CD production remembered by Thomas D

Thomas D — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 12:16:17 +0000

I assume these people are not involved in harpsichord recording any more … otherwise you would be obliged to name them, wouldn’t you, to avoid any future mishaps?

What slightly surprises me is the absolute dishonesty involved. Not just to the listener (which is expected for ‘professional’ sound engineers and producers) but to the performer.