Voicing 3

Once the stop lever for the back 8' was installed I had to make few adjustments to the voicing since the precise position of the register in the "on" position had changed very slightly - just enough to make 5 or 6 notes unreliable. In each case the plectrum was just slightly shorter than it needed to be and all that was required was to push the plectrum just slightly further through the tongue. I also had to adjust the dampers slightly so that they still damped the string when the register was moved into the "off" position.

Here you can see a close-up of some of the front 8' jacks before voicing. The register for the front 8' is in the "off" position and the plectra have already been cut to approximately the correct length so that they are clear of the strings.


This is what it looks like after voicing with the dampers in place. The front 8' register is now in the "on" position.

The last thing that needs to be done is to regulate the action to get the plucking order right. The two sets of jacks should pluck their respective strings at slightly different times when the key is depressed otherwise the touch will feel unpleasantly stiff and heavy when playing with both registers engaged. The back 8' has a natural tendency to pluck first because the angle at which the back of the key rises when the front of the key is pressed. The exact length of the plectrum also helps to determine the precise moment at which the pluck occurs and finally the length of the jacks can also be adjusted slightly if necessary.

I had tried to make the plectra for the front 8' just slightly longer than the ones for the back 8' and most of the notes were already plucking the strings in the correct order but in many cases they were still very close together and the touch was quite stiff. While I had done my best to get the jacks set up so that the spacing between the plectra and the strings was consistent there were a few of the back 8' jacks that were a little short - padding the bottom of the jacks with 4 or 5 thicknesses of masking tape brings the plectrum closer the string so that it plucks earlier. In a few places I also shortened the back 8' plectrum to get it to pluck sooner. Similarly with the front 8' shortening the jack increases the distance between the plectrum and the string and delays the pluck as does pushing just a little more of the plectrum through the tongue.

It took quite a while to get this right - at first I still had both jacks plucking much to close to each other and the touch was really stiff - you don't want the plucks to be too far apart but they do have to be quite distinct. Eventually I got a few notes to both sound and feel right and then it was easier to make the others behave the same way.