A friend of mine who is a good pipe organ technician, with a very acute ear for timbre (he also does tonal finishing etc) told me, years ago, how he can't always tell some other pianos apart, but he can INSTANTLY recognize a Mason & Hamlin from the sound. I hear why.
This is a great rendition and this piano sounds PHENOMENAL. I'm sorry if I missed it but what size is it? Has it had any special work done...it's voiced perfectly
John Del Carlo who owned this piano died of cancer in 2016 but the video descriptions have all the details. This is a Mason & Hamlin 7 foot RBB Ampico A player piano. The piano itself had been gutted of the player system and John and a few other skilled craftsmen scavenged parts from other junked Ampico grands and they built the whole bottom part of the player system (pumps, expression systems, drawer etc.) from those. The stack was completely remanufactured from scratch. An LX digital player which is used in this video was also installed in addition to the pneumatic systems. The hammers and bass strings were ordered custom from Ari Isaac in Toronto who makes them by hand. The recording was made with a pair of Avenson STO-2 mics and a Panasonic sound recorder, video was made with a Canon Vixia camcorder. The bridges were also made by some specialist but I can't remember who.
