200A sustain: all notes sounding

[Trout Waters]

Greetings,

I am looking into a Wurli 200A that has a problem of all notes, over the entire range of the keyboard, sounding when depressing the sustain. It is very apparent when recording or through a sound system when connected via the aux out, a kind of boom effect at each pedal. It would be unusable for these applications. The struck note(s) will sustain normally.

This cannot be a normal behavior. This is a keyboard which I am considering for purchase and would like to get an idea of the possible cause(s) including the level of difficulty to fix the problem.

Thanks so much.

TW

[Jenzz]

Hi + welcome :-)

Keep two things in mind:

The 5 hignest notes have no dampers, so there will always be some kind of 'faint ringing' when notes are struck.

When the pedal is released, all reeds are bend a bit downwards due to the tension of the sustain / damper arm mechanism. When you hit the pedal hard, the releasing damper felts will pull away from the reeds, causing them to ring because of their own bending tension.

The, this phenomenon is kind of normal to some degree.

Do you have a sound file?

Jenzz .-)

[pianotuner steveo]

This is somewhat normal, but you might be able to reduce the noise if you gently squeeze the V shaped dampers with a clean pair of needle nose pliers. (Lift the dampers to squeeze)
Damper felts can get hard/crusty with age and kind of pluck the reeds a little.
The pliers usually soften the felts with 1 or 2 squeezes of the pliers, close to the end of the felt that sits on the reeds.