Weird overtones - do I have a bad tine???

[reinski]

I'm hoping someone can answer this for me.  I have an old Rhodes thats in pretty good shape, but my low A has these dissonant overtones, especially when I play it lightly.  I've tried adjusting the pickup bar (the two philips screws) and it doesn't help.  Anybody have the answer??
Thank you   -
RR

[sean]

There is a pretty good chance that the problem is the grommets are dead.

Sometimes a crushed (on top) or sliced (underneath) grommet allows just the right amount of spring-to-tonebar contact (or screw-to-tonebar contact, or spring-to-screw contact ) to allow the note to twang, buzz, or bzzing unmusically.

New Grommets will fix it right up, and will take you five minutes of work (if you have the parts on hand).  If you don't have a baggie of grommets, you can swap two grommets from the top octave, and possibly fix your low A (and maybe the high note won't mind the nearly-trashed grommets).

Sometimes also, you can just un-mount the tonebar, and re-mount it with the same-old grommets, but the mucking about re-seats the grommets and the buzz goes away.

Try it out, and tell us if it worked.

[MuMajor]

I have a somewhat similar problem with respect to the G below middle C. I think mine is not a grommet issue (they look and feel rather good, and I have tried the swapping technique suggested above). Fiddling with the tonebar screws and the pickup does not seem to help either. So, maybe I have a case of a bad tine. However, I noticed that the tine in question is quite visibly longer than the lower tine (the F# tine below, that is), and I was wondering if the (incorrect?) length of tine could cause this problem. I mean, it feels like the tine is sort of forced to an unnatural vibrating frequency with the tuning spring. Does this make sense?

[Ben Bove]

Well, in the absolute bass register on an 88, if you play the notes lightly you will probably hear more of the overtones than the actual note.  The tines are so long that they do generate pretty strong partials besides the fundamental tone.  But if you play at a normal volume it shouldn't be too noticeable.  What vintage is your Rhodes from Reinski?

MuMajor - If the tine is just a little longer or shorter than what it should be according to its neighbors, no biggie.  If it is substantially longer or shorter, what happens is that the hammertip will probably not strike in the "sweet spot" of the tine.  This will create a more thunky or overtone-y sound - consider hitting a baseball closer to the end of the bat.  You might want to chop down the tine if it's too long and see if that helps.

[pianotuner steveo]

Maybe the pickup is too close to the tine?

[MuMajor]

Thank you for the reply. The tine is visibly but I'd say not substantially longer than the neighboring tines. The "sweet spot" issue is exactly what I was thinking, but maybe the tine is not long enough to cause the lack of sweet spot. I'll experiment more and inform my results if there is something to report