Time travel

Sooo...It's been quite some time since my last post and quite a lot has happened since. After the last post in November '08, I simply got busy - both in the studio and on tour - and didn't have the mind to keep up with posts. I did, however, casually document various projects and progress in and around the studio. Beginning with this post, I ask you to join me on a little time travel mission to visit some of these past highlights.

This post will introduce the beautiful Cable Nelson upright grand piano that I acquired in January '09 and refurbished. This belonged to my neighbors here in the building, good friends and great musicians Scott Seiver and Jeremy Ruzumna, who were on their way out. I had a couple ADC patchbays that were not in use, so made an even trade.

It needed a fair amount of love. Sustain pedal was inoperable, action was uneven, a few ivory key tops were missing, a wheel was missing, bridal straps were deteriorated, etc. I disassembled the pedal systems, removed the entire action and removed all the keys. Cleaned the entire shell - which yielded teacher's/student's pencils from decades of lessons - and refreshed the beautiful quarter-sawn oak veneer. I outsourced the action adjustments and bridal strap replacement to paino tech Mark Greisen, who also had a book that dated this beauty to 1911. With the action was off location, I cleaned and polished the ivory keys and finished the pedal systems, wheel and other tweaks. Once Mark returned with the action, he adjusted the manual and gave her a nice tune. Since it's official introduction to The Tin Room, she's been used on a number of projects, most recently playing an important role on The Stripminers new album I am producing, due out soon.