18/07/2026
Voicing and regulation are the finishing stages of a grand piano's preparation - the point at which its touch and tone are brought into balance and optimised. Regulation precisely adjusts the mechanics of the action, governing touch and responsiveness; voicing shapes the tone, worked chiefly through the hammers.
Our head finishing technician, Ben Edwards, has spent many years bringing professional instruments to peak playing condition, including five years at the Steinway Hamburg factory. This finishing work usually takes three to five full days and may involve fine regulation, the reshaping and voicing of hammers, several tunings and any final adjustments. It is the last stage of a restoration that can run to twelve months.
We treat regulation and voicing not as afterthoughts but as essential to how a piano plays and sounds, guided throughout by respect for its history and potential. Each adjustment is deliberate, informed by close listening and by an understanding of how the instrument will settle with use. We do not present a piano until we are satisfied that its musical character has been fully drawn out.
With restored instruments, particular care goes into understanding how they were originally voiced. Wherever possible, our choices follow the maker's original design and materials, so that a piano's original character is re-established rather than overwritten. Through patient, experienced work, our technicians bring each instrument to its full voice before it reaches our central London showroom.
