I started making hammers because of my love of music.  In my rebuilding business I used every available hammer.  I found them all to be little more than volume controls. The harder you play the key - the louder the note.  The character of the note remains the same, no change of expression, just louder or softer.  

I believe music is a story told in sounds. Each note must have the capacity to tell its part of the particular story the music is about.  In a piano it is the hammer that can, or cannot produce the musical qualities that make a piano into a remarkably beautiful sounding instrument.  We designed the felt for Isaac hammers based on our understanding of piano tone. Musical tone on an acoustical instrument is made up of a number of frequencies. 

A piano string produces a spectrum of more than twenty frequencies. The felt we designed gives Isaac Cadenza hammers the unique property of highlighting different combinations of frequencies for every volume level.  Musical expression in piano playing is directly proportional to the capacity of the hammers to highlight a range of different frequencies at different volume levels.  This highlighting is known as musical color.  Isaac Cadenza hammers produce the longest sustain and the widest range of musical colour without the need for voicing.

Isaac Cadenza hammers feature these amazing qualities of sound production because of their unique design: Isaac Cadenzas produce tone in two stages.  Like every other hammer made they impact on the strings but unlike every other hammer made, Isaac Cadenza hammers are designed to double flex, utilizing the force of each hammer-string impact to push more energy into the string as the hammer rebounds.

NEW!

Isaac Cadenza S Hammers...

A hammer made with a Steinway type layered felt which does not require a lot of juicing and needling but sounds superb right out of the box -  This is my new Cadenza S hammer.

It has a lot of top felt, especially in the area of the fifth/sixth octaves, where you want it.  An amazing colour range, power and a full tone throughout the volume range.  As the power of this hammer is produced by its amazing resilience,  its wide colour range and sustain come along automatically.

The Cadenza S hammers are extremely sensitive to voicing techniques.  To brighten, apply three or four drops of hardener, no more, to the shoulders  and, if needed (I don't think so) apply two or three more drops of a lighter solution to the strike point - that's it for brightening.  For darkening  use the single needle lateral, not radial, technique.

"There is tone in your piano you haven't suspected -
the Cadenza S hammers will bring it out."