KVR Audio

butter · Post by **butter** » Mon May 21, 2007 3:36 pm

So I ended up going to a garage sale this weekend and found what may be the heaviest and crappiest keyboard I've ever seen. It's a Hohner International Piano 2 made some time in the 70's. It was only $40 so I pretty much had to get it.

There are technically three sounds onboard, "Piano", "guitar/harpsichord" and bass. It sounds like neither a piano nor a harpsichord but the bass sounds pretty good.

Anyone have some ideas on how to mod this thing? It's transistor based and does use mains power. I understand one isn't supposed to circuit-bend things running of mains so is there anything else I can do with it? It's built like a freaking tank and is really only suitable for recording if I run a ton of effects on it.

BertKoor · Post by **BertKoor** » Mon May 21, 2007 3:48 pm

Apparently you can detune each of the twelve tones individually

I doubt you can do anything else with it than what you've managed so far...

butter · Post by **butter** » Mon May 21, 2007 4:28 pm

I noticed that. If I can figure out where the decay is generated I might be able to get some more useful tones out of it. As it is it sounds alright if I run it through my usual shoegazer chain of effects.

BertKoor · Post by **BertKoor** » Mon May 21, 2007 4:33 pm

Probably the decay is done with a simple resistor-capacitor pair: on each tone, again! That's why it's so heavy

butter · Post by **butter** » Mon May 21, 2007 4:36 pm

That's probably the case. I'm amazed that something that sounds so bad can weigh so much!

Meffy · Post by **Meffy** » Mon May 21, 2007 4:58 pm

butter wrote:I'm amazed that something that sounds so bad can weigh so much!

It's a lost art. They don't make 'em like that any more. There's not enough material left.

butter · Post by **butter** » Mon May 21, 2007 4:59 pm

LOL. True, true...

Garage sale find