Basement Instrument Repairs

Yamaha CS-50

As so many of us do, I have some vintage instruments hanging out in my basement.  I played with these as a child, but actually understand how to use them now, so I was definitely interested in bringing them back up to spec.  The first of the three is circa 1977 Yamaha CS-50 Analog Synthesizer.  All I could do with this as a child was make garbage noise, but I had a feeling I would know what to do with it now that I understood what all those little markings like VCO, VCF, and LFO mean.  I was very excited to get this awesome vintage synth up & running again.

The second instrument is also very exciting.  It is a Hohner D6 Clavinet... like the kind Stevie Wonder uses.  This really cool instrument has a keyboard that frets a note on one string for each of the 60 keys.  After a quick soldering of the battery connector, and a fresh 9v, I had this thing making funky noise immediately!  But there was definitely still something wrong, a few of the settings weren't working and not every key worked.  Fortunately I found a very good resource to fix these things.  More on that later.

Hohner D6 Clavinet

Finally, and I think this one has the least hope, there is a Chinese Hammer Dulcimer or Yangqin rotting away in a case that is falling apart.  The finish is cracking and all of the bridges are starting to separate from years of mis-tensioned strings.  The hammers are missing and one of the bridges has entirely detached from the body of the instrument.



This should keep me busy for a while.  What I just described is where I started... as of today, none of these instruments make any functional noise.  I think the Yamaha has a bad transformer which can be replaced, but am not entirely sure yet.  The Clavinet is looking quite promising, and the dulcimer has yet to have anything done to it but to be inspected for the scope of the damage.  Like I said, this should keep me busy for a while.

Clavinet Tuning Pegs

More coming soon!