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High Times
Joined: 25 Oct 2004
Posts: 744
Location: music written by JK/Toby Smith
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 Posted: Tue May 24, 2005 15:37 |
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TOBY AND HIS HOHNER CLAVINET
As we all know Toby Smith used 3 great electric pianos:
Fender Rhodes piano, Wurlitzer Piano and Hohner Clavinet
Hohner Clavinet piano
http://www.geocities.com/no_boogie_til_9/Toby_Hohner_Clavinet.JPG
http://www.alphabeck.co.uk/hoep/images/hohnerduo.jpg
the model he used is called "Hohner Clavinet / Pianet "Duo"
Hohner Clavinet / Pianet "Duo"
The Clavinet E7 & Pianet T in one unit. Really Heavy. Electronic controls enable the keyboard to be split into various Pianet/Clavinet combinations.
he used it almost in all Jamiroquai songs.
and as hohner can produce big variety of funky sounds,
toby used them all, making his hohner sound so unique
special and often very unusual. i have no words to describe
emotions i get listening to toby's clavinet lines, plugged into
wah wah pedal or Mutron envelope filter or when its a clean sound, like
one on Stillness in Time - its not guitar there, its hohner clavinet!!!!
and sound panorame is very interesting here - toby's left hand
sounds in one channel and right hands' fast chords - in the other channel.
and i think we should name london airport for toby airport for this great
arrangement. or even 2 airports... Toby you're my favourite musician!!!!!
i think about you and your talent every day!!!!!!  
or listen to Journey to Arnhemland (when the track starts - theres only
moogy synth lead and rhodes piano with wah wah effect. then 3rd sound
appears -this is Hohner clavinet clean sound!)
pic from http://www.mtey.com
Check "Hooked Up" - best version for me is ROYAL ALBERT HALL !!!
The gig kicks off with Hohner clavinet riff toby plays with left hand
(i can hear slight envelope filter effect) , and after some time
he begins to play jazzy chords on his Fender rhodes with right hand
simoltaneously with clavinet riff!!!!
after that on 1:16 Jay's starting to sing verse and toby stops playing
hohner, and Simon Katz is playing the same riff alone and toby plays
his amazing chords on Fender rhodes with 2 hands.
pic from http://www.mtey.com
now that you know how it sounds you canfind all other
examples yourselves!!!
check this great site about hohner clavinets:
http://www.gti.net/junebug/clavinet/
This is Mutron envelope filter, as Toby says: "Which is like a bass effects
pedal, but i can use it on one of the keyboards as well, maybe on the
Clavinet to get a really envelopy "bow-wow" sort of thing"
an article about hohner clavinets:
Hohner Clavinet
by Julian Colbeck
Produced: 1971-85 Made in: Germany Designed by: Ernst Zacharias Number produced: 100,000 Sound-production system: hammer action, strings Price new: $700 Today's prices: Like new $2,000 Like, it's okay for its age $1,500 Like hell $900
Of all the classic keyboards and synths, none has had greater highs and lows than the Hohner Clavinet. All the rage in the 1970s when Stevie Wonder's "Superstition" catapulted its uniquely spiky, funky sound into everyone's consciousness, the Clavi went into a deeper funk - in the negative sense - in the 1980s; you could scarcely give one away. Even in 1996, the typical secondhand price was less than $1,000. Now a top-quality Clavi can fetch twice that.
The Clavinet began as another curious invention from Hohner staff designer Ernst Zacharias. A man with a quest to modernize and electrify a whole battery of baroque keyboard instruments, Zacharias also designed the Hohner Cembalet and Pianet. The first Clavinet - with built-in amplification - appeared in the early 1960s. Clavinet Model 1, the prototype, recently made its debut at Austria's Keyboard Museum. The first Clavinet was followed by the strange, triangular, three-legged period piece (complete with '60s-style reverse-color keys) called the Clavinet L.
But the D6 - with its distinctive light-wood casing, flip-top lid, and screw-in legs - was the big hit. The D6 is a curious contraption: it requires an annoying 9-volt battery, nominally has only one tone, and needs tuning. The pickups, single coil and prone to lots of hum, are embedded in epoxy resin, easily broken, and a bummer to repair. And the D6 weighs a ton (actually 68.35 pounds). The 1979-vintage E7 retained the same innards but sported new Tolex livery and more modern-looking tubular steel legs.
To appreciate what all the fuss is about, you have to play a Clavinet - a real one, not a sample or emulation. Only then will the full weight of this percussive, catchy, edgy, eminently playable instrument become apparent.
You'll quickly notice that the 60-note, firm-but-fast keyboard is not only velocity sensitive but also aftertouch sensitive. (I'm talking about mechanical sensitivity here; this is a pre-MIDI instrument.) Simply leaning hard into a note presses the hammer hard up against a string and (pitch) bends it, as in an 18th-century clavichord. A serious player can even produce vibrato by further waggling the key. But the main advantage of owning an actual Clavinet - as opposed to owning a set of samples or a digital synthesizer with a Clavi tone - is that a whole range of tones is, in fact, at your fingertips.
Magnetic pickups lie at the other end of the string, and six rocker switches on the top panel control the instrument's pickup arrangement and polarity. Those switches - Brilliant, Treble, Medium, Soft, A/B, and C/D - let you concoct a vast array of tones. A slider-operated string damper can let notes ring or progressively muffle them.
Aside from knowing which pickup configuration produces what tones, you don't need a lot of technical skill to play a Clavinet. But sound is produced by hammers hitting strings, so two more skills come into play: tuning and replacing broken strings. You have to check the tuning on a regular basis; a tuning key was originally supplied with the instrument. Although you can replace strings, doing so is somewhat of a drag. Luckily, strings don't break often unless your technique is fairly brutal.
When inspecting a prospective purchase, check the strikers, in case the previous owner was Arnold Schwarzenegger. Under heavy hands, pads are prone to splitting, and split pads require replacement. You can check for splitting easily by gently holding down each key and making sure it doesn't temporarily stick to the string. Check the Clavi's interior for rusty strings and make sure that the bed in which the keyboard sits is not warped. Cracked pickups are a common problem; fortunately, you can purchase new ones from the Hohner Clavinet Resource Homepage (www.clavinet.com). The new pickups even improve on the originals thanks to their double-coil, humbucking design. An Upper and Lower set sells for $349.99.
Remarkably, the D6 Clavinet design did not change substantially during its long production run. Hohner no longer produces the original rubber hammer tips, but you can buy new tips from other sources, including the aforementioned clavinet.com ($74.99). Hohner resourcefully recommends using O-rings, cut to size, from a Chevy engine as an adequate substitute. You can ease changing a broken string by weaving a plastic drinking straw through the yarn and then passing the string through the straw.
The Clavinet's steely, percussive sound made it the Fender Stratocaster of keyboards. In fact, many guitarists - from Jeff Beck (Wired) to John Paul Jones (Physical Graffiti) to Frank Dunnery (who actually fretted a Clavinet bed) to Lenny Kravitz - have found it a natural extension of their normal plank-spanking endeavors.
The Clavinet does inspire, if not require, a particular playing style that is heavy on syncopation and feel and light on individual note articulation. Rick Wakeman on the Clavi was never a pretty sight.
Clavinets also benefit enormously from effects, notably wah-wah (if it isn't funky enough already) and phase shifter or chorus. Unaltered, the Clavinet is pretty dry and stark. It doesn't have a sustain pedal, of course. The lone audio out is mono, and though most people generally run a Clavi through a DI box for recording, a Fender bass or guitar amp (such as a Dual Showman or Twin Reverb) or even a Leslie cabinet can add considerable weight to the sound.
Hohner ceased dealing in Clavinets years ago, but you can obtain spare parts and service from companies that specialize in vintage-instrument repairs. On the Web, the top source is www.clavinet.com.
Last edited by High Times on Tue May 24, 2005 16:07; edited 1 time in total |
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High Times
Joined: 25 Oct 2004
Posts: 744
Location: music written by JK/Toby Smith
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mainveinman
Joined: 18 Jan 2005
Posts: 43
Location: Essex - England
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| Posted: Tue May 24, 2005 18:42 |
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Great article High Times - Keyboards are my favourite as well. Toby was seriously funky with those old 70's instruments !! |
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T_R_S
Joined: 02 Jun 2004
Posts: 81
Location: Nørwåy
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| Posted: Wed May 25, 2005 15:06 |
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I have a late D7 clavinet, which is basically an early E7 (not the wooden box, the black one). I run it through a Dunlop Hendrix Wah-pedal, but I've also used an MXR Phase 45 phaser-pedal.
But I must say, the clean sound is pretty damn funky on its own!
Truly one of the funkiest instruments around, and no samples can ever emulate the sound 100%.
One day I'll make a website and post some mp3s of some of my songs where I play Clavinet, Rhodes or Moog. But I'm afraid that's not gonna happen before august (or even later). I can probably get some pictures sooner than that, though.
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Supergroovalisticprosifunkstication! |
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High Times
Joined: 25 Oct 2004
Posts: 744
Location: music written by JK/Toby Smith
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| Posted: Wed May 25, 2005 16:22 |
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Hi , T_R_S, 
i am so impressed!!!!
you are really cool, mate!!! how did you manage to buy your instruments?
did you buy them on ebay? do you use envelope filter? |
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T_R_S
Joined: 02 Jun 2004
Posts: 81
Location: Nørwåy
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| Posted: Thu May 26, 2005 17:15 |
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I only tried to buy a clavinet on ebay once, and it was in bad need of repair.
My Rhodes I bought from a friend of a friend of my father, all musicians. I got it cheap, but it works! Doesn't look great, though. I'm gonna have it fixed this summer, to get perfect sound.
But the clavinet I found via an ad on a norwegian musicians' website. It cost twice as much as the Rhodes, but it is in much better condition. The only problem is a loose wire to the battery, but I can fix that in no time.
As for the envelope filter; an envelope filter is like an auto-wah, or a wah is like a movable envelope filter. I use the wah-pedal to get full control, but I wouldn't mind having an envelope filter, cos your feet get tired pretty fast!
My Moog I bought on ebay. There are many different Moogs, and I got one of the smallest and cheapest. It's called the Realistic MG-1, and is from that late 70's/early 80's. It needs a bit of repair, but I am told I only need to change a few electronic chips. However, most of it does work, and I can get some lovely 70's sounds from it. That goes for all three, actually.
What I want now is an ARP string synth. I can't find any in Norway, but maybe one day I'll find one somewhere else. There are several models; the Solina, the Omni and the Quartet. People like Herbie Hancock and the Ohio Players used stringsynths like these to fatten up their sound.
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Supergroovalisticprosifunkstication! |
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Mers
Joined: 10 Aug 2003
Posts: 125
Location: Brazil...
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| Posted: Thu May 26, 2005 23:06 |
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Listen..if u guys havn't already, check out songs by the mahavishnu orchestra....especially the first formations...
from then, go to return to forever, and weather report...headhunters next...
These guys popularized these instruments...GO LISTEN TO THEM, u will not regret it...
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T_R_S
Joined: 02 Jun 2004
Posts: 81
Location: Nørwåy
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mainveinman
Joined: 18 Jan 2005
Posts: 43
Location: Essex - England
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| Posted: Fri May 27, 2005 14:00 |
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T_R_S
A very nice buy and it looks almost brand new as well !! |
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