My Project Piano
Egbert_Souse
920 Posts
I mentioned it here a few times. My goal was to take a spinet piano and turn it 'digital'. I hit up craigslist, got a Lest Spinet, put it in the garage and started ripping it apart. What I wanted to do was get all the guts out, put a keyboard in, and have speakers inside the piano.Keys coming out: 
And going into the trash: 
The way the hammers work is pretty cool. I played with them for a while before I ripped them out. 
I put a shitty little controller in there just to see what it would look like. 
This is the "harp" of the piano. Thing weighs a ton. I had to use the claw end of a hammer to get the strings off. The bolts that the strings are wound around have fine grooves at the end and are screwed tightly into the wood of the piano. You are supposed to have a special tuning tool to wind/unwind them, so I had to use a rachet. None of the sizes really matched because of the odd shape, so they stripped easily and I had to use pliers a lot. It took days to get all of the screws out. 
Damn there was a lot of those bolt things. 
Harp is out. Its so heavy I don't know what to do with it. For now its just going to sit in the driveway until I can figure something out. 
All of the ingredient to go inside the piano (except for the shitty controller, I was waiting for the new one from guitar center but it was back ordered forever, so I had to use the little on in the meantime to play around.) Controller, Sound Module, Receiver, and speakers. 
Holes for speaker wire. 
And this is where the speakers sit. 
I wanted to use the piano's original sustain pedal, so I put a small "square" type pedal inside, stuck a bolt through that wood part so that when the pedal is pressed down it sends a sustain message to the keyboard. It actually works so well you can't tell the difference. 
I got tired of waiting for my controller to show up so I went to guitar center and got a floor model casio. The sounds aren't that great, but the keys felt awesome, and thats all I cared about anyways. I'm not using any of the sounds, or its speakers, but I'm too afraid to rip it apart, so it goes in as is. 
And... here is the (almost) final result: 
I had to saw off the left side of the where the keyboard rests because the casio wound up being 1/4 of an inch to wide!!!! I couldn't beleive it. I'm going to get a dremel this weekend and try to shape the sides so that the keyboard fits in nicely.I attached the sound module underneath the part that holds the keyboard, but now I'm thinking I'll saw out a section of that wood so that it become part of it. Mount it inside the wood instead of under. Eventually I would like to get a smaller receiver instead of the big ugly one sitting there.Also I got rid of the old casters (wheels) on the bottom and put in new 2 inch rubber wheels so its easy to move and won't fuck up our wood floor. The bigger wheels, plus the extra hight of the keyboard makes the piano sit higher that I'm used to, but thats ok.So there it is. I was really happy to finally play the piano again last night. Took me about 2 weeks to do this.
And going into the trash: The way the hammers work is pretty cool. I played with them for a while before I ripped them out. I put a shitty little controller in there just to see what it would look like. This is the "harp" of the piano. Thing weighs a ton. I had to use the claw end of a hammer to get the strings off. The bolts that the strings are wound around have fine grooves at the end and are screwed tightly into the wood of the piano. You are supposed to have a special tuning tool to wind/unwind them, so I had to use a rachet. None of the sizes really matched because of the odd shape, so they stripped easily and I had to use pliers a lot. It took days to get all of the screws out. Damn there was a lot of those bolt things. Harp is out. Its so heavy I don't know what to do with it. For now its just going to sit in the driveway until I can figure something out. All of the ingredient to go inside the piano (except for the shitty controller, I was waiting for the new one from guitar center but it was back ordered forever, so I had to use the little on in the meantime to play around.) Controller, Sound Module, Receiver, and speakers. Holes for speaker wire. And this is where the speakers sit. I wanted to use the piano's original sustain pedal, so I put a small "square" type pedal inside, stuck a bolt through that wood part so that when the pedal is pressed down it sends a sustain message to the keyboard. It actually works so well you can't tell the difference. I got tired of waiting for my controller to show up so I went to guitar center and got a floor model casio. The sounds aren't that great, but the keys felt awesome, and thats all I cared about anyways. I'm not using any of the sounds, or its speakers, but I'm too afraid to rip it apart, so it goes in as is. And... here is the (almost) final result: I had to saw off the left side of the where the keyboard rests because the casio wound up being 1/4 of an inch to wide!!!! I couldn't beleive it. I'm going to get a dremel this weekend and try to shape the sides so that the keyboard fits in nicely.I attached the sound module underneath the part that holds the keyboard, but now I'm thinking I'll saw out a section of that wood so that it become part of it. Mount it inside the wood instead of under. Eventually I would like to get a smaller receiver instead of the big ugly one sitting there.Also I got rid of the old casters (wheels) on the bottom and put in new 2 inch rubber wheels so its easy to move and won't fuck up our wood floor. The bigger wheels, plus the extra hight of the keyboard makes the piano sit higher that I'm used to, but thats ok.So there it is. I was really happy to finally play the piano again last night. Took me about 2 weeks to do this.
Comments
- J
edit: 18 pack. that harp looks big, and um, i get thirsty.
No, I definitely want to cover the gray part up. Its still a work in progress. Eventually I would like it too just look like a regular piano, instead of a keyboard sitting on what used to be a piano.
Gabe - I shall hollereth.
Even if you'd end up hating the instrument you could easily sell it.
What?
I'm not sure what you mean... like make a new piano out of it? With electricity? Electricity for what?
Can we be friends?
The jury is still out on that. It seems like on certain notes there is a weird frequency ringing or something like that. I was thinking that since the sound came from inside the wood in the first place that putting the speakers there might add a little realism. But it will of course never sound totally real without the resonance of the harp and the movement sound of all the hammers.
I've never heard of an electric cello (sounds cool) but I guess 2 ways to get a warmer sound would be maybe to play with some slight reverb or something? Cellos don't really reverb like a piano does, so thats a good question. The other way would be to get a regular cello