Columbia/Denon/Suzuki/Brother 80s electronic pianos with MIDI and 76 keys.

[Eirikur]

Looking for any info. This is an extremely rare beast. I just won a Goodwill auction on one for $43.00 USD. Does anyone know anything about this machine? I had one, briefly, years ago. It was built as a real class act, except for the chip-board here and there. It has a unique as far as I know keyboard action, which is really interesting. The (wood, I think) keys are long and the far end lifts a lead weight. So, it has correct-ish inertial properties of a piano action, but no let-off. The keys have a pleasant texture to them, probably not the cheapest plastic. I think it dates from the mid to late 80's. MIDI out. Digitally scanned keyboard, as required for MIDI. It appears to have 12 or so analog piano synthesizers, like a Roland MKS-10. The one I had years ago did not produce audio and I've never seen a service manual. That one had more features than the one I'm getting from Goodwill. In addition to the pianos and electric piano sounds, it had organ and strings and an analog (I expect) effects section. I was thinking that Denon (Nippon Columbia) made it, but now I've seen a Suzuki version (currently on eBay) and this one that is labeled Brother, as in printers. I think it's that company. So, I'm not so sure that Denon designed or built it now. Suzuki re-badged a bunch of Italian instruments and this has (chipboard, analog circuitry) features that suggests it's an Italian analog piano, but, I don't know. I don't think the Italians got into the digital-scanning keyboards quite that early. The Denon that I had, had a weird additional board mounted over the motherboard. It had a lot of ROMs. I think it may have been an added feature that provided samples for the attack, with the the sustain coming from the synth sections. It's an interesting, unique, keyboard action. If it's Italian, I think it should have a Fatar action, but I've never heard of a Fatar like this. It's like aliens inspired the designer.

[Eirikur]