hohner pianet t voicing issues

[kennethgregory]

hello,

this is my first post after many years spent lurking. thanks for having me.
I recently obtained a Pianet T in very good condition. It's very clean with no rust on any of the internal metal parts. All the reeds are fairly well in tune, and it plays well.

The only issue I am having with it is inconsistent volume and sustain across the keyboard. I have watched the vintage vibe video for voicing a Pianet (they have a combo pianet in the video but I think the mechanisms are the same in the T) and have tried their techniques for moving the pickups back and forth, and for bending the key arms up and down to adjust how much pressure each pad exerts on the reed while it is at rest. I have also removed all of the pads and washed them in warm soapy water, although they weren't very dirty to begin with.

It cannot be understated how clean this unit is. When I saw it for the first time I thought it must have been NOS, but the seller told me it wasn't. Just very well cared for.

Here's where things get a little weird: I have played the Pianet both amplified (running it through a Roland JC-55) and unplugged, and when it's unplugged the keys all sound more or less the same. So basically I have achieved acoustic consistency in terms of volume and sustain across the keyboard, but when I plug it in, I experience inconsistent volume and sustain, particularly on two notes which I rely on quite heavily in the music I have been working on. I did a deep dive through the forum posts here pertaining to Pianet voicing, and I found one mention of the possibility that reeds may require re-magnetization. I found a strong magnet and attempted to restore magnetism to one of the reeds exhibiting lower volume and sustain when plugged in after removing it from its place inside the Pianet. Upon placing this reed back in its intended position, no difference was noted in volume or sustain. Remagnetization must not be the issue here.

I am running out of ideas here and must now ask for help: anyone experience anything like this before? What else can I try?

[reedhburton]

Hey, I think I have a very similar issue. Did you ever find a fix for this?

[Erik Hertzberg]

Remagnetize -- check the Hohner facebook group. It's complicated, but you have to chase polarity across the pickup, reeds etc. I had this same issue. I takes hours

[kennethgregory]

checking back in with a bit of an update.

first off, to Erik H: read my above post. I have already attempted demagnetization with no noteworthy affect. also, I do not appreciate being directed to a Facebook user group when I've already found this forum which seems to be just as active and useful.

ok, so I've purchased an ART studio V3 tube preamp, thinking I just needed something to give me a bit more gain than a pedal could provide. well, the added gain did help a bit but I was still experiencing quite drastic volume drops across the keyboard.

Then, just for the hell of it, I pressed the "phase reverse" switch on the ART box and BAM. everything is well. I've got consistent volume on pretty much every key, and what's more: the bell-like attack which was present on some notes and missing on others is now there on every note. that seems to have solved my problem.

Now the question is: why is the Pianet having phase issues, and how can I address this so I don't need an electronic device to invert the phase of the signal it's putting out? Anybody have any ideas?