Pianet

The Pianet was a series of electric pianos built by the Hohner company of Trossingen, West Germany from the 1960s to the 1970s. The designer of the early Pianet models was Ernst Zacharias, basing the mechanism closely on a 1920s design by Lloyd Loar. The Pianet evolved from the earlier reed-based Hohner electric piano the "Cembalet" which like the Pianet was intended for home use.

Sound is generated by an array of metal reeds which are plucked by foam pads impregnated with adhesive (actually a proprietary viscous oil) connected via metal rods to the keys so that, on pressing a key, the pad is released and makes the reed vibrate. An electrostatic pickup consisting of a segmented vertical plate mounted orthogonal to and just beyond the ends of the reeds transmits the sound to an amplifier. The Pianet's sound was piano-like, sharing sonic similarities to the Wurlitzer series of electric pianos as both relied on metal reeds as their sound source.

During its period of manufacture the Pianet was offered in a number of designs. The original valve-based model released in 1962 was simply named "Pianet", and it was soon followed by solid state versions Pianet C (also CF & CH), the lidless Pianet L with metal legs and built in speakers, and the ubiquitous Pianet N (versions I & II), which came with side mounted legs and an optional underbelly amplifier. The Pianet N was the final incarnation of the early Pianet. The early Pianets were distinguished in appearance by their lids which opened upright into a music stand. The first Pianet (Mark I) and the Pianet L had no additional effects or controls while the C and N models were equipped with a vibrato circuit (a switch mounted next to the keyboard). All Pianet models (except the L and Combo models) came with volume pedals. The Pianet soon found popularity with music groups of the 1960s, leading Hohner to produce the Combo model, designed for the performing musician, without legs, being designed to sit atop an organ or acoustic piano.

In the 1970s Hohner produced the final models; the Pianet M and T. These featured a change in design from electrostatic pickups and foam pads to passive pickups and rubber pads as after a time the original foam pads were found to disintegrate. The reeds were also changed from the rough finish of the earlier type to a smooth finish. This resulted in a different sound, mellower than that of the early models, better suited to the sounds of the 1970's. While popular with semi-pro musicians due to its low price and portability, it made a limited impact on major recording artists, though some notable musicians such as Fleetwood Mac's Christine McVie were proponents of the instrument. The M model, designed for home use, was built with a wooden case with internal speakers and a phaser circuit. The T model, most commonly found on the used market today, was again built for the gigging musician. It had no legs and in a departure from earlier models finished in wood veneer, is finished in black vinyl leathercloth. Its final breath came oddly as the Clavinet Duo model which combined a Clavinet (essentially an electric clavichord) with the Pianet T in one (albeit heavy) instrument. Production ceased by the early 1980s.

Users

Early Pianets were used on a number of hit recordings from the 1960s and 1970s, including She's Not There by The Zombies, Louie, Louie by The Kingsmen, Summer in the City by The Lovin' Spoonful, I Am The Walrus, Getting Better, and You Like Me Too Much by The Beatles, "This Guy's in Love With You" by Herb Alpert, "These Eyes" by The Guess Who, and Joy to the World by Three Dog Night. In the glam rock era, the Pianet was used by Bryan Ferry on the first few Roxy Music albums, for instance featuring prominently in their hit Editions of You.

The Pianet is enjoying a renaissance (e.g. Bugge Wesseltoft's Change) due to its unique sound and the availability of new pads for the earlier models, most of which had been reduced to unplayability due to pad decay. It is also popular as a substitute for the Wurlitzer electric piano, which has a similar mechanism for generating sound but is typically much heavier, requires more maintenance than the Pianet, and is overall more expensive.

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