I’m having a blast right now playing with our newly refurbished Hohner Pianet. My cousin Nick Christensen just finished putting new pads on it, and it plays like a dream.
I’m using a Boss RC-20 LoopStation foot pedal with it to get some good loops going, then running the output through our Digitech GFX1 Twin Tube pre-amplifier, then running that output through our Digitech DSP256XL multi-effects processor.
The output of this chain is then fed into our Peavey KB/A 100 keyboard/acoustic amplifier, and it sounds great.
The Pianet has such a warm, natural tone, I’m very impressed with the sounds we’re getting out of it now that Nick replaced the pads. I can’t wait to be able to do some recording with it. I believe the Pianet’s been in the Christensen family for years; Bob used to play keys for a number of bands here in the Twin CIties, and had a number of keyboards we’ve appropriated for our efforts over here at JackMerlot.com.
Nick got the replacement keys from Clavinet.com. Despite their website’s somewhat dated look & feel, they sent us a full set of replacement pads for a reasonable price with no problems; I recommend them, although you’d have to ask NIck for a full report about their customer service.
I’m busy these days writing songs for an album I’m hoping will be out by Christmastime. So far, I’ve got about ten songs I think are strong enough for an album, and I’m hoping for a couple more.
- Jack Merlot