Celeste

[Porritt, David]

Conrad:

We have a Jenko (usually called Junko here) and like yours has been used
and abused hard.  I asked our conductor if he would like for me to try
to improve the action he said that it wouldn't be worth it since the
sound was "horrific".  

dave

David M. Porritt
dporritt at smu.edu
-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On
Behalf Of Conrad Hoffsommer
Sent: Monday, March 05, 2007 5:33 AM
To: Pianotech List
Subject: Re: Celeste

At 09:12 PM 3/4/2007 -0700, you wrote:
>Celestas are notoriously bad even at the best of times.  Even the 
>one owned by the Chicago Symphony is a POS-an expensive pos but 
>never the less a pos.  The action has to be heavy to work in my 
>experience though I am not normally running the thing in 
>concert.  This is truly a good use for an electronic keyboard 
>IMHO.  If you learn any tricks please post them though.
>
>John Dutton
>Billings, MT
>(professional French horn player for 23 years now)
>
>From: Richard Morgan [mailto:rsanbornmorgan at yahoo.com]
>Sent: Sunday, 04 March, 2007 16:25
>To: pianotech at ptg.org
>Subject: Celeste
>
>Have any of you had occasion to work on a celeste?  I played The 
>Planets last night (tuba), and the keyboardist complained of a 
>too-hard touch on the celeste, causing an inconsistent 
>speaking.  Looking through the grill-work, and seeing piano-like 
>action, it occurred to me it could use some piano-like 
>regulating.  Didn't have the time to experiment, but I remain curious.
. .
>
>Thanks,
>Richard


Ditto.

In January I had the great, good fortune to work on the one here. 
(Jenko) It's obviously been ridden hard and put away wet , many 
times...  The rubber encased adjusting nuts on the pickup fingers had 
become absolutely non-adjustable due to ossified rubber which 
crumbled at the approach of a tool.

After replacing them, I find that the best you can get it to work is 
consistent with the others. Lightening the touch is not possible, as 
noted, so the best I could do was to get all at least functional.

Expensive?? I'm hearing rumors of $25k for a new one!! <$5 worth of 
parts and a couple hours of scratching head and making adjustments 
made a big difference. Now, if they'd only give ME the $25k... ;-}




Conrad Hoffsommer - Keyboard Technician
Luther College, 700 College Dr., Decorah, Iowa 52101-1045
1-(563)-387-1204 // Fax 1-(563)-387-1076

- Right now, I'm hoping to live until my age matches my golf score,
- Until then, I'll have to be content to have my IQ match my handicap.