“A Wurli on the left hand, a Rhodes on your right” These used to be a sleeper keyboard here on the East coast that could be had for a few hundred dollars And many people didn’t want. It’s so ridiculously portable and gorgeous sounding, I can’t afford one but they are lovey at any price.

Back in the early 80s I wanted to add a second bass keyboard to supplement my Rhodes besides my Korg MS20. Somehow I got the idea to get a Pianet, which has that nice soft pluck, similar to the action of a finger plucking a string, and running it through an Ibanez AF9 auto-wah filter pedal with the lo-pass cutoff rolled off and no envelope amount applied. It made a sweet electric bass sound to complement my MS20 upright bass patch. Ah, the good old pre-sampling DIY days!

I love the sound of the Pianet and have so much appreciation for it's simplicity. You've got a treasure.

Pianoteq has quite good simulations of the Pianet N and T and the Electra Piano. With all the parameters the software offers for tweaking, these models are quite versatile. You can dial in as much mechanical noses as you want. Also, you can have vibrato, tremolo, sustain and, of course, effects like chorus, phaser, overdrive etc. Still I would also like to have an original instrument sometime, but they've become quite expensive, even though they're not very rare here in Germany.

I used to have an ancient wooden cased pianet. It had a similar key and Reed mechanism but instead of individual pick up coils there was a metal bar running the whole length of the keyboard close to the ends of the vibrating reeds. The reeds and bar acted like a big capacitor. When the reeds vibrated it fluctuated the frequency of a hf oscillator and the rest of the circuit was basically an FM radio receiver. On a good day it would pick up morse code and nearby taxi radios. Eventually something inside caught fire while we were playing and fused the electric at the venue.

Picked one up a few years back and I love it. With a little combo amp and an effects pedal or two, the sound is so sweet. So easy to throw in the back seat and take it out for a jam. The mellow sound with a small amount of overdrive crunch really stands out. I get so many raised eyebrows when I play it from people wondering what it is. They love the sound and are amazed that it comes form that compact case. Most people think I'm walking in with a guitar when I start to set up. :)

I love the sound of the earlier Pianets on Third-era Soft Machine recordings.

p.s. Thanks Louisa, for holding a "steady cam "

Sounds amazing! never heard of the Pianet?! Thanks dear Steve for shareing this 😍❤

My dream has always been a 200a but this comes as a close 2nd place. So quirky and good sounding 🥰🥰🥰

Yiyu're right about early/mid '60's for the earlier version. I remember (vaguely) seeing & playing one in a music shop during that period.I think Keep up the god work.

I'd love to play one of these, the sound is really beautiful. Like a rhodes but even simpler and so much easier to carry around.

Thank you for information!

Very informative, thank you!!

You're on another level. Lovely sounding instrument, too.

Interesting design principle. The keys don’t strike the metal reeds (like on a Rhodes, or an acoustic piano’s strings). Instead, the weight of the mechanism pushes the metal reeds down, and then when you press a key it RELEASES the weight on the reeds, so they snap back and vibrate from no longer being under compression.

It looks like a fairly easy instrument to make. I am surprised someone isn’t remaking them.

I had one of those in my urly days, but by god, they still are quite heavy, nowadays i`dd rather prefer a cup of............. Have a nice day !!!

What a lovely keyboard Steve, that Pianet has a beautiful sound. It sounds in fact like a Fender or a Wurlitzer, and disconected from the Amplifier it reminds the softness of the Celesta !!

Just got one thanks to this lovely video. Thank you.

You're right about I Am the Walrus. That was a Pianet N put through flanging and possibly ADT when they did the reduction mix to give it that chorus-y sound. The earlier songs up until Getting Better used a Pianet C from what I've been able to gather.

Lovely video! I got a Hohner Clavinet/Pianet Duo which I believe is quite similar to the T (?). Funnily enough the manual says the Pianet isn't touch sensitive, when in fact it is just as you say! Your info regarding the reeds/'suction things' is quite useful info. I have a few dull/dead notes so I'll have to go through and give it another cleaning in hopes of making it a more useful instrument. As it is, I often prefer it in a mix to a Rhodes. The clavinet half was unfortunately DOA... hope to repair it within the year.

About 1980, Klaus Wonderlich played “Till” on the album “dream concerto”. The intro sounds just like that instrument. A great organist, never forgotten. Great vid Steve.

Cool video. You have a natural talent & charm.

Definitely a pianet on Walrus! I've had a few of these over the years, and always really underrated them and sold them for 50 quid!! I used to look down on it as the poor relation of the wurly or the rhodes, but it has its own special charm, and now of course I wish I'd held on to it.

You are a delight!

Thanks for the tip about using a fibreglass pen on the reeds, my Pianet T has some pretty tarnished / corroded reeds. It's fun to play, has a great sound. The lack of sustain pedal doesn't bother me.

those old woodies were the shit!! i see old videos of chicago transit authority and steely dan using them live back in the day, and all the local bands had them on top of their farfisas or voxs

I love the Pianet😍. Some may think lesser of this instrument because it not as expresive as an true electric piano like the Rhodes and wurlitzer.(You always see wording like the "Poor man Rhodes" "Poor man Wurlitzer" at the classifieds) However i think the size and its timbre is more intimate and charming to me :). Availability and pricing is not bad either, they pop up on the classified often for anything from 400 to 800 euros depending on state(at least for the T model, N model has higher asking price often)☺

A handsome video.

Fresh presentation! So, according the look inside it would fit to call the Pianet T a sucker for the sound; which is a funny thing. Thanks for sharing :-)!

Pianet M with the built in modulation effects is super interesting

Never heard before of the Dulcitone, i have to check.

I had one 20 years ago. Had it had a sustain pedal option, it would have taken over the e piano market.

I think one of these is used on the great Sensational Alex Harvey Band track "Sirroco" from the album "S.A.H.B stories". Dig it.

The Beatles used a different model of Pianet, the Pianet N. They use a different mechanism and different kind of pickups and sound very different. Where one might compare the T to a Rhodes bell-like tone, the N that the Beatles used sounds very similar to a Wurlitzer, with more of a growl and bark to the sound.

Robert Lamm of Chicago also used a Hohner Pianet. It is perhaps more well known for being used on the intro of the Chicago song Feeling Stronger Every Day.

John Cale hair perfect accompaniment to this fine item

I like the sound of this instrument so much so that I downloaded a sample instrument from Piano book called Little Black Piano. It is a Descent Sampler instrument that pretty good. Thanks for the video.

I always think of the Zombies with the Pianet…. I had a T but also an earlier C that I couldn’t get working, it had a broken coil as it had some weird radio circuit in it. Shame really.

It sounds like a cross between a Wurli and Rhodes. Very nice tone🎶

i want one also i think a vox continental video would be splendid

This honer was near the ocean for some time, as there are visible salts? Barnicles? etc encrusted to its innards.

Christine McVie and Robert Lamm both used one live.

That Christine McVie sound... obviously I'd rather have a Rhodes practically speaking but something about the pianet still makes me want one. I'll just have to live with digital stage pianos though lol

“You like me too much” is an acoustic piano I think, however John’s Pianet clearly visible and audible on “The Night Before” in the Help film.

The reeds look like they are finished in gun blue, which isn't very rust resistant and needs to be kept wiped with oil, which would probably work against the sucking action of the rubber pads once the oil picked up some dust. I can see there is rust forming on some of those reeds, and if that rust scale grew to the pad contact area that would kill the sucking action too. It would seem that care of the reeds is important. If they got too rusty you'd have to remove the rust and refinish them somehow. I'd be looking at a light application of an automotive grade urethane, applied by fine spray very lightly so as not to affect the tone with the coating. Experimentation would be in order. Of course you could simply clean the rust by rubbing them with steel wool but that would only be a temporary fix because the rust would return before long.

What chords are you playing around 0:30?

Can we talk about the part where he brushes off the (human?) hair off the pianet?😂

Brilliant video, as always. I'm completely non-musical, but love the demos and looks insides of your various instruments. Wonderful stuff! What happens to the sound if the little red rubbery things are moved further along the arms to play the reeds in a different place? Cheers!

This pianet sounds a bit like one of keyboards played by John Costa on Mr Rogers tv show in America.

Lovely soft attack sound. (Did I say that right?)

Sadly Ernst Zacharias passed away in 2020. His contribution to the sound of rock and pop music, though probably not his foremost intention, is quite enormous. BTW, epic fail on the pronunciation of "Zacharias", LOL, but I admit, that's a tough one. You can listen to a sample on the German wiktionary page for the name.

You mentioned a couple tracks off Help!, which now makes me wonder if the Pianet is the same electric piano they use on Tell Me What You See. The little break with the piano into the drums after the chorus might be my favorite instrumental bit on the whole album

Hi! Thanks for your video and explainatory description. It would be nice to hear the sound of the unamplified instrument: is it loud enough to be heard ecorded with a mic?

Like the Wurlitzer electric piano or the East German Claviset

The neat thing for me about the idea that the Pianet doesn’t have any sustaining system on it and is dependent strictly on the touch of your hand resonates for me because of a mistake I made when reading about the evolution of the group Genesis. If I’m not mistaken, those guys never had a Pianet model, but I made the mistake of thinking before Steve Hackett joined their lineup that Tony Banks was playing bass pedals with his feet and not using sustaining systems on his pianos so Michael Rutherford could play electric guitar. That’s not how it was, but the idea seemed kind of juicy to me. Some people depend a little bit to greatly on sustain pedals when they’re performing live, and they probably didn’t know what to do with a model like this one. Since I stopped trying to use sustain pedal for everything except when I am doing parts on my 88-note synthesizer at home, I imagine that I could play something like this Pianet.

damn i wish i never sold mine QQ

Brother! you need to do a video on an Elepian!!

Enjoyed your video! I’ve both subscribed and “liked”. 👍😊 Question… I’m trying to identify the EP used on the intro of the song “Fool If You Think It’s Over”, recorded and released by Chris Rea in 1978… The intro EP on that song “sorta” sounds like a Rhodes, but to my ears, not “quite” a Rhodes… Watching your video, and listening to the Hohner Pianet, it sounds (to me) to be much closer to the intro EP on that song than a “typical” Rhodes, with its more recognizable “chimey” sound… Just curious to hear what you (or anyone else here) thinks. Thanks! 😊🙏

Rod Argent used one in the Zombies

Ring ring. "Hello?" "Yes, do you have Muppets in a Pianet?" "No." "Then you'd better let them--wait, what?" >Click

Why is there a pair of boots hanging from the ceiling?

another pros is the weight, about 20kg is not bad, one person can carry it, much less problematic than 70kg Rhodes. btw it sound way better than east germany Weltmeister Claviset.

1:44 Airnst Sahahriahs

Buddy, nice video, but the rubber pices are there to make the reeds stop vibrating... The are no such thing as suction happening. Below each reed are hammers percuting them, when keys played

This instrument was used extensively by The Beatles on such songs as "The Night Before", "You Like Me Too Much", "Tell Me What You See", "Getting Better", and "I Am The Walrus". Furthermore, it was also used for the keyboard solo on "Revolution", played by Nicky Hopkins. The Hohner Pianet piano is such an underrated instrument!

💇🏽‍♀️👍🏼

Nice hair cut young man.. Hohner gear was quality. i had a les paul style guitar in Germany in the army .. Alas never learned to play properly... Anyway.. Love;y sound from it.. Did Stevie Wonder use one on Sunshine of my life.. i wonder??

I was a bit stupid to throw mine out in the rubbish in hindsight

It would bug me if there’s no sustain pedal.

Love it,.... if only it had a sustain pedal, without one the functionality isn't too great

THE SONG: MAMA TOLD ME NOT TO COME 3 DOG

Dude, what happened to your long hair?

No more haircuts.

Better get your hair checked! 😂

I had one of these in the early 80's. As a pianst, I hated it. The sound was Ok, and it was easy to transport. But the action was basically like a harpsichord--it resists until th pad gives way, than plays all at once. There's no real expression to it. And the lack of a sustain pedal means that complex piano music is hard or impossible to play. Did it work as a simple piano-style accompinament in a garage band? Yes. Was it fun or expressive to play and worth seeking out now? Absolutely not. It's nowhere near as expressive as a Rhodres or Wurlitzer, let alone a modern digital piano.