MarkOne wrote: ↑Sat Mar 18, 2023 1:52 pmThe Elf wrote: ↑Sat Mar 18, 2023 1:38 pm
They were, indeed, horrible to play.
I can attest to this too. The Planet T is the only keyboard I ever sold and not at some time after regretted it. The action was horrible. It was
barely touch sensitive, the energy in the tine came from lifting a 'sticky' rubber pad, and when it couldn't stick any longer it release the tine, the difference between softly playing and hammering was not very great at all.
Back in the mid 70's I had a Pianet N ('Natural' wood finish), and although I liked the sound (it was certainly the cheapest way to add a sort of 'acoustic' keyboard sound to your rig), I totally agree about the sticky pads being a pain.
In my case (after buying secondhand), some notes hardly had any volume at all because the stickiness of the foam pads had started to wear out.
However, the most annoying aspect was that unlike the later 'T' version with electromagnetic pickups, the 'N' version used electrostatic (capacitive) pickups that placed a highish voltage between the moving tines and the nearby staionary 'other side' of the pickup, forming a varying capacitor that generated an electric field whenever any tine was moving.
Sadly, the combination of high voltage and 61 tiny capacitors distributed across the keyboard was prone to issues with dust and humidity, in my case resulting in occasional continuous 'fizzing' or intermittent 'static' background noises that could only be cured by a thorough dusting inside, and then the application of a hair dryer.
As I say though, I loved the sound, but increased its versatility by passing it through fuzz and wah pedals (as I believe Dave Stewart did in 'Egg'). Sadly of course the fuzz pedal increased the audibility of background 'fizzing'
Despite its issues, I kept the Pianet N for some years, only finally phasing it out after I had finally saved up enough to buy a Fender Rhodes Stage 73
