Clavinet Mods

Check out George Duke's sweet Clavinet pitch bend mod in this video. Personally, I think the song is OK, but I was particularly glad I hung around until the middle of the video, where George wheels out the Clav. Looks like it's been modified with a plexiglass upper case... do you think the pitch bend mechanism is integrated into that, so that the original wood casing can be replaced if necessary? I would think this might be the ideal way to perform such a modification, but I don't know if it is possible.

Are there any other implementations of the Clav-pitch bend mod around? Thoughts on how to accomplish this? What other mods are possible?

interesting

I've read that other musicians have had a pitch bend mod added to their Clavinets, but I can't remember whom...

It's basically a great big vibrato bridge like a guitar. They were a customized job and only a handful of them ever got retrofitted. The mod came around the time of the DX-7 when all EPs were falling out of favor and being dropped from production.

Are there any other implementations of the Clav-pitch bend mod around? Thoughts on how to accomplish this? What other mods are possible?

Hello,

Its remember it being called the "Castlebar clavinet", and I first noticed it listed in the the liner notes of GD's "Thief In the Night" album. Didn't know Bernie Worrell has a clavi with this mod also. A bit more here:

http://p209.ezboard.com/Clavinet-quotPitch-Bendquot/fclavinetdotcommessageboard39332frm1.showMessage?topicID=328.topic

The clavinet can also be modified with an effect pedal send, and I believe

Chris at Vintage Vibe does that type of mod.

Regards,

Lawrence

How about tapping the output of each pickup separately so you can process them individually? It seems like this would be fairly trivial. I recall reading that there is also a point to tap the preamp before the filters... any thoughts?

I will probably need to add some foil EMI shielding to mine, in addition to restoring the preamp and possibly adding the balanced output detailed by Stevie Wonder's clav tech as per http://www.gti.net/junebug/clavinet/d6upgrade.htm Of course, new hammer tips and a set of humbucking pickups will be necessary as well.

An integrated ebow system could be pretty sweet, too.

Just plug it into a Marshall stack and set the clav right in front of the speakers. Free ebow!

Heh, yeah I know what you mean... but you would still end up with a percussive attack at least. If you wired up a pedal to control both volume and ebow amount, you could perhaps get some interesting swells.

I was thinking it might be cool to retrofit one with jawari bridges.

Another mod that would be kind of cool would be some kind of 'window' into the strings so you could grab, scratch, pluck, or strum the strings without having to open the entire lid.

Theyre a bit too fragile to start pulling about though plus there isnt sufficient string area exposed..

the williams keytar kinda does this...

http://www.gearwire.com/media/williams-keytar.mov

but all evidence of it existing seems to have disappeared off the web..its basically a clavinet with strings exposed and a short keyboard.

Huh, cool video. Thanks for sharing. What year was that from?

I've seen some videos of Medeski pulling and plucking strings inside the Clav with what appeared to be some substantial force. And I've played with my strings a bit, but clearly the ability to strum the strings could be useful, ne?

The castlebar will only bend up or down, but not both, right?

Here it looks like he only bends down.

[YOUTUBE]gEQ2ia1bP0g[/YOUTUBE]

Here's a video by Guy Babylon (RIP) using his Castlebar modded clavinet:

Back in the 1980s, he won a Keyboard Magazine reader contest for his song Babylon Bleu, which also used the Castlebar Clavinet to great effect. That issue of the magazine had a floppy vinyl soundsheet of the song that you could play on any turntable. I think the mp3 is downloadable somewhere...