Cembalet

The Cembalet is a type of electro-mechanical piano built by the Hohner company of Trossingen, West Germany from the late-1950s to the early 1970s. The designer of the Cembalet was Ernst Zacharias. The Cembalet was a reed-based electric piano intended for home use. It was the first keyboard produced by Hohner as a piano-like instrument rather than an instrument having the sustained note of an organ. It was adopted by popular musicians for recording and performance in the early 1960s due to its portability and ability to be amplified by electronic means.

The Cembalet is an electro-mechanical piano requiring amplification to produce a usable sound level. Cembalets have 61 keys and a keyboard range of C2 to C7 (65.4 Hz – 2093 Hz). The Cembalet had ground stainless steel reeds and a pick-up using variable capacitance. The keyboard action is very simple. Each key is a single lever element pivoted on a fulcrum point with a spring to return it to the rest position. The key is extended at the rear so that a plectrum and damper pad can be mounted at the end of a tuned spring steel reed. This plectrum lifts and releases the reed causing it to vibrate when the key is depressed. The vibration of the reed is converted to an electrical signal by a pick-up. The unique playing feel of a Cembalet comes from the resistance of the steel reeds until they reach their point of release.

After introducing the Cembalet Hohner produced a variation of the mechanical design named the Pianet. These two instruments were sold in parallel until the early 1970s. Case styles were identical for models C and N through the 1960s causing many to misidentify these instruments. The most obvious point of visual difference is the differing keyboard range, C to C for the Cembalet and F to F for the Pianet.

Reed based pianos have voices that differ markedly depending on the material and geometry of the reeds, the way they are excited and the way the vibrations are converted to electrical energy. The Cembalet pushed the tip of the reed upward until it cleared the plectrum, where as the Pianet pulls the reed upward using a pad adhered over a length of one centimetre and positioned back from the tip of the reed. The attack of the note and the harmonics produced vary significantly. In addition the plate of the capacitive pickup is to the side in the Cembalet producing further differences in the way the vibration of the reed is converted to an electrical signal.

During the production life of the Cembalet the case, mechanical features and electronics changed to keep pace with developments in electronics manufacture, reductions in manufacturing costs, and fashion. Changes to the Cembalet were also applied to Pianet production. Dating the manufacturing envelope and availability of the various Cembalet models is confused by misidentification of Pianet models as Cembalets and by the differences in sales availability of models between Europe and the United States.

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