Build your own hybrid piano - step one, choosing the action

Ok, so you want to build your own hybrid piano, rather than buying a Yamaha AvantGrand, Kawai Novus or whatever Roland and Casio make. You have various avenues to do so, and here is the one that some of us have followed.

First step, deciding which action to use and find one. The two main questions you have to ask yourself are:

1. Grand or upright?
2. Wooden or composite?

Here are some pros/cons of options

Grand actions pros:

• better for challenging repertoire (however most pianists never reach that level)
• deeper (will require deeper cabinet if you will use one, in any case needs more space from the wall)

Grand actions cons:

• harder to find in some locations (e.g. Europe)
• might use a whole grand cabinet, but that would use a lot of space in a room
• because of previous, will require more work if you want to have a cabinet (but the cabinet and hence the final instrument will be lighter and could be made in a way that's easy to disassemble)

Upright actions pros:

• easier to find in some locations (e.g. Europe)
• can be more close to the wall
• might use a whole upright cabinet with minimal footprint and minimal work to setup (however that would be as heavy as the acoustic it came from, and not possible to disassemble, so very hard to move around)
• require more skill to play, so better for "practising"

Upright actions cons:

• worse for challenging repertoire (however most pianists never reach that level)
• require more skill to play, so worse for "performing"

Wooden action pros:

• easy to find, even free from salvaged pianos (at least in the USA)
• less expensive

Wooden action cons:

• more subject to needing regulation and adjustment in general
• subject to needing regulation when humidity changes

Composite action pros:

• rarely, if ever needing regulation after installation
• not affected by humidity

Composite action cons:

• hard to find inexpensively (salvageable only from relatively recent Kawai instruments, probably too recent to find for free)
• could be bought new and preassembled from WNG both for grand and uprights, but it's relatively expensive (a few thousands dollars), needs a piano technician intermediary (they don't sell to the public) and does not include a keyboard which is very complicated/expensive to build (several thousands dollars, more than the action itself… however you could use a salvaged keyboard)

Most people I know (including myself) settle for a salvaged, wooden, grand action. It's important that the action is at least decent if not good. There are bad ones out there and you don't want your precious baby-hybrid to use one of them. You either need to learn some technician skills to identify the "bad" (you'll need those skills to regulate or adjust the action anyway, so no waste of time); or you need to hire a technician to advise (and later regulate your purchase). In the former case I recommend this book: http://www.pianosinsideout.com/Excerpts.html

@CyberGene I wanted to add also the DIY tag but it looks like I can't? I believe it' relevant and I did not want to remove any of the others ☹️

Next chapter: housing, i.e. building a cabinet and other options.

Thanks for the great thread!

RIP I wanted to add also the DIY tag but it looks like I can't?

I've left the default behavior to not allow more than 3 secondary tags. Wondering if I should relax it. I guess the reason is not to have a thread tagged with all the possible tags...

CyberGene delvento I wanted to add also the DIY tag but it looks like I can't?

I've left the default behavior to not allow more than 3 secondary tags. Wondering if I should relax it. I guess the reason is not to have a thread tagged with all the possible tags...

I guess we can take the discussion into one of the meta-threads about the forum, I'd vote for as many as appropriate in whatever category (it seems that I can't use "virtual piano" at the same time as "learn/play" even if it'd be just two)

CyberGene Thanks for the great thread!

My pleasure 😃 -- thank you again for the forum!

RIP it seems that I can't use "virtual piano" at the same time as "learn/play"

Those two are the so called child secondary tags. You can assign "virtual" only to "pianos" and "learn/play" only to "pianist". Regarding the latter, I proposed to maybe detach it and make "learn/play" either an independent tag or just remove it because "pianist" is in general related to learning and playing? As an OCD and a programmer I tend to spend a lot of time thinking about these things and I'm still not happy 😀 Feel free to suggest new tags and hierarchy in the corresponding thread about tags. I'm open to anything with my only requirement to be as compact as possible, I like keeping everything simple rather than having tags for everything.

I've posted the step two at https://pianoclack.com/forum/d/170-build-your-own-hybrid-piano-step-two-the-cabinet

Some pictures of my action work.

It started like this (click on the image to enlarge)

It was extremly dusty and several parts needed repairs and adjustments

Slow work of disassembling and cleaning:

Keys outside of the keyframe (for cleaning, minorly whitening and gluing the couple that were broken):

Key detail of the polished capstan with a historic surprise:

Bottom of the keyframe (note the 4 brass glides for the una corda shifting). Funny as this simple frame is one of the most expensive parts to build if you are starting from scratch!

Cleaned and (mostly but not completely) repaired:

Same neatness and tidiness when looking from the side. Boy I wish I took a picture of the "before": you could see only the first whippen, there was so much dust accumulated that everything was hidden in this view (you get a glimpse of that dust in the removal-from-keybed picture above, but that dust is nothing compared to what was here (after all, the dust there could enter only from the small space in between the keys, whereas here there are plenty of entry points):

Strike point measurements. Notice how close the back of the cabinet could be if you want to reduce the overall depth as much as possible (without changing pivot length 🤣). At such closeness, it'd be a challenge to assemble and regulate the key-release sensors, let alone any back-action simulation (weights like the dampers, removed when pedaling, a la Kawai Novus). But you could opt for hammer-only sensors (or have the key sensors under the keys a la QRS stript) and do it without the dampers-like pedalling. You can see in my video in part two I opted for a more deep cabinet, to make my life easier.

And here is the end result, cleaned, repaired (albeit not completely yet) and regulated (even though not with the final accuracy yet). Funnily, at a cursory look it does not seem much different from the first picture 🤣

RIP does not include a keyboard which is very complicated/expensive to build (several thousands dollars, more than the action itself… however you could use a salvaged keyboard)

I guess I should have an example of what I mean. See what these dummy/practice keyboards [1] cost! Probably more than $5,000. I contacted a half dozen or more competitors, mostly in the USA and all quoted a similar unaffordable price range. If you want to spend that much money, why not buying the pre-made Kawai or Yamaha hybrids?

[1]: working internet archive link, in case that business goes away.

Great pictures. The project looks daunting...

Wish I had room for that. Our garage barely can fit our car.

dore_m Wish I had room for that. Our garage barely can fit our car.

My garage can barely fit our car too, if it were empty. As soon our kids were not babies anymore, I convinced my wife to leave the car outside and fill the garage with projects. Which means, in winter the car is buried in snow, and we need to dig it out each time she wants to use it in winter (I am smart and never do: staying home is better, especially now, courtesy of COVID-19 🤣).

It's a matter of priorities: car or piano 🤣 ? Well, then with the same priorities argument, the piano is kicked out for bikes, plants, food and other junk…. 😑 In any case, I'm not giving you marital advice, and I refuse any responsibility if this is nudging you in arguments 🙅‍♂️ 🙆

vagfilm The project looks daunting...

Well, like everything it requires determination. More than other projects it requires diverse interdisciplinary skills: big wood cabinet-making (or at least some of it), tiny precision mechanics with metal and wood, electronics etc. The good of this sort of project is that there are options:

• Don't want to do any cabinet work? Select an instrument with a cabinet of your liking "as is". In the USA, that would usually cost you only a few hundreds more than something junk-looking.
• Don't want to do any precision mechanic work? Select an instrument with a "perfect" action, by hiring a piano technician to help you find it, and/or hiring the same technician to fix/regulate it. The inspection will cost you only $50-100 (plus mileage if it's distant from the technician's area). The regulation/fixing depends on what is needed, but (especially if you don't have the cabinet requirement) you can wait for the "right" instrument to pop-out in craigslist
• Don't want to do (too much) soldering/electronics? Wait for @CyberGene and/or Jay K. to publish a well polished final version of their projects (or offer them money to do it faster for you!)
• Don't want to do the moving of heavy parts yourself? Hire a company: same town grand piano moves cost only a few hundreds dollars.
• Even putting all of these "few hundreds for this and that" together, you'll still be much less expensive than a commercial product, and have fun in the process.

So, anybody can do this, if they want. And I mean really want. It's certainly not a walk in the park 😃 and I would not recommend it if you are somebody who'd enjoy the destination so much more than the journey.

Very cool project! I would love to be able to do something like this. I follow with interest.

I guess you undertake a project like this for love of the work. Because CG has already demonstrated that it took a great deal of time and labor to build his cybrid. And I presume the "ventobrid" will too, eh?

Someday, when my kids move out, maybe I'll convert a room into a piano work shop…. I have about 6 years to plan.

dore_m Someday, when my kids move out, maybe I'll convert a room into a piano work shop…. I have about 6 years to plan.

That can work. Or try to hijack one of the kids to become a helper. You may be surprised. My youngest daughter (who took one year of piano lessons than quit because "piano is too easy and too boring" and switched to playing clarinet, which she's playing since) has become curious about this project and helps me (very little, admittedly) with it! 🎉 In fact she is the "ghost" who opened the piano lid in the video.

RIP

My kids do help me. My daughter helped code the tuning correction curve on my "AB Chase" library (in SFZ and Kontakt), and they both helped me with Python when I made the head tracking translation app.

I can't believe it, but this was 6 years ago when we lived in China and my real piano was in california. I love how she keeps looking into the camera - she's 14 now.

dore_m that video is not available.

Hopefully you can see it now.

dore_m
Wow, cool kids! I love it ❤️

dore_m

Awesone! This deserves its own thread!

FWIW, I tried to make my own versions of such small play-together's, with my kids but we never achieved anything so nice sounding!