Standard Services
Repair services keep your electric piano looking and sounding timeless.
Repairs + Mods
Vintage Vibe® is the preeminent vintage electric piano restoration leader in the world. We excel at pushing our craft beyond our customer's expectations.
Cosmetic Transformation
From our master tolex gurus to brand new reproduction parts that we manufacture, Vintage Vibe will make your piano look better than new.
Fender Rhodes Service Time Estimates
Key Bed Modification
Bench Hours: 1
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The Rhodes suitcase piano case has a thin bottom. Unfortunately, this allows the key bed to sag, bounce and create a smiley face appearance. It also allows the hammers to flex inappropriately. So what Vintage Vibe does is anchor the key bed to the piano case, which provides stability to the keys that you can instantly feel in the touch. It’s not only suitcase models that we do this to, Stage models can benefit just as much.
Key Bed Regulation
Bench Hours: 5
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This is the foundation to which all other processes are built upon. This step includes setting the key height, leveling keys, squaring keys to each other and the case, tightening keys, adjusting key dip, addressing all felt/shim placements and pin cleaning and lubrication.
Key Dip Improvement
Bench Hours: 1 - 2
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Key dip is the distance the key travels downward before stop lock of the hammer cam and key pedestal are made. A key dip that is too shallow will have limited expression and a dip too deep will require extra effort with a lack of soft touch. We strive to achieve the ultimate key dip with every piano we restore. If a piano does not have a good key dip we will correct it to our specifications.
Action Regulation
Bench Hours: 6
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Action regulation, much like key bed regulation, is done with the same “start with a solid foundation and work up” mentality. We continue to build upwards into the action rail and hammers. This is
where the magic happens. Your piano takes on a newly even and regulated feel, which is instantly noticeable upon touch.
With over 20 years of servicing Fender Rhodes and almost 10 years of handcrafting Vintage Vibe pianos, we have developed what has become our signature style of action regulation. You will not find
this anywhere else in the world. How we do it remains in our secret recipe book.
Hammer Tip Replacement
Bench Hours: 1.5 - 2
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The secret to the best tone lies in the quality of your hammer tips. Chances are the tips found inside your unrestored piano are hardened unevenly, grooved or missing. Vintage Vibe offers the largest selection of hammer tips anywhere in the world. We can replace tips based on the year and model of your piano or create a scale of custom tips to your liking.
Action Modification
Bench Hours: 4
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By installing our signature Miracle Mod action modification, you open yourself up to a world of lightening fast action and improved playability. Hands down, this is one of the top three mods to any Fender Rhodes restoration Pre 1978.
Damper Arm Replacement
Bench Hours: 2
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Vintage Vibe offers reproduction damper arms as replacement, though it may not always be needed. It's worth noting that old dampers are a frustrating reality. Trying (and failing) to get articulation from an old worn fatigued piece of aluminum is a headache at minimum. Faster and better results are found when utilizing new dampers. The cost is negligible compared to the time and efforts wasted on bending and modifying old damper arms to work properly.
Strike Line
Bench Hours: 1
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The strike line on a piano is where the hammer tip hits the tine. Since each tine is of a different length and will require a different location where the hammer needs to hit in order to maximize the potential of the vibrations. Nearly every piano we restore will require a strike line change. Even a subtle change of hammer tips can require a strike line adjustment.
Tuning
Bench Hours: 1 - 2
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Tuning is a straightforward idea or is it? Tines love to play games with your ear but more so with certain pickups. The proximity of the tine to pickup plays a vital role in the decay, dwell and pitch shifting attributes . It’s a game of compromise and like the Buddha, you must find the middle. That’s exactly what we do. We have a technique and style we perfected with 20 years of experience. Just imagine how many pianos we’ve tuned in 20+ years!
Escapement
Bench Hours: 1
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Escapement is another relationship between hammer tips and tines. This relationship plays a critical part in the way the hammer hits the tine. Escapement dictates how a piano feels and plays. If set too low, it can interfere with the action causing choking along with muddy tones (especially with a heavy hand.) On the other hand, if set too high, it can cause the loss of expression with each tine.
Grill Cloth Replacement
Bench Hours: 2
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Grill cloth is generally dirty with holes or rips. Replacement is almost always necessary when replacing Tolex and hardware. Replacing grill cloth can be tricky to install though. Most DIYers try it at home and succeed to a certain degree. But how straight are the lines, how clean are the inside cuts, how do the staples look? A fair amount of grill cloth baffles are made of fiber pressed board and this means that with any moisture they expand and bulge. They also warp crack and break and become out of square. It's at this point a new baffle must be made. We do this all of the time with our restorations and we make them out of furniture grade plywood. The devil is in the details and if you take time to look and notice you will see the quality in our work.
Tolex Replacement - 73 Note Stage Piano
Bench Hours: 12 - 15
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The idea of re-tolexing a piano may seem simple but it's not a straightforward endeavor. From removing the old tolex, to sanding off old glue, then using bondo to fill in any cracks and then sanding again, ot seems like a never ending job. Luckily for you, we love doing all those things! Best of all, you end up with a smooth feeling tolex job with straight corner seams. No matter how bad of a shape your beloved piano is in, it may not be the end of it's life.
Tolex Replacement
73 Note Suitcase Piano
Bench Hours: 13 - 16
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The idea of re-tolexing a piano may seem simple but it's not a straightforward endeavor. From removing the old tolex, to sanding off old glue, then using bondo to fill in any cracks and then sanding again, ot seems like a never ending job. Luckily for you, we love doing all those things! Best of all, you end up with a smooth feeling tolex job with straight corner seams. No matter how bad of a shape your beloved piano is in, it may not be the end of it's life.
Tone Bar Screws / Washers / Grommets Replacement
Bench Hours: 1
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The importance of replacing your tone bar screws, washers and grommets is paramount to stability in voicing and true isolation of tine to tone bar. This is a must with all restorations. At this point, we have released a few videos and posts across Facebook groups and forums on the importance of this job and the attributes of replacing grommets and screws as a set. There is solid factual evidence that supports this and Vintage Vibe is perhaps the only company who operates with this understanding.
Reed Replacement
The key to an even piano sound is to ensure reeds have proper sustain and volume, and harmonic complexity. Therefore, we always locate and replace dull reeds as part of our transformation.
Amps + Preamps
If you are looking to get your Wurlitzer back up and running, you've come to the right place. We provide options for rebuilding or replacing your old amps with our new innovative state-of-the-art technology amplifier, The Vintage Vibe V4 amplifier.
Wurlitzer Bench Time Estimates
Key Bed/Chassis Cleaning
Bench Hours: 1
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It is a high priority to keep dust debris and objects out of the Wurlitzer. Over time dust debris and small things like broken reeds, guitar picks, cat and dog hair, bugs and anything spilled will settle into the piano’s chassis. This causes many of the noise issues common to Wurlitzer’s. The first thing we do is to remove all of your keys as well as the action and vacuum out the entire piano and reed bar. This is also a great time for inspections of the piano.
Regulate Action
Bench Hours: 2
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A Wurlitzer EP action is made up of wood components; over time and weather conditions the regulation is affected and changes. It is necessary to compensate for these changes by adjusting capstan screws on the whip assembly and the hammer rail to bring the piano back into its best alignment for optimal functionality. The key bed and key height all play into the overall regulation. There is an order to do this that we strictly follow. Our action regulation is highly regarded by our customers.
Shrink Action
Bench Hours: 1 - 2
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Wood actions are susceptible to moisture and swell during humid months. This leads to action that becomes sluggish and unresponsive. This can also accumulate over time with dust and micro matter that gets into the bushings. We have a solution that we use to shrink the action, which basically removes the water content from the action centers, freeing up any slow returning parts. it's safe to use and works wonders on actions.
Tighten Action Hardware
Bench Hours: 1
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Over time whip, hammer and damper screws become loose causing a noisy and sloppy feeling piano. We tighten all screws and realign assemblies. A simple but overlooked process.
Square and Level Key Bed
Bench Hours: 1 - 2
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It all starts from a proper key height and level key bed as well as keys that are square to the chassis. This is the difference in how the action feels and responds. We have our own key height that we work with that truly makes a difference.
Tune and Voicing
Bench Hours: 4 - 6
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Tuning a Wurlitzer is a skill to do correctly. It's not easy or quick to do correctly, sure there are shortcuts to tuning, but they are not the professional way. We take the longer approach to do it correctly. Tuning a Wurlitzer also touches on Voicing because you have to center the reed perfectly in order to achieve a balanced tonality. We tune our pianos with a strobe tuner to 440Hz.
Voicing the Wurlitzer is a multi-stepped process and involves different things such as; centering the reed, ensuring the reed has a proper solder formation, adjusting the actual pickup, changing the strike line of the hammer tip, changing hammer tips as well as other things. To manipulate tone on a Wurlitzer takes experience and know-how when problems present themselves. Luckily for our customers and Vintage Vibe, Adam Kaniper, our head Wurlitzer tech is literally the finest in all of the world.
Damper adjustments
Bench Hours: 1 - 2
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Adjusting dampers on a Wurlitzer is important not only for the feel of the action but for how your sustain pedal reacts when engaged. We have a number of adjustment tricks we employ to optimize performance. We also like to install new Whip assembly grommets that the damper arm uses. New Grommets create a nice feel and remove loose slop.
Strike Line and Hammer tip Replacement
Bench Hours: 1 - 4
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A strike line is a super import aspect of optimization when dealing with an old piano that has never had custom work done to it. From the factory, Wurlitzer pianos were made as fast as possible, and therefore attention to time-consuming aspects like individual strike line was rarely performed. What we do is listen for any dull notes a new reed will not fix. Once we identify these areas, we adjust the hammer tips strike line, this almost always brings about the full character of the note, including bark, volume and sustain.
Installing New Amplifier
Bench Hours: 2
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Old Wurlitzer amps like the 200 or 200A are no prize these days. I mean there is no advantage to having the original amp anymore with the nasty old bird's nest wiring and unreliability. Today’s amp is miles ahead of the old amp, in sound and installation. If you want the old amp for posterity, great keep it with the piano in a box. A new amp will literally open a whole new soundscape for you without losing any of that Vintage Vibe you think you like.
Installing Reed Bar Shields
Bench Hours: 1
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For all 140 and 200 pianos, a set of aluminum reed bar shields can be installed to drastically reduce audio noise. While old amps are definitely noisy, it's actually the reed bar that creates the most noise. Reed bar shields are not to be mistaken for the Hum shield that you see on pianos. It takes both types of shields to truly cut the noise from a reed bar.
String Installation
Tone Starts with your strings. We manufacture the finest and most versatile strings ever. Our strings are made in the USA by a piano string manufacturer who makes strings for all Steinway pianos, not bad company! We will replace your old strings so you can hear them sing again.
Preamp Rebuild + Replacement
Does your preamp need a little TLC? Lucky for you, we can either rebuild it or replace it with our funkified world class Vibanet preamp. Get the fattest tones you have ever heard from your C, D6, E7 with the addition of a groovy auto wah that will provide hours of stank face.
Yarn Replacement
We will replace the old, often ineffective yarn with our proprietary Clavigel dampening system for incredible dampening.
Clavinet Bench Time Estimates
Key bed leveling
Bench Hours: 1 - 2
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Clavinet key beds are notorious for being out of level due to the nature of the Pratt and Reed keyframe (which also sags). We will ensure your key bed is straight and level and to the best height.
Key Squaring
Bench Hours: 1
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Not many people know about key squaring with Clavinets, but we do, and we do it on all restorations. We ensure there are no rubbing parts and that the keys are level and sitting squarely.
Hammer Tip Installation and arm adjustment
Bench Hours: 2 - 3
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Hammer tips need replacing often. Over the years the tips experience degradation to the point that they revert back their oil-based state, sticky orange goo is the result. Alternatively, there have been many aftermarket tips available and in use. Often these also wear out but more importantly is their durometer. Most are too soft and this results in a lack of definition as well as volume. Particularly on the upper end with the .009 strings where a softer tip does not fret well and can cause a pop as the string sticks to the rubber. We have firmer tips that articulate very well all up and down the scale.
String Replacement with Clavigel
Bench Hours: 2 - 3
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String replacement is paramount to a fresh and alive-sounding clavinet. New strings are full of harmonic complexity. Old strings become flat and muddy, do not hold tune long, and have a shorter sustain. We have partnered with Mapes Piano string Co., the same company that makes piano strings for Steinway and Son’s to produce Clavinet/Vibanet strings for Vintage Vibe. It’s a match that cannot be beaten!
Clavigel Dampening system is a proprietary innovation designed at Vintage Vibe. It outperforms yarn every time and is so simple to install, literally anyone of any age could install it by watching our video in minutes.
Preamp Rebuilding/Switch restoration
Bench Hours: 3 - 5
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If the original preamp is your game then you want it right! We rebuild the preamp and clean all switches, test and clean dressing wires. We use quality components and do a military spec job. With that being said, it's never going to be like a new preamplifier by Vintage Vibe.
Vibanet Preamp install w/FX Loop
Bench Hours: 1
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Now you have entered into funkville, our Vibanet preamp for your D6, E7 or Model C is just what the funk doctor ordered. A clean and powerful preamp with all-analog circuitry and auto-wah, fx loop, and a killer logical eq. Oh! And no more battery to go dead!
Pickup Replacement
Bench Hours: 1
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Vintage Vibe makes outstanding pickups to replace your old cracked or dead pickups. Our pickups are made bomb-proof in a glass fiber/nylon case that will not crack or break. We have buried the bobbin wires in epoxy so nothing is exposed to break or short out. Designed by Kevin Beller head of pickup design at Seymour Duncan, so you know these pickups are right.
Key Spring Replacement
Bench Hours: 1
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At Vintage Vibe we test every key for even tension and response. If we find a key that’s too loose we replace the spring.
It is all about an even scale in tone and feel.
Key Bushing Replacement
Bench Hours: 1
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Sometimes key bushings deteriorated and the key becomes loose and noisy. A key bushing keeps the key quiet when returning after a strike. It also helps keep the key aligned from side to side. On the downstroke, the top of the key bushing is not utilized because the hammer tip is what stops the hammer from further downward travel. It’s not always necessary to change key bushings but when it is, we have you covered.
Organs and Leslies
When we are not restoring electric pianos, we can be found restoring Combo organs, Hammond organs, and Leslies.
Guitar Repairs
Suprise, we fix guitars too. From minor adjustments to major setups, you're in good hands with our in house luthier, Adam! Our services include neck resets, mechanical repairs, and fret, bridge & electronics work.
Amp Repairs
Is your amp on the fritz? Our expert electronics techs are capable of any repair or mod to just about any kind of vintage tube amp.
Custom Tolex + Grill Cloth
“Amp up” your stage presence with some new tolex and grill cloth on your amp.
Ready to start your repair journey?
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