Dubreq PianoMate Analog Devide Down Synth

Note: Auction links are affiliate links for which the site may be compensated. Music Thing has a post up on this interestig piece up for auction. I grabbed the auction shot and the description of the unit for posterity. Title link takes you to the Music Thing post as the auction link will eventually end up in limbo. I wonder how much valuable information has just dissappeared from the *bay over time. Kind of sucks when you think of it.



"This is a COMPLETE Dubreq PianoMate. This is a 1970s vintage piece of interesting technology from the people who brought you among other things, the Stylophone. It's a simple polyphonic synthesiser working on the divide down principal from a master oscillator (I'm told - i'm not an expert on PianoMates but it seems to work that way.) The idea was that any pianist could add the PianoMate to a piano by attaching the two (bass and treble) two octave bars above the keyboard. The two bars have plungers which sit over the piano keys. when a key is pressed by the player, the plunger is released, makes up a circuit and a note is played by the PianoMate as well. The two (bass and treble) plunger bars are attached by multi-pin plugs to what looks like a small combo amplifier. This has controls for tone, voice, articulation of vibrato, speed of vibrato and master tuning. There's a 'swell' pedal to allow control of the overall volume of the PianoMate and an input and volume control for a microphone. In essence, this clever little box which produced the sounds, controlled them from the plunger bars and amplified them was an ideal addition to a venue where the entertainment was pure piano. It has a makers plate showing the serial number of 1218. At the time these clever little devices came out, there were fewer and fewer venues relying on pianos - second hand organs were becoming cheap enough for even the smallest club and church hall and there were plenty of organ/bass/drums/ trios who would play an evening's cabaret for 30 quid. Thus, Dubreq didn't become the Microsoft of the keyboard industry overnight and not many of these eclectic little oddities survive. Most went to the skip and of those that remained, most lost their plunger bars and ended their working lives as practice amps for guitarists with no money."