Maestrovox restoration project.

Published on Oct 13, 2016 otherunicorn

"This is a rare Maestrovox monophonic keyboard part way through it's restoration. The keyboard still needs addressing, as the percussion function, and one push switch which refuses to stay latched..

http://www.debbiecurtis.co.uk/id99.html"

1950's Maestrovox

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via this auction

"Rare, collectable vintage Maestrovos Consort valve keyboard/synthesizer 1950s

see http://www.debbiecurtis.co.uk/id99.html- for further information, The Official Maestrovos Information Centre.

They keep a register of all known models, and are only aware of 23 known models

"The first design model went on sale on May 5th 1952 at the British Industries Fair at Olympia, London, where it was hailed as the "Success of the Year" taking orders in excess of £80,000! that would be about 1.85 million pounds today!" (The Official Maestrovos Centre)
Its has been used, Not sure if it works, have not plugged it in as a one valve is loose and do not wish to cause any damage.One black key is missing.speaker grill is missing and paper cone speaker is damaged"

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The Maestrovox

flickr By djjondent
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"Currently only 22 know to exist, worldwide.

Maestrovoxes were built in the United Kingdom by Victor Harold Ward in the 1950s. They were intended to be bolted under a piano.The pianist could play the piano with the left hand, the maestrovox with the right (and control its volume with his/her knee). The round buttons are an early form of preset. The 6 red buttons provide presets from a violin & trumpet to bagpipes & an arabian flute.

They belong to the family of tube based synth/organs... in the style of the Clavioline and Solovox.. the forerunners of todays' Synthesizer"

VINTAGE MAESTROVOX ORGAN SYNTHESIZER

via this auction
Update: auction link updated. Thanks goes to popman in the comments for letting us know. Some pics of the inside below.

"As you can see this organ is in very good clean well looked after condition and has all knobs, switches, power cords, valves etc and the only thing that I can see that is missing is 2 of the 4 rubber stoppers on the outside base of box.

When I plug this in all valves light up everything turns on and the speaker works fine as when you move the lever under the keys (guessing volume lever as it makes a pitched noise and the more you push it along the louder the noise gets).

When I press the keys I get no noise from them so there be a loose wire inside the keyboard stopping this from working or I'm not turning the right button or clicking the right switch or turning them to the right position together.

The outer box is dirty from years of just sitting somewhere but should clean up well and I nearly forgot to mention the speaker outer plastic covering is missing that you can see in picture.

This has serial No. 1364 on the plate.

This has a weight of 15 kg's when packed..."

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1950s Maestrovox Valve Synthesizer

via this auction

"Maestrovox 1950's Vintage Valve Synthesizer, Serial Number 1098. One of only 19 officially known to still exist in the world today!

Maestrovox tube (valve) synthesizers / keyboards / organs first went on sale on May 5th 1952 at the British Industries Fair at Olympia, London, where it was hailed as the "Success of the Year" taking orders in excess of £80,000! that would be about £1.6 million pounds today! It was endorsed by numerous music stars of the era."

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Maestrovox tube synth

via this auction
"Up for sale is a rare Maestrovox tube synthesizer keyboard instrument, one of 17 known to exist, and a unique model. These first went on sale in 1952. Much information on these, including schematics, can be obtained by visiting the following website, which belongs to the granddaughter of the inventor of the Maestrovox:
http://www.debbiecurtis.co.uk/id99.html

This Maestrovox is a special instrument because the keyboard's facade (rocker switches, entirely black paneling, etc), is imitative of the Clavioline, while it still maintained the same speaker/ amp cabinet as the regular Maestrovox Consort model. It has mounting stand. I think the way this Maestrovox was supposed to work is that you place the speaker/ amp cabinet on the ground, which brings the keyboard to playing height if you are in the sitting position. Quite a unique, cool set-up.

This Maestrovox is cosmetically in very good condition. The keyboard itself is in excellent condition. The speaker/ amp cabinet is missing its original grillcloth (a green replacement grillcloth has been mounted to the front with thumbtacks), and the tolex if pealing in a few places.

This Maestrovox MIGHT be completely functional, but my power converter does not provide enough wattage to adequately test it. It runs off of 220V/240V, because it was invented in Australia, and the only converter I could find locally that would support that voltage was at Radioshack, and it only could provide 44W of power, which is only enough for a small appliance (I have included a picture of the converter I used to test it). So, because of that, the Maestrovox could not be properly tested. From my albeit insufficient testing, the upper two octaves definitely worked, and the lower octave did not work. That is likely a simple fix because the Maestrovox, like the Clavioline, used three-octave dividers to derive all the pitches from a single top-octave tone generator. The sound is somewhat weak, which is also likely due to the insufficient wattage. It could even just be a bad tube, or perhaps the lack of power resulted in only two of the octaves working during testing. Why did Maestrovoxes, Claviolines, Ondiolines, and Solovoxes have only 36 notes? Because adding a 37th note would have required a fourth divider. This Maestrovox has an octave switcher with three positions immediately to the left of the rocker switches, and two tuning knobs on the left and right side of the keyboard front. The same thing happens one each octave setting: the lower octave of the keyboard does not play anything. With the schematics, it should be very easy to bring this to perfect functional condition, if it is not functioning perfect already when properly powered (I'm not able to test it sufficiently, as described below).

Further information on the history and function of portable and mountable tube synthesizers (namely the Clavioline, but also the Maestrovox, Ondioline, and Solovox) can be found here
And another Maestrovox-related webpage"