I just took apart an upright piano and

[opg]

My mother-in-law moved to South Carolina and we had no choice but to take apart the upright piano to remove it from the house. We didn't think anyone would take it away themselves since we painted cartoons and animals all over the piano. Besides, all three pedals and at least two hammers needed to be repaired. Nevertheless, I had an exciting time taking this thing apart!

The rack of hammers inside slides right out after removing 4 screws. The keyboard was removed by unscrewing 6 screws. Unfortunately, I couldn't remove the soundboard/strings/plate from the back of the piano (which may have been the most valuable part in the long run).

I have seen Ray Wilson's bass pedal schematics for the SoundLab

http://www.musicfromouterspace.com/analogsynth/footpedals/footpedals.html

but I am not sure about how to set the keys so they rest in the up position. When in the piano, the rack of hammers rests on the back of the keys, keeping them in the "up" position. So, when I removed the keyboard, the keys lay flat. This is one extra obstacle after being intimidated by the massive resistor matrix that needs to be created.

By the way, I am not planning on using all 88 keys. I am not insane. No. Definitely not. Three octaves should be the max. However, I was thinking about what two SoundLabs connected to a mixer would be like (perhaps only one being controlled by the keyboard - I haven't really thought this through yet). Definitely not insane.

[Uncle Krunkus]

Hi opg,
there's nothing insane about going all out for the sake of electronic art! Just don't take on too many projects that can't be completed in less than 2 weeks. If you do, you'll soon have heaps of half finished things laying around and nothing to show off how much of a genius you are!! Yes, I know this from experience.
First look at how you would mount the keys in a case of some kind. The way of pulling them up should be more clear then. Same with the method of switching. Ray used reed switches. Check out micro switches as well (although they could be expensive)

[opg]

I was going to use the original wood case that the keys are in, but just shorten it to three octaves by cutting out the middle. But perhaps your right - if I started with a different case, I could solve the problem with the key movement.

[dnny]

[mosc]

There are a lot of nifty things you can do with an old junky piano.

Make a magnetic pickup by winding a bunch of varnished transformer wire around a small bar magnet. Hook this to a cable and plug it into an amplifier. Then take the speaker which is connected to the amplifier and put it really close to the open undamped strings. Now just bring that pickup near the strings and you'll have a neat feedback excited string "harp". If it doesn't start to sing, tap the pickup against a string to get it going. By moving the pickup to the different strings you'll play the different notes. You can even find the harmonic nodes on the strings. Great fun...

Oh, yes, you can always burn it. Sounds fabulous. If you do that, invite me...