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Schwindler keyboard stack: a brief review

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gecko

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Schwindler keyboard stack: a brief review

PostFri Aug 13, 2021 7:59 pm

I bought 3-manual Schwindler keyboard stack from Fabio Mancini and, after a few months, I have enough experience on it to share a few quick impressions.

tl,dr: I'm very happy with it. But I'm not a typical organ player, and it may not be right for you. So you'd better read this whole review.

First, I have no formal background in organ and my experience with tracker actions is very limited. I have played a number of electronic organs as church gigs, but those weren't serious music (otherwise they would have gotten a real organist). So you shouldn't t
http://dustyfeet.com/my-schwindler.jpgrust any of my comments about the touch.

I studied harpsichord for five years in college, although I wasn't a performance major, and that's the extent of my formal keyboard training. By inclination, I'm not much of a performer at all.

My Schwindler stack was a replacement for a Classic Midiworks stack which has Fatar keyboards (and which I'll be giving away - if anyone knows of a willing adoptee in the New York City area, please let me know). My main keyboard instrument for a long time has been my clavichord (5-octave fretted Portuguese; description on my website).

One thing that attracted me to the Schwindler was the possibility of a harpsichord range, 5 octaves FF-f3. I'm not much interested in recent (post-Baroque) organ repertoire (except for Brahms) so the highest notes on a standard organ keyboard are pretty much useless. And there are harpsichord pieces which require two manuals so I can't play them on my clavichord. With only a little exaggeration, this is a Goldberg stack.

The prices are very attractive (see the last link at the bottom of this post).

Luca Panetti, the maker ( http://www.lucapanetti.com/ ) used to make keyboards for Ahlborn, so it's that style, although the magnetic mechanism is totally different.

The keyboards are sold by Fabio Mancini (links at the bottom).



ACTION

Beside the range, the mechanism is the chief advantage. It's quite elegant. A magnet holds the key in normal position. When you press a key down, this magnet continues to resist your pressure until a 2nd magnet comes within range and breaks the attraction of the 1st magnet with a pop that the player can feel (but not hear). There are no springs and no parts to wear out like Fatar's rubber domes.

The touch felt heavy to me at first due to the mass of the key (although still less than that of a modern piano), but because of the "pop" when the magnetic connection is broken, it also felt very nimble, even right away. Now that I'm more used to it, it is very comfortable.

By comparison, the Fatars don't give as much tactile feedback. I have to articulate by ear on the Fatars, whereas on the Schwindler, like on a harpsichord or clavichord, I can also articulate by feel. So the Schwindler is much easier to play.

What's more, it's adjustable - if you lessen the key dip, the action becomes quicker. You have to take the stack apart to do this, and it would take maybe an hour or two. I'm leaving it at the factory setting for now but may adjust it in the future if I get into a tinkering mood. If I used it exclusively for harpsichord repertoire, I would definitely lessen it.



KEY COVERINGS

I got bamboo key coverings, because bamboo is environmentally sustainable and I like that it resembles wood until you look closely and realize that the grain pattern is totally different. It also matches my toilet seat; no other keyboard covering could make that claim.

It doesn't feel exactly like wood - it's a little bit grippier - but it's closer to wood than some other commonly used substances, historical (bone) or not (acrylic).


NEGATIVES

One very bad thing was that FedEx damaged it in transit. Fabio said that neither he nor Luca has ever had a problem like that before. It must have been dropped hard. There was no cosmetic damage (scratches, etc) because the thing had been packed so well, but some of the sharps had been knocked off, the keyboards were shifted slightly off the interior midi switches and there was miscellaneous breakage inside. With Fabio's long-distance help, I managed to put everything back together, and also got an interesting tour of the inside of the stack.

There was an occasional misstep in the construction - a couple of glue spots had hardened on the backrail felts and sometimes made a noise if the key was released too quickly (this took only a few minutes to fix). Also the edges of the keys were a little sharp and didn't feel 100% right. I don't know if this is due to the silica content of the bamboo. It took only a little time to fix up all 3 keyboards with a few swipes of sandpaper on the edges, not enough to be visible, but it made a noticeable improvement in the feel.

One thing that may be a negative in some circumstances: the keyboards don't transmit any velocity information. This is a design decision.

Fabio explains:

The contacts bar under the keyboards has the velocity, but we do not use it, in fact the MIDI decoder that we use does not recognize the velocity. This is because with the use of only the first contact the keyboard is much faster in answering and much similar to the touch of a mechanical organ, that sounds immediately after [pressing] the key. If one wants to use the velocity, the sound starts when the second contact is reached, at half of the course of the key instead of immediately after the initial [press].

For this reason I do not recommend velocity, but if someone wants it we can use a different MIDI decoder and have it in the MIDI out.


Some sample sets use velocity information. One particularly clever use is on Sonus Paradisi's harpsichords to simulate the harder touch of coupled manuals.

But ...

When I register coupled manuals on SP's harpsichords, I feel the harder touch. Obviously, there is nothing happening in the instrument; it's all in my head. But it's a very strong effect, not at all subtle.

So this is another reason you shouldn't trust my evaluation of the touch. And you shouldn't trust your own, either. Our expectations color our experiences.


CONCLUSION

As the stack comes from the maker, it's excellent for organ and quite acceptable for harpsichord. If used exclusively for harpsichord, it would be best to lessen the keydip. Unless you used a different controller (which is possible), the stack wouldn't work at all for clavichord or any type of piano because of the lack of velocity sensitivity.

After a few months of playing the Schwindler, I hooked up my old Classic. I remember when I first got that and thought it was really good, but the Schwindler has outclassed it completely

http://www.fabiomancini.altervista.org/ ... raENG.html

http://www.fabiomancini.altervista.org/ ... onsole.htm

prices are on the dropdown menus here:
https://form.jotform.com/203072659201347

best to all,
Stuart

edit: For some reason, the "[img"] tag isn't working. Here's a picture: http://dustyfeet.com/my-schwindler.jpg
I still have a very small website
http://dustyfeet.com
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mdyde

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Re: Schwindler keyboard stack: a brief review

PostSat Aug 14, 2021 3:20 am

[Topic moved here.]
Best regards, Martin.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.
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larason2

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Re: Schwindler keyboard stack: a brief review

PostSat Aug 14, 2021 7:51 am

Thanks for this thorough review. They look like high quality components! I really like the thought of the very tracker like touch.
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Re: Schwindler keyboard stack: a brief review

PostSat Aug 14, 2021 3:19 pm

gecko wrote:
ACTION

There are no springs and no parts to wear out like Fatar's rubber domes.


are you sure about that ? My Schwindler keyboards certainly do (as for the rubber domes, but indeed no springs)

actually, as for the contacts, in my experience, there is no difference with Fatar parts.

What's more, it's adjustable - if you lessen the key dip, the action becomes quicker


not sure what you mean by that : adding felt under the front of the key ? what is possible with my Schwindler keyboards (and that I did) is to put the magnets closer or further apart (key by key), allowing one to raise or reduce the weight needed to move the keys initially and keeping the key fully depressed.

One thing that may be a negative in some circumstances: the keyboards don't transmit any velocity information. This is a design decision.


now that is new. Mines do transmit velocity, but indeed that is not necessarily an advantage, as one has to wait the second contact to activate to trigger the note-on event.
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larason2

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Re: Schwindler keyboard stack: a brief review

PostSat Aug 14, 2021 5:45 pm

The velocity capability is interesting, there are clearly pros and cons for going about it either way. It should be possible, say with an arduino, to program an interface where either the first switch alone is used to generate a note, or both switches with velocity information.
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Re: Schwindler keyboard stack: a brief review

PostSun Aug 15, 2021 11:09 am

On velocity keyboards the second contact should activate at the point where the note is to sound. I believe that is typically 50% of 3/8" but likely deeper in many cases. The first contact is typically way too shallow to use for normal keying and even brushing a keytop is likely to produce unintended notes. Just saving some effort as I found this out the first time I worked on a velocity sensitive Roland keyboard on a recent Rodgers console.

By the way, doing velocity on an Arduino with a fast MCU like the Teensy is remarkably easy. I did a crude version just using the time difference between contacts directly. With a configurable translate table it could have given just the right touch to match a keyboard to a particular software app.

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