The Lipp Pianoline. Richard Lipp & Sohn, Germany, 1950

The Lipp Pianoline
The Lipp Pianoline

The Lipp Pianoline was a monophonic vacuum tube based keyboard instrument designed as an add-on for piano players. The Pianoline was part of a family of portable piano-attachment instruments popular in the 1950’s such as the Ondioline, Clavioline and Univox – the Pianoline being distinguished by it’s larger sized keys.

lipptypThe instrument’s sound was generated by a number of astable multivibrator vacuum tubes and monostable multivibrator tubes for frequency division. Tone colour was added with filters, pre-amplification and vibrato. In contrast to similar keyboard add-on instruments, the tone generator and power supply were built into the keyboard unit rather than as an external module. The resulting sound was fed to an external, portable loudspeaker unit using an output cable.

lippThe Pianoline was designed and built by the established Stuttgart based Piano manufacturer Richard Lipp & Sohn who were looking to diversify in the postwar market for electronic keyboards. In 1970 the company was acquired by the Jehle Piano Company and closed in 1972.


Sources:

http://www.richardlipp.com.au/

http://www.drummachines.de/beatboxer/kurios/lipp.htm

5 thoughts on “The Lipp Pianoline. Richard Lipp & Sohn, Germany, 1950”

  1. I have one of these and it makes some great sounds. Much better than my clavioline. When set properly there is deep and heavy bass on the lower keys. I like that each key is individually tuneable with a potentiometer but wish it were poly and not monophonic. Still would never sell it. Payed roughly $300 for mine 20 years ago.

    1. I’ve got one too, but can’t seem to find the tuners for “each individual key”. Where are those tuners located?

      Thanks,

      Dave

      1. You cannot tune each key. Under the keys there are resitors for the tone and they are selected for the right tone. You can tune the whole instrument at once.

  2. I have got one too, but somebody changed components in it. Do you have documentation, or a manual of this one so that I can bring it back in it’s original state?
    Thanks in advance,
    regards, Mat

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *