Okay....I've got to grips with my point'n'shoot digicam now
AND we're having golden sunshine in Glasgow today, so here's my latest white elephant:
It's a Teischord C, aka various other things depending on what part of the world it was being sold in. Mine was obviously imported/distributed in the UK by Watkins.
It has a neat feature: a hidden (spring-loaded) compartment in the lid where the legs are stored. Yes - all four legs are included!
So how does it sound? Vintage, of course! Except for a few minor niggles, naturally. A few keys of the top octave go dead when you engage either of the 16' voices. All the C#s play Cs. All the 4' voices double the last octave (i.e.C3-C4 play as expected, then it goes back down an octave from D4 upwards) - I'm not sure if this is even a fault, to be honest.
There's a slight delay before the note kicks in when you press some keys. This could be intermittent or constant, I'm not absolutely sure. Maybe it needs to warm up a bit before it stabilises. Anyway, the vibrato does the same (and the 'Full Vibrato' switch is at best temperamental, at worst kaput). Also, the Vibrato speed control seems to be constant right up to the end of its sweep, when it gets a little faster. Not that surprising, given the battery sweat-like layer of fur that coated the pot when I lifted the lid to have a look inside; that, at least, should be a simple case of swapping in a suitable replacement, I would think.
The circuit diagram inside is a plus....as is the neatly-labelled row of dividers. So fault-finding should be fairly straight-forward for a seasoned tech. Unfortunately that's not me, and my friend who's a wiz with these things has already made it clear he doesn't want to know about this job.
I know one other vintage keyboard enthusiast who I might be able to persuade to get his hands dirty on this....otherwise it'd probably cost more than it'd be worth to me for all the use I'm likely to get out of it.
It
is begging to be given the full treatment though. Watch this space, I guess....