Melodeon.net Forums
Discussions => Instrument Makes and Models => Topic started by: Willh on January 01, 2018, 07:44:00 PM
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Happy New Year to All!
I'm in initial negotiations with someone about buying a Hohner Morino Club N. The price the seller is offering is €450 (£400).
Is this a good price? From the pictures and description, it looks like a really nice box and even has internal plumbing for plugging it into an amp/soundboard.
Any comments/feedback much appreciated.
Thanks,
Will
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Is this a good price?
No.
It’s way to low. But that is the case with all Club boxes. The Morino is a top-of-the-line box. Its only problem is its weight. You can hardly get more quality (and more melodeon ;D ) per euro.
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Morino Club N has better reeds than Morino Club.
Morino Club S has best reeds, often - Italian
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Mark Baseley of the Dartmoor pixies/moor music band plays a morino club ? converted to DG. Might be something youtubeish of it?
george
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I recently acquired a Morino N in Bb/Eb
It’s in reasonable condition, just needed a couple of reeds cleaning and the register mechanisms adjusting. Like the one you’re looking at, it has an internal mike but it’s of the old piezo type.
It is a great instrument but not to everyone’s taste. It’s a heavyweight and although you get 5 treble reeds the registers don’t allow you to select 2 M reeds, just a single M or full MMM. But you do get these with any combination of L and H added.
The bass end has 2 couplers, one for the lower octave in the chords ( this also affects the bass notes as the bass button share the chord reeds) and one for the lower octave in the bass notes. These are very low!
The bass has 12 buttons, the usual 8 in a club layout but then 4 more, unusually, further away from the bellows. These are not pairs, the chords are dominant 7ths for the adjacent notes F7/C7 and C7/G7 on an F/C box. The bass notes are the other missing basses to give an almost chromatic complement of bass notes.
My first attempt at playing it are on last month’s Theme of the Month https://youtu.be/UmcgPfZ_yZE (https://youtu.be/UmcgPfZ_yZE)
Mitch
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Thanks to everyone for your input. Particularly Mitch as I was wondering what the other bass buttons mapped to.
So all in all, this would be a good buy, then! Excellent! :)
I really like the club system (I'm not one to de-club), it's just a shame that there aren't any affordable and readily available D/G club boxes out there.
I have a friend who knows Mark Bazeley well, so I'll see if I can contact Mark directly and ask his experience of things.
By the way, when people say it's heavy, how heavy is it? It can't be as heavy as a full-sized 120 bass piano accordion, can it? I consider that heavy.
All the best,
Will
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Weight: 7.8 kg.
IMHO If you are sitting when playing - no problem. If standing- it's O.K. for 2-3 pieces.
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in 'melodeon' terms its heavy but in piano box terms its average(ish)
morino club S 12 bass 8.2kg, club overture 7.7kg club norma 6.5kg
gola 120 bass piano 15.6kg, weltmeister 120 bass 9.7kg
However is weight is not everything as 'morino' boxes answer to the slightest breath of air and therefore need relatively little bellows pressure and also the larger bellwos compared to the average 'melodeon' means far less bellows movement is required to provide a given amount of compressed air ,or the pull version thereof whatever that called -?sucked air!
george
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Thanks Andrius and George.
That sounds great as far as I'm concerned. I can't see myself standing while playing much (if at all), so hopefully not a problem.
Sounds like it will be a very nice player, too.
Will
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Can someone advise whether this fingering chart I found for the Morino Club is accurate?
http://bit.ly/2mdvLaS
In particular it seems to show a D major chord rather than a D minor chord, which is what my Hohner Club IIIm has.
Will
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If you buy second hand without trying the box yourself, you always risk to get a box with all sorts of changes to the original layout. I indeed once got a box with a D major chord instead of D minor. :(
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It should be a Dm.
Also, the chords shown on the top row of the diagram should be 7ths. c7 and g7, f7 and c7
As these are all produced by a Stradella-type bass machine it would be difficult to change a single chord.
M
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If you buy second hand without trying the box yourself, you always risk to get a box with all sorts of changes to the original layout. I indeed once got a box with a D major chord instead of D minor. :(
Didn't think about that, but hopefully the Morino I'm getting will be a standard issue instrument. :D
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It should be a Dm.
Also, the chords shown on the top row of the diagram should be 7ths. c7 and g7, f7 and c7
As these are all produced by a Stradella-type bass machine it would be difficult to change a single chord.
M
Thanks, Mitch. Good to know.
W
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Well, my Morino Club N arrived today.
Wow.
I mean....wow.
What a great sound. I thought my Hohner Club IIIM was good, but it doesn't hold a candle to the Morino N.
And if the Morino S is supposed to be even better, well....double wow. :)
One question, however: What's the lever for on the underside of the right-hand side of the instrument (under the melody buttons). When I shift it back and forth it seems to bring any of the couplers I've selected back out to a neutral position. Is that its function? To put the instrument in a default setting?
If anyone has any favourite club tunes they'd like to point me towards, please feel free.
Many thanks,
Will
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Hi Will,
The lever under the keyboard is the master coupler. It switches on all reeds to give you LMMMH.
The normal couplers give, L, M, H, LM, LH, MH, LMH, MMM, LMMM, MMMH.
Mitch
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Hi Will,
The lever under the keyboard is the master coupler. It switches on all reeds to give you LMMMH.
The normal couplers give, L, M, H, LM, LH, MH, LMH, MMM, LMMM, MMMH.
Mitch
Thanks, Mitch. I appreciate it.
Will
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Well, I've been having a good time playing my Hohner Club Morino N, but did notice a few notes weren't quite as they should be, so I took it over to Ivor Hyde for an MOT.
He called me today and the news isn't good. :(
Seems at some point someone tried re-tuning it using some sort of burred tool (like you'd put on a drill) and the reeds are in a bit of a state.
Ivor says he doesn't know how long it will take him to put it in good tune (if he can), but I'm going out to see him again on Friday to discuss things further.
Can anyone give me at least a ballpark idea what a possible full re-tune might cost? I'm hoping there won't be a need to replace any of the reeds.
I paid £350 + £80 shipping for it, so if I can get it back up on it's feet for less than £200, I reckon I'm still winning, right? :/
Forgot to mention a few valves will need replacing, too, but hopefully minor and not expensive. I'm still new to these boxes, so have no realistic idea of what repair work costs.
Will
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Valves are not a big problem.
For retuning (and cleansing &c.) of a newly acquired vintage box I always had to pay more than I payed for the box itself. The Morino is a very big box with many reeds and registers. Therefore it could cost you a bit. The Morino has higher quality reeds. This could add to the cost, too. I would like to read Theo’s or Triskel's opinion.
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Best person to ask is Ivor because he has seen the condition of the box. Anyone else is just guessing.
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Ivor was Hohner trained. He can retune to your requirements and can, from memory, retune to the original sound for that model. He has done work on several boxes for me and I always found him to be very reasonable when it came to pricing.
He once made me wait whilst his chosen springs arrived from Switzerland. I swear they were gold plated! He said they were the correct ones for the box. Got a call as soon as they were fitted and the box ready for collection.
Rob.
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Ivor said he can't tell me what it'll cost because he doesn't know how long he'll need to retune it/put things right. As stated, I'll be going over on Friday so he can show me what needs to be done.
I have not doubts about Ivor's work or honesty. I'm just trying to get a ballpark idea of what it would cost to put things right so I can make some budgeting decisions.
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less than £200
You read what Theo wrote, and it's true. But I would not be surprised, if in fine it would be substantially more than 200.
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Some jobs are straightforward and I can give a fixed price in advance. Other jobs, like this, are unpredictable and I don’t know how long it would take till I’ve finished the work. If pressed for a price in this situation I can only give a worst case price. If you asked me to do a straightforward tuning of all the reeds in your Morino I would quote well over £200, when you are trying to recover from the effects of previous poor repairs then it’s anybodys guess. It’s a big box with a bit over 200 reeds, including a piccolo set which are always a pain to turn. If Ivor can do the job for £200 I think he will have done you a big favour
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Great. Thanks. That was all I was looking for.
Much appreciated.
Will