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take care of your lovely instrument

Forum Topic: Breaking down and setting up M55

I recently purchased an M55G (based on advice from this site - thanks) and am planning to do my first gig with it in a couple months. Does anyone have any instructions, advice, tips for breaking down and setting up this instrument for a gig?

Are there any videos online showing how to do this? I've seen the one on this site for a different vibe. I assume the process would be similar.

I'm going to hold off on buying the $500-$750 bags for it unless/until I gig with it more regularly.

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Forum Topic: Has anyone been playing Premier vibes for 70 or 80 years?

Hi everyone, yes I'm a new member and so glad I found your fantastic site. You've guessed it, I desperately need some advice on my first vibes. About two months ago, having looked for a vibraphone for a long time, I found an old instrument (I love old) that was 'spares or repair'.
Now, I am quite musical and for the last thirty years have been a mechanical and electronics engineer - I have worked with woods a little also. You will understand that I thought restoring such a thing would be easy.

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Forum Topic: Fixing Up Old Vibraphone

I acquired a Yamaha YV-1600 that seems to have been stored in a rather dusty and humid environment. I just finished cleaning it completely, getting crud out of the resonators and using about a hundred Q-Tips to get all the dirt out of every crevice.

The good news is that I was able to give it a complete inspection and there is little to no damage. Everything is intact and I don't need to locate any replacement parts.

The bad news is that the motor doesn't work and the felt on the damping bar is pretty messed, so I have a few questions:

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Forum Topic: Help! Dampening bar not dampening evenly.

I bought a used Musser M7055G (An M55G mounted on a cart) and I'm very happy with my purchase. But I'm having a problem with the damper pedal. Dampening is not even. Left, middle and right sides do not damper the same way. The center is too muted while the left and right sides still have some ringing. I can't get it to have an even sound when pedal is not pressed.

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Forum Topic: Pedal tension

Hi Everyone, I recently acquired a Deagan Commander 593 vibraphone. It was in pretty good shape when I got it, but also needed some work. I've managed to get most of it running smoothly, but I'm having some trouble with the pedal tension. It takes an awful lot of energy to push the pedal down. I have the spring adjusted so that the bar dampens the keys evenly, but I'm not aware of how to adjust the spring tension itself, so that the pedal is physically easier to push down. Is this a matter of replacing the spring? Am I missing something obvious? Thanks.

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Forum Topic: Motor woes

Hi All-

I'm having some new problems with my motor, wonder if anyone's ever encountered anything similar. I suspect that the trouble's originating with the specialized parts I had made to allow me to control vibrato speed with a volume-style pedal, but I wanted to make sure it's not the actual motor itself.

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