Hohner Morino VIM

[Morne]

You know what they say about people with more money than sense... but anyway, I couldnt resist this deal even if I cannot do it any justice.

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I got this for about 450 USD / 350 GBP locally. It was ordered in the 1960s and was last serviced at the Hohner factory in the 1990s.

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Some specs:

• 45 treble - LMMMH (sounds dry for a triple musette)
• 164 bass
• 106 Stradella, without Dim chords - the 7s are without root, so they act as Dims for the row above
• 58 free bass

I was expecting this one to be much bigger than the older IVM since it has 4 more keys, but the keys are narrower.

Compared to my older Morino IVM:
Keys:

• VIM: 18-18.5mm each - 53cm total
• IVM: 20 mm each - 51cm total
• Key travel on the VIM are a few mms shallower than on the IVM

And the weights, which I havent verified:

• VIM: ~ 15kg
• IVM: ~ 11 kg

Everything works. Registers are fine. Tuning is fine. Free bass is fine. Valves are fine, except some of the lowest bass valves are slightly open.
The only problem is some M and H treble notes in the highest octave are slow to start or dead. As you can see below, there are some metal bits on the inside that are covered in a white residue. The particles have fallen off and I believe they are choking up the reeds. Ill open and clean it tomorrow. Should I just wipe those metal parts, or should I treat them with something?
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Also, there was a triple Hohner mic attached to the treble grille. The foam backing has disintegrated completely and made a powdery mess. I got the cable too. Are these any good (if it still works)?
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Two quick videos of what it sounds like:
Testing L, LH, LMMMH, M:

Testing MMM:

 

[debra]

For $450 you struck gold here!
A bit of relatively minor work and you have a top instrument. There are people who say that the Morino VI M of the generation you got there (a bit newer than your IV M) is the best Morino VI Hohner ever made (or sold at least, they didn't really make the later ones). The only thing many people disliked are the register sliders on the side of the keyboard. Later Morino VI instruments (N and S) have these sliders underneath the keyboard where they are less likely to hurt your hand.
I'm sure this one will give you many hours of pleasure!

 

[EMan]

I'm going to hang out with you guys more often. Maybe the luck will rub off.

Jerry up in Canada stumbles on an Roland 8x for a song ( no pun intended) and now Morne stumbles on a Hohner Morino for a great price. They say things happen in 3's - who's next ?

 

[JerryPH]

Jerry up in Canada stumbles on an Roland 8x for a song ( no pun intended) and now Morne stumbles on a Hohner Morino for a great price. They say things happen in 3s - whos next ?

Hah! I got a deal...but Morne got a STEAL! :lol: A Morino for about 1/5th of its value, and throw in another Morino accordion for free... WOW!

You know what they say about people with more money than sense... but anyway, I couldnt resist this deal even if I cannot do it any justice.
I got this for about 450 USD / 350 GBP locally. It was ordered in the 1960s and was last serviced at the Hohner factory in the 1990s.
- 164 bass
- 58 free bass

120+58 = 178, but I think if you count them out, you should see 185 bass total. Morino VI with Free Bass have 127 Stradella bass, not 120... at least mine does and I am pretty sure yours does too.

I was expecting this one to be much bigger than the older IVM since it has 4 more keys, but the keys are narrower.

... and they are shallow and super fast, making playing fast runs much easier. When switching back and forth from the Roland to the Hohner, the speed differences are massive!

The only problem is some M and H treble notes in the highest octave are slow to start or dead. As you can see below, there are some metal bits on the inside that are covered in a white residue. The particles have fallen off and I believe they are choking up the reeds. Ill open and clean it tomorrow. Should I just wipe those metal parts, or should I treat them with something?

The reeds should clean out easily enough, but I would wipe the metal parts carefully and maybe wipe them off after cleaning with a rag *lightly* soaked in WD-40 to prevent the corrosion from returning, that looks a bit nasty.

Also, there was a triple Hohner mic attached to the treble grille. The foam backing has disintegrated completely and made a powdery mess. I got the cable too. Are these any good (if it still works)?

Uhhm, yeah... theyre already likely dead, probably the same as are the ones in your Morino (I see that same plug as in mine, except I have 2, one on the bass and one where you have it, on the treble side. Those mics on the Morino are inside the bellows and are airtight plugs. Dynamic Electret mics have an approximate 10 year lifespan. The ones on my Morino died a long time ago. Here is how I dealt with this situation: http://syner-g.asuscomm.com/mymusic/hearme/

Here you have something to compare the sound to a little (my Hohner, er... Pigini... er... HohnerGini... haha):


Oh, dont mind my wrong identification of your accordion and my little keyboard errors, I went to Jiu-Jitsu this morning and dislocated my right wrist. It was all nice and swollen but its mostly ok now thanks to lots of ice. It hurts when I play, though. A couple days rest in a compression bandage and I will be fine again. u

What lightly surprises me is how close they sound in master and the other registers you play in, but the musette is a bit different, but not by all that much. That could be age or original.

 

[debra]

The other Morino was not thrown in for free! Morne bought that earlier and it was in worse condition than this almost mint Morino VI M.
Another minor thing is that this Morino VI M has only 5 rows of standard bass. (You can see that in the photo.) So Morne did count it correctly and it is different from a Morino VI N.
The reeds should be cleaned with benzine (in dutch we call it wasbenzine to not confuse it with gasoline or petrol that we call benzine and that used for running a cars engine).
I agree with you that the mics are likely dead. It was never a great system anyway (not covering the lowest and highest notes well enough).

Nice video you made to show the possibilities of your VI N. the VI M has the same slider registers but they are on the side and people tend to hurt their hand on them and then in some cases have them removed. Similarly on the VI N with the sliders behind the keyboard: less hurtful for the hands but more so for clothing.
Your VI N is made (in part or in full) by Excelsior long before they takeover by Pigini, so its still a real Excelsior, with better mechanics than the VI M made by Hohner, better register mechnanics and better bass mechanics. Technology does get better over time...

The reduced key travel is actually not all better. It does allow for faster runs, but it also causes the pallets to open less, especially in the cassotto, and that causes the notes to lower in frequency, making tuning much harder than when the pallets open more. You can never tune such a cassotto instrument by taking the reed blocks out and tuning while the blocks are on a tuning table. The result after putting the reed blocks back would be lower than on the tuning table.

 

[RodionGork]

The particles have fallen off and I believe they are choking up the reeds. Ill open and clean it tomorrow. Should I just wipe those metal parts, or should I treat them with something?

I was advised to make a dedicated tool, by breaking apart the cheap dispozable razor - they have thin and narrow blades. This blade is easily attached to some kind of handle then. I really find it quite useful in removing small parts between the reed and the side of the hole.

are slow to start or dead

Slow to start, or dont respond to small air flow diagnose Ive found to have the following cause - the tip of the reed is bit higher above the plate than it should be. In my case I succeeded in bending them slightly down, but I think it is worth to double check before trying. E.g. similar effect could be if the air founds some unwanted path under resonator or plate.

I hope some gurus can re-check these suggestions, for I surely have not enough experience

 

[JerryPH]

The other Morino was not thrown in for free! Morne bought that earlier and it was in worse condition than this almost mint Morino VI M.

Ah, thanks, I wasnt aware it was the same one, they
e both lovely.

Another minor thing is that this Morino VI M has only 5 rows of standard bass. (You can see that in the photo.) So Morne did count it correctly and it is different from a Morino VI N.

Well heck, I am on a roll... lol So that means he has no rows of diminished bass?

I agree with you that the mics are likely dead. It was never a great system anyway (not covering the lowest and highest notes well enough).

The factory mics were small and not very sensitive, but in their day did a surprisingly fair job when new. The replacement capsule that I used is more sensitive and covers a greater dynamic range, and in terms of sound quality I would place on a scale of being very good. The only thing is the output levels are low, so a preamp is necessary. After that it is likely good enough for anyone except a full time professional. Ill make a demo of that in a small project that I want to do sometime soon.

Nice video you made to show the possibilities of your VI N. the VI M has the same slider registers but they are on the side and people tend to hurt their hand on them and then in some cases have them removed. Similarly on the VI N with the sliders behind the keyboard: less hurtful for the hands but more so for clothing.

Thanks.
Its very cool to see the small evolutions between models that are so close! Incidentally, I cannot ever recall getting any clothing snagged on them ever. That said, I am not a woman with physical endowments and loose dresses and other fashion accoutrements where they would potentially cause such issues.

Your VI N is made (in part or in full) by Excelsior long before they takeover by Pigini, so its still a real Excelsior...

Oh I know... but Hohnergini sounds much cooler. :lol:

The reduced key travel is actually not all better. It does allow for faster runs, but it also causes the pallets to open less, especially in the cassotto, and that causes the notes to lower in frequency, making tuning much harder than when the pallets open more. You can never tune such a cassotto instrument by taking the reed blocks out and tuning while the blocks are on a tuning table. The result after putting the reed blocks back would be lower than on the tuning table.

Ah, but here is where the more experienced tuner will never have such a problem, because they shall check the status of the notes while they are in the accordion, document the offset of how far they are off and the direction, then pull out the reed block and not tune the reeds by their sound then, but use the documented offsets, tune for those, and return them to the accordion for testing.

Sorry for my errors Morne, I still think it was not a good deal, but a steal!

 

[Morne]

I got the white residue off as good as I could. I took out all the reed blocks and cleaned the reeds with a soft brush. It wasnt necessary to clean them in any liquid.

The stuck reeds all sing now. I pinged the dead notes and the surrounding high ones (since I was in there). Tested them all outside on a suck and blow (air pump, not my mouth). There is one piccolo reed which works fine, but then if I let it stand for a while it gets stuck again on the first sound, but a little jerk on the bellows and its back alive. Ill keep an eye on these high reeds, but since this instrument hasnt been played much in over a decade, I guess they just need to warm up again.

I must confess that it feels good knowing that I fixed that (even if its really, really simple). When I got the older Morino, I had only ever opened one accordion and I never touched the reeds - for fear of breaking them by just looking at them wrong. After watching the repairman working on that one I got a bit more confidence to dig in it myself. I still need to find cadavers to practice re-valving and waxing, but thats another topic.

The only thing many people disliked are the register sliders on the side of the keyboard.

Shouldnt your hand stay away from the side of the keyboard anyway? Or does it happen more with smaller hands when reaching for the accidentals?

Im going to hang out with you guys more often. Maybe the luck will rub off.

Jerry up in Canada stumbles on an Roland 8x for a song ( no pun intended) and now Morne stumbles on a Hohner Morino for a great price. They say things happen in 3s - whos next ?

Next thread title: Hohner Gola :lol: The wife of the owner of this Morino actually played a Gola with free bass long ago - which she gave away to somebody. There might still be a handful of them left somewhere in the country.

I would wipe the metal parts carefully and maybe wipe them off after cleaning with a rag *lightly* soaked in WD-40 to prevent the corrosion from returning, that looks a bit nasty.

I ended up doing exactly that. The white corrosion came off really easy. There are some really hard to reach places I couldnt get in, but as far as the body cavity around the reeds is concerned, it should be good for a couple of years.

Here you have something to compare the sound to a little (my Hohner, er... Pigini... er... HohnerGini... haha):

Thanks! I was worried for a second you were going to show off some extreme M III skills and put me to shame :lol:
To answer your questions:
It had a master chin switch. As you can see, the plastic top part is missing. The owner said he never liked it. We got into another conversation and I forgot to ask him about it again. Im sure something can be hacked together and screwed into the lever. The rest of the mechanism still works.


I wasnt sure about the tuning since the Scots and Oberkrainer players like the wetter musette on the Morinos. However, this one was used for classical stuff, so I guess it makes sense that it would not be very wet.

Like Paul said, the slide registers are the same. I have M and MMM on the one, and L and LMH on the other one.

On the base side I have one slider which cuts out the highest octave.


Interestingly, I have another lever inside the bass side which activates the bottom bass register switch, but there is no slider to activate it:


As for the free bass - thats the most interesting part here. Ive already starting trying the 5-note Ode To Joy on it. Ill make a new topic on some M III questions/discussions.

What lightly surprises me is how close they sound in master and the other registers you play in, but the musette is a bit different, but not by all that much. That could be age or original.

Its more than likely the bad laptop microphone I used. Or I need to record the sound from further away. Ill do a recording of all the notes in all the registers in case that makes it sound clearer.

Another minor thing is that this Morino VI M has only 5 rows of standard bass. (You can see that in the photo.) So Morne did count it correctly and it is different from a Morino VI N.

I know that the VI M was available in both 164 and 185 bass versions. Im not sure if there were other arrangements too. I dont know about the preferences for different people or genres, but this one was ordered like this by the music teacher for the original owner. I actually prefer it without the diminished chords, since my first accordion was an 80 bass and I never those chords anyway.

I was advised to make a dedicated tool, by breaking apart the cheap dispozable razor - they have thin and narrow blades. This blade is easily attached to some kind of handle then. I really find it quite useful in removing small parts between the reed and the side of the hole.

Im glad somebody else does something similar too! I use a simple safety razor (double edge) snapped in half. I dont have anything else that can fit under the tongue of the highest piccolo reeds.

the tip of the reed is bit higher above the plate than it should be.

I am going to play with it for a while before doing anything else to the reeds, especially adjusting gaps. I think some of the problems might just be because the instrument wasnt played much in a long time.

Its very cool to see the small evolutions between models that are so close!

Your VI N is made (in part or in full) by Excelsior long before they takeover by Pigini, so its still a real Excelsior, with better mechanics than the VI M made by Hohner, better register mechnanics and better bass mechanics. Technology does get better over time...

On that topic, it is interesting to see the evolution of the bass side.
On the older IV M, the bass reeds open up in a wooden semi cassotto and the big low reeds are laid down flat with big shafts angling into the reeds:

On this VI M the normal bass reeds are as usual, but the lowest reeds sit on an elongated shaft sunk into the bass plate:

Compare that to the winkelbass which is in the VI N.

Also interesting is:
- the IV M used metal sliders inside the treble reed blocks. In the VI M all the sliders are plastic and directly in the plate, except for that big bass reed block where the long shafts have a plastic slider inside it.
- the IV M has levers to open the treble side, but the bass side has screws. The VI M has levers on both the treble and bass sides.
- the IV M does not have felt rings around the bass buttons, whereas the VI M does. Basically, the old Hohners already had percussion sound effects way before the Roland came out

 

[debra]

Many thanks for the detailed description of the VI M. I have worked on a VI M before. That was a 185 bass model, but otherwise mostly identical looking. That VI M had the strange property of having different quality reeds on the keyboard side (tipo a mano) versus the bass side (machine reeds, atlantic quality). A way to tell whether you have that too is to look for the "stripe" on the reed plates. The keyboard side will have them, but the question is whether the bass side has them too, or not.

 

[Morne]

This one looks similar. The treble side has 1 stripe on the L, M and H reeds and 3 stripes on the other 2 M reeds. The bass side has dots on all the reeds except the 2 lowest octaves which have no markings.

(I noticed that some of the wax looks a bit badly done, but it doesnt look like its affecting anything.)

Treble L reeds:


Treble M reeds:


Treble H reeds:


The highest treble reeds have gold frames, although theyve faded somewhat:


Treble MMM reeds:

 

[Morne]

Bass low reeds:


Other bass reeds:

 

[debra]

Those bass reeds are machine reeds as I suspected, thus not of comparable quality as the reeds for the righthand side.
You probably will never notice, which is why Hohner got away with putting in these cheaper reeds on the bass side in the first place.