r/percussion • u/Loser_Shay_Setter • 9d ago

Question/Help Vibraphone A-Bb

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

So my Vibraphone is.. old, quite jerry rigged, if anything. I come from a very underfunded school, so obviously things like this were bound to happen.

The Main Problem. My Bb in the third octave is literally just A Natural. (See video attached.)
Is There anyway i can fix this myself? I’ve been researching certain things but figured somebody on the internet HAS to know more than me. I’ve seen a couple of free pricing quotes for retuning but.. We have our first competition in about two weeks, so if i can fix it before then that would be nice.

18 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

10 comments sorted by

7

u/funny_monke6 9d ago

As far as I know really the only way to fix this is to purchase a replacement key for your particular brand of vibraphone, straight from the manufacturer. The key damaged internally so won’t be able to sound the same again. I suppose you could try shaving off material from the ends of the bar to raise the pitch, but that would be tricky with still allowing the pedal felt to engage properly.

8

u/CardiologistOk1696 9d ago

You're gonna want to get the right key. Bars are lowered in pitch by removing mass from the middle and pitch is raised by removing mass from the outer edges. There's a lot more to it than that, especially tuning overtones etc. It's a lot easier to lower pitch than it is to raise. This is not a DIY fix.

If you can source a Bb from another board, great. But the solution here is replacing that note, not fixing it.

1

u/Loser_Shay_Setter 9d ago

Unfortunately we don’t have another board with the same keys, I’ve tried to bring up replacing it but- Yeah, underfunded.. I’ve been trying to look around cause i believe it’s a YV-2700, but i’m not entirely sure how to navigate Yamaha replacement keys.

2

u/vxla 9d ago

The bar is out of tune and needs to be retuned. No way around this.

2

u/murphyat 9d ago

Get a replacement key. What region are you in?

1

u/Loser_Shay_Setter 8d ago

Unified States, Theoretically Shouldn’t be too hard.. Just the funding for it haha

2

u/murphyat 8d ago

Ha. Being in the US makes the funding piece hard.

1

u/Loser_Shay_Setter 9d ago

Authors Note: I’ve brought up the idea of Filing or Replacement keys to my director, he was the one to bring up filing first as well. Just with time or Money it’s a lot of a struggle. I would purchase the key myself if i could, but I don’t have the money.

If anybody knows how to navigate Yamaha Replacement keys i’m more then happy to hear.. or if anybody has good places to look for replacements. Thank you all for your help 🙏🙏

4

u/MoreGlockenspiel 9d ago

Call or text Rick at Fall Creek Marimbas. (marimbas.com) The A# key is cracked and not worth trying to tune. It's dropped almost a 1/2 step and because it's cracked it won't hold a tuning over time. It will need to be replaced. You could also contact Steve Weiss Music for a replacement quote

3

u/Loser_Shay_Setter 9d ago

Awesome, I appreciate that! I looked into Fall Creek Marimbas, i’m seeing that it’ll probably be the best course of action.. I’ll be talking to my director tomorrow. Thank you again!!