WurlyBrain

Imagine the intro to Beck’s “Where It’s At”. We love that Wurlitzer sound!

But…

I’ve serviced enough Wurlitzer 200-series electric pianos to realize that the original circuit boards just havent made it into the 21st century without sufferning significant deterioration. Capacitors need replacing, resistors need replacing, transistors blow and require hard-to-find replacements, solder joints go bad, transformers poop out, etc. As a result, you get weak volume, buzzing output, random hissing and crackling noises, distortion, unreliable performance, or combinations of the above. None of it is fun to troubleshoot either, because the factory circuit diagrams are drawn in a way that makes them very confusing to read. Yuck. But nevertheless, nobody wants to let go of the classic sound of a healthy Wurly.

I decided to design a fresh replacement board that would fix all of these problems in one move. My WurlyBrain has these features:

• 10-watt power amp
• quiet solid-state preamp with gold plated pickup jack
• appealing tone
• line output with level trim (independent of speaker volume)
• tremolo with adjustable rate
• adjustable, regulated pickup voltage
• easy installation in Wurlitzer 200-series pianos

The WurlyBrain is currently a functioning prototype, and I am revising the PCB layout at the moment. If that goes well, the first few will be available for purchase shortly.

Here’s a view of the rev. A PCB: