vibrato speed not slow enuff

[Alan Lenhoff]

Oh, don't get me started! I could talk all day about vintage keys. (Actually, I can write about them all day, too. A co-author and I will be publishing a book next year that's a tribute to the great rock keyboards of the 1950s through early 1980s. Large format, full of gorgeous studio photos and what we hope will be regarded as the authoritative story of these instruments.)

I used to play the Rhodes with a Small Stone phaser. But I'm not really into that '70s/'80s pop kind of sound. To me, tremolo is the defining Rhodes sound. Clavinets are being re-born because you can finally buy the "consumable" parts for them. (Strings, hammer tips, etc.) There was a long time when those parts were totally unavailable, and lots of Clavs got scrapped because their hammer tips had decayed into a gooey, stick mess. A real shame.

I'm not sure I know anyone who stretch tunes a Wurli. I'd say the overwhelming majority of Rhodes players do not stretch tune their pianos. Rhodes shipped them without stretch tuning, but at some point added a stretch tuning chart to the Rhodes service manual in case that was your preference. To me, a Rhodes sounds out of tune when it's stretch-tuned. But I might think differently if I were in a band in which I was playing a Rhodes along with an acoustic piano that's stretched. I'm told by a tech who works for Donald Fagen (Steely Dan) that Donald wants his stretch-tuned for that reason.

Alan

[bob p]

That sounds like a very interesting book. Keep us posted!

I agree, the sound of a phasor on a Rhodes is great (I'm not a Joel fan, but he got a lot of miles out of it), but the phasor is something that can grow old quickly. That said, there is no substitute for that tone. To my ears at least, that's one of the classic Rhodes sounds. I guess you can tell that I really like the sound of a real Rhodes. Are there any modern keyboards that even come close? I'm not familiar enough with modern keyboards to really know. To me the Rhodes models don't quite sound the same.

It's interesting that people are not stretching their electric keyboards. I can see the rationale for not doing that when they're being played alone, or beside other keyboards that aren't stretched, like a Hammond organ. But if they're being played beside a concert grand I don't see how you could get away without doing it. Interesting comment about Fagen. Did not know that.

Thanks.

[Alan Lenhoff]

That sounds like a very interesting book. Keep us posted!

Will do. It should be available in fall 2019. (If anyone wants to be notified when it publishes, send me a PM with your email address.)

I don't think any of the digital Rhodes emulations fully capture the sound of the original -- and certainly not their feel. But for gigging, they are a godsend for their portability. And in the mix of a band, they can sound quite good. If you want to explore the possibilities, you might want to visit a music store that stocks Nords or maybe Korg's SV-1. Another issue is that you get one keyboard that makes many sounds. So you may be playing pianos on a Hammond-like keyboard or organs on weighted piano-style keys. It's not ideal, but the convenience helps many people learn to tolerate it.

Alan