Recording a Rhodes.......

[heylow]

So I have this old Rhodes Piano....the kind that sits on its own speaker cab. Like most old electro pianos, its a finicky bastard but COOOL!

How are you guys recording them? I have been micing it recently with an M160 from a distance of about 2 fists away, pointing JUST off the center of the cone...just enough to keep high end and reduce hiss.

I used to go direct out of the preamp but micing has been a bit nicer for my application....on one tune, I did both and panned the tracks...worked well.

I know some of you guys have the kind without the speaker cab....what are you plugging them into? What sounds good? I'd like to experiment more with other cabinets, actually....the one that comes with it sounds OK but I suspect there are more sounds to be had. i wouldnt even mind going after the odd and absurd.

What about effects? I did a track where I plugged a bit of ovedrive and a spacey sounding sweep delay into the Pre amp outs and Power amp ins. Turned out great but the drawback was that I had to keep the volume down because turning the Volume up resulted in more juice to the pre amp out which resulted in overdriving my effects, which is ugly. Not sure I understand the purpose of that loop.......

Do you guys compress to tape? What types of settings are you guys finding work well with these things...they are an odd beast to tame, for sure...really like nothing else I have tried to record!


Oh, and bonus points for Farfisa techniques.......

heylow

[Mack Damon]

I had a special box some guy made for me that took the 5 pin speaker out and gave me a stereo line output. IIRC, it also powered the thing. Mic'ing the speaker is only as good as the speaker (which in a 25 year old keyboard is a dubious proposition at best), try using the headphone out with a TRS splitter cable into a pait of nice DI boxes. I will tell you this. Rhodes are like guitars....having a properly intonated and well set up rhodes beats the pants off the band hall Rhodes you picked up at an auction. I have a guy I know that strobetunes those things for fun and "stretches" the top octave.....his rhodes tend to sing and growl.

[timbaier]

I have the Rhodes keyboard (sans the amp) version. I haven't recorded it in a few years so the details are a bit sketchy, but when I did, I used an open back, low wattage Fender tube amp. Every time I tried to record the thing loud with a bigger amp, it sounded farty. In fact, the volume at which I recorded it was often *very* low. I think the low volume helped to keep the keyboard from overpowering the speaker, which I feel they have a tendency to do when you start playing more than one note at a time. I've never used the "w/ amp" version so I'm not sure what they're like. At the time, I think I was using a Sen MD421, maybe with the bass rolloff notched one or two licks if I was playing lower octave stuff. Compression? I probablly didn't, which is rare, for me.

You're absolutely right, their sound is very complex and extremely difficult to record so that the subtleties come through. I think they can sound cool with phasing/flanging on them. Even tremolo. I've never liked any "time effects" cuz I just love the natural sustain of the thing, so I don't like to mess with that.

[Jay]

I usually approach recording a rhodes like a guitar. It usually goes through the Twin Reverb but sometimes a Hiwatt. Once I ran it through a tape echo with fast repeats and lots of regeneration, and played high sustained chords, and people that hear it usually think it's some kind of xylophone.
I have two farfisas here too- one is a home organ type thing. I used to record a mic on the speaker and then play the tape back through a leslie and re-mic it. It sounded.... errr, cheap and circus-ey.

[DJEmbarrassment]

I have a Rhodes and the internal speakers are really awful. I opened up the cabinet once and they were a bit moldy.

That being said, I have read about people having great success running them through Fender Deluxe or Twin Reverb guitar amps.

Also, I once tried to record it thru a direct box. It sounded like a toy! Have you heard any Grateful Dead soundboard tapes from 1979-1983? That's the sound. Really tinkly, no guts.

Eric S.

[trash180]

Hey,
I have that Suitcase style Rhodes too. It's awesome. Don't you have that effects loop thing on the front? "1" and "2"? Maybe that's what you were talking about with "pre-amp out"...

Anyway that's how most people patch in effects pedals and stuff. Big Muff is great. I've seen Portishead do that live before, so it was the first thing I tried when I got mine. I've also taken a direct out of 1 (or 2, I forget) when I'm just trying to get something down. It really doesn't sound bad. More bell like. Can't use the vibrato direct though.

An old Fender Vibro-Champ always sounds pretty cool for a secondary amp option. I've seen someone use a Sovtek mini-stack too. That sounded pretty tough.

[DJEmbarrassment]

"1" is OUT (but, as you say, it's mono & there's NO VIBRATO effect)
"2" is IN.

[soundguy]

heylow-

you've really got to set up your rhodes if you want it to sound good. You have to treat the thing exactly like a guitar, its got basically, guitar pickups over every tine. I would ditch that speaker cab, its a solid state amp. Plug it into what you would your guitar and record it exactly the same way. I woudl reccomend splitting to a DI and compressing the hell out of the DI if you want that George Duke low end definition.

dave

[rich]

i collected rhodes pianos for a while and tried recording them in various ways but the best way i found was to do exactly as soundguy stated. i split the rodes with di and use a princton reverb amp. squash that di signal as the high notes tend to be predomenatly louder. also it helps top get online and learn a bit about tuning and setting up the piano. you can really manipulate the volume and tone by moving each little pickup around.

[soundguy]

ok, this is the rhodes bible all in one place:

http://www.badrat.com/

Every little last thing you need to know about maintaining a rhodes can be found here. It took me about 5 years of practice, but with that info you can get any rhodes up to george duke or jan hammer standards. It is SOO much work, but when you get the thing all set up, its highly rewarding. And none of it is electronic, its all moving screws and nuts and lubricating and tuning. Some piano tuning theory will go a long way, a piano is NOT tuned where every note is exactly in pitch, there are many different schools of thought on tuning a piano, and a rhodes really sorta falls into the same thing. Once you get the gunk out of it and get an idea of the sound you want, you can really kick ass on the thing. Plus, its rare to find someone who can set one up, if you get good you can easily charge for a setup.

dave

[heylow]

Thanks guys...

And thanks for the Additional info, Dave. I understand the way pianos are tuned, which is why I havent touched the thing myself...just not qualified. This particular rhodes needs some work for sure...its not bad or anything but could use some tweaking. Finding someone you can trust to do it is harrowing. May have to learn tey another skill!

Anyway...about the effects loop...someone mentioned Portishead using it and everything....I saw someone using it that way as well and thats why I tried it buy, like I said....turning up the volume also brings it up INTO the effects which overdrives the effects.....gets HARSH, man!


Back to tech:

How are you guys going out into amps? I know that if I take the top off of this one, I can detach the preamp from the pickups via its RCA connection. I was thinking about making a cable to go from here (direct from the pickups) to a guitar amp. This seems in line with treating it like a guitar as well.

If I go aout any other way, the signal is dependant on where the volume is...which means I'm potentially running a super hot signal into the amp....might be cool...but cant be pretty.

I'd definitely like to try the "going into amp, splittlin into a DI and comping the DI" thing though! You say to squash it Dave? How squashed are we talking here?

What do you think?


heylow

[dwelle]

i haven't recorded my rhodes too much, but as far as SOUND goes, i run mine thru a super reverb or a '68 bassman with a jbl 15". pretty loud, and it sounds gooooooood....

[soundguy]

A rhodes is something that needs constant maintainence. You need to learn to do this yourself. We always spend an hour or two tweakig before we record it, its not really something you set and forget. I mean, you can, but once you can get around on it, it really pays off to tweak. Its sorta like bringing your guitar tothe music store to have the stoner cover band guy behind the counter change your strings. You eventually need to learn it yourself, and its always good to put new strings on before a session...

there should be a 1/4" out on the left hand side of the piano. I have a preamp model, but just use those 1/4" outs. they arent active.

As for compression, turn the knob till it sounds good. An amp cant really give you the definition at the bottom, rhodes tend to rumble. Which is great. But the DI will save your definition on the bottom, I would compress it so its got a different presence than the mic'd amp, combine to taste.

Remember to play it slowly so you get all the right notes on the tape when you jam on a perverted tango, but dont dance to the pedestrian beat.

dave

[heylow]

Remember to play it slowly so you get all the right notes on the tape when you jam on a perverted tango, but dont dance to the pedestrian beat.

dave

TRULY words of wisdom, Dave....a creed to live by, indeed!


heylow

[soundguy]

dude, the words to live by are the ones that have been circumlocuted to get the text on television...

dave