I got to play one of these babies today at Guitar Center. Since I was born in the 70's and didn't get into keyboards until the mid 80's I never got to see a real one before. Believe it or not its not as glorious as I thought it would be, but it definitely did have a sound I don't get on my Yamaha S-80 emulations.

It sounded very Tony Banks, Genesis stage piano sound on some of their mid-career albums.


They wanted $475 for it, but I just bought a newer vehicle so I can't afford it.

How many of you have played an actual Rhodes and which version of it do you like the best?

What does ARP have to do with a Rhodes?

CBS/Rhodes acquired what was left of ARP. See Chroma, figure A.

The OP may be talking about this.

dB

Yeah, that's kind of what I figured, which means I think he may have a Fender Rhodes type electric piano horrible confused with that thing...

The ARP piano was called the Rhodes Electronic Piano by the time it was released.

dB

Ahhhh. Man, I really don't miss the 80's...

it's a good thing I damaged so many brain cells during the 80's that I can barely remember them...

Let me take you back...

that sound was an RMI 368.
I have an RMI 368X which I paid $100 for.
going rate for any weird electronic piano from the 70's-80's is $100 or less,all the way down to free.
$475 is highway robbery.
a little futher clarification on edit;
an electric piano (Fender Rhodes,Wurlitzer 200A,Yamamha CP70)is the sound of tines,reeds,or strings being struck by hammers,which is then amplified.
an electronic piano (ARP,RMI,Yamaha CP35) generates a sound with an oscillator or similar device,similar to an organ,but with a bright sound and short dacay time,unless a sustain pedal is used to hold the note(s) for a longer period of time.

I agree with this discription, but find it humourous that my Wurlitzer 200 says "electronic piano" right on the faceplate.

And the good folks in Rocky Mount couldn't decide whether to call the RMI "Electric" or "Electronic".

So the instrument was called the RMI Electra-Piano.

Catchy, huh?

NOOOOOooooooooooo!!!

Biggest POS that ARP ever made.

Velocity sensitive yes, but the timbre does not change with velocity.

Really bad hiss in the audio.

The power switch will melt if you leave it in a hot car.

Can't be retrofitted with MIDI - no way, no how.

When ARP was still around, every time they finished a new unit there was one coming back in for repair.

When ARP went under, CBS bought the rights to the piano and slapped the Rhodes brand on it. It sounds NOTHING like a Rhodes piano.

Not even worth $50.

very catchy.
even catchier,the Baldwin Electropiano!
(I own one)
I could even argue that the only real electric pianos have strings,but that would tick off all you fakers playing Rhodes and Wurlys

Why, you're just a pup...I did all my brain cell damage in the 70s

man I love it when I can run against the pack

I had an Arp 4 voice and I loved it....so there

shit it was a pleasant change from shlepping my Yamaha CP 30 around..sure the CP30 felt good to play but sounded like a carnival..

the 4 voice felt ok to play in those days and sounded fine...and although it was monstrous it was as light as anything.

mind you I was fresh in those days to keyboards having bought the CP30 new from Hutchings music [my first ever keyboard purchase]...once I was sick of it I went back to Hutchings for my next keyboard...and on show was this Arp 4 voice...I remember being told by greg that it is sold without warranty although I believed it was new...when I got it home i found out why, there was this intermitant droning coming from this which wasnt present at store...oh well what ya gonna do...i pulled it apart and found that an earth wire had come loose and was hitting now and then on some circuitry..simply screwed it back in and it was perfect...looking back I cant believe Greg would sell on a problem keyboard to a newbie like myself...I really had no idea what keyboards were about.

anyway it worked for me and I enjoyed this huge but lightweight piano...after this I went back to Hutchings and bought a Korg Trident Mk1...top of the line synth...and lost the piano side of me for years.And went on to buy heaps more gear there till I moved too far away. He always had all the good stuff eventually becoming the Kurzweil importer.

So a pleasant experience for me...

Man I had a Rhodes and still cant see what the fuss about them is...it's still a compromise on an acoustic, sure it sounds nice but as it is it was meant to get as close to an acoustic as they could...it was not meant to be an intsrument of its own ilk originally...it still is a replicant acoustic piano and as such still didnt replicate a piano...but it has its own nuances. But ironically when you sell a rhodes you recoup good money, unfortunately you wont with the Arp, so at that price its is only worth it if you love its playing style, I dought it will become highly collectable even though it is rare, whereas rhodes etc will always be worth something..I know as I got good money when I sold my rhodes, but the Arp will always be a loner...but it is a heck of a lot rarer,

I had a nice condition 88 rhodes, but the playing experience was not up to the euphoria that now follows the rhodes, it now has become its own benchmark because of its heritage, but lets face it when it was introduced it was so people could play a piano on stage...ie subsitutue for an acoustic...it was later it took on its own persona
and hey it was as good if not better than any replicant.


So good on ya Arp for trying...and how many of you can say you owned a true Arp electronic piano...eh...yea I know none of you want to own up

mind you any of the non common brands like Arp were not easily available here so it is/was a very rare piano now and even then here in Aussie...hey I gigged with one...cooooooooooool, and in some ways its great to say that instead of the usually well known keyboards....and man it hada certain smell, something to do with perhaps the covering of the body, the body was its own roadcase like the Yammy Cp30, a lid went over it, encasing it like a roadcase, but it gave off this new keyboard smell you dont get with non self roadcased keyboards,..

My experience with the Arp 4 voice was very positive, perhaps too part of the positive vibe I have is that I was able to fix a non warranteed "special" myself and enjoy it as a bargain.

I hate to harp....but I bought an Arp.

First, I actually really loved my Rhodes for 10 years and traded it for my CP30 which I also loved. (The trade was regrettable in hindsight.)

That said, you're wrong about the Rhodes; while not a succesful replacement for acoustic piano, the Hammond was a failure at emulating the pipe organ, and the clavinet failed to emulate a harpsichord, and the Cp3o failed at all. But they're wonderful insttuments.

yes no dought they are wonderful...no where did I say I didnt like a Rhodes

but your words are "while not a succesful replacement for acoustic piano" so perhaps I am not wrong in what I am saying because you just agreed they are not a successful replacement

..my premise is that it doesnt replicate the piano...I must say no where did i say I didnt like it, but I said I cant understand the Euphoria associated to it when in its day it wasnt a faithful replicant of an acoustic [indeed what people were actually wanting]...sure it was probably better than all the rest,and probably as good as you were going to get at the time but it didnt satisfy all the piano players.
I am not a rhodes hater just cant understand its euphoria.

But this is what nostalgia is all about and I collect other things for that reason

and my nolsalgia extends to the Arp over and beyond the Yammy CP 30 it replaced, as the yammy didnt do it for me, but the Arp did.. someones gotta stick up a positive for these pianos...or history will go down that all players played were Rhodes, CP70's and Wurlies...

some eiher couldnt afford those or simply didnt like the schlepp or didnt like the feel anyway...when the future looks back on this site will all they think existed in the past be rhodes, hammonds, wurlies ,and moogs etc..

I do like/love those famous ones too [so please no assuming I am negative to them] but I believe those who used other less popular boards should also sing their praises too so history knows there was a choice. I see negatives for a board I loved...I shall jump to it's defence and let history know there was one happy Arp 4 voice owner.hee hee

what we do today echoes in eternity

hi dave interesting link.

Arp must have released it first as mine was called an Arp 4 voice and the bigger version was the Arp 16 voice..I can even remember it advertised as the Arp not a rhodes..I think perhaps I had seen it advertised in keyboard mag as the Arp 4 and 16 voice,,...neverthelewss the one I bought downunder was definately an Arp.

and different slightly to the rhodes as the Arp had no exposed wood.

Interesting thread. I knew immediately what the O.P. was talking about, but have only heard about it as a legend, so it has been fun to read some contrary views about the relative merits of that keyboard, which I have honestly heard some people praise.

Does anyone know of any well-known recordings it might have showed up on? Was it not as good as a DX7 pretending to be a Rhodes?

It seems like it could be a reasonable price for what it is, except that several people here don't seem to think it's built very well, aside from not sounding like a true Rhodes.

I had an opportunity to pick up a Chroma while in L.A. via car (vs. plane) a few years back, but passed on it due to the solenoidal controls and my memories of what happens when those go south. Solenoidal controls were a bad idea at the time (as my experience with laye 70's through early 80's tape decks proved), and fortunately died away as the repair cost became obvious.

I'll have to read this thread a few times to really "get" the relationship between the ARP Chroma pre/post Fender buyout, and this Rhodes wanna-be, as I originally thought Fender had kind of lowered the quality of the Chroma and re-branded it a Rhodes.

My then-favorite music store had an ARP/Rhodes electronic piano on display for quite a long time; nobody seemed willing to buy it, so I got to play it a number of times in the store. It was gorgeous-looking, but even for the times, I thought it sounded horrible. It just wasn't musical, and the dynamic response was all wrong. They kept dropping the price, so for a short while I even thought to get it - being ong one of the many pianists in search of a stage solution.

Then one day I went to the store to try to convince myself that I could play it, and I found a bunch of excited people all gathering around some new instrument which had just been unpacked. That was the Chroma. I was mesmerized just by looking at it - then somebody played a note, and the thing emitted some kind of ring-modulated roar from Saturn, which made all the people around to look at each other in disbelief.

I got to play it for a while, and I knew I couldn't be happy until I saved enough money to buy one, which I did a while later. Even the piano-type sounds on the Chroma were more efficient to my ears than the electronic piano (probably thanks to FM).
So I never thought about the ARP attempt to an electronic piano anymore, and still a bit later, I got a Roland RD-300 for piano sounds. Serious digital pianos had started to happen.

Side note... CBS/Rhodes did change some of the original components of the Chroma with cheaper ones; that made the instrument both less reliable and worse-sounding. There was, however, a bunch of the first Chromas made with the original ARP components... I'm pretty sure that the Chroma I bought sounded a bit weaker that the one I played in the store.

Beware the Arp pianos. Leaving aside opinions about the sound, the key contacts are extremely unreliable and impossible to repair when they die.

And beware the Rhodes Chroma too. Stay away, I don't want you inflating the price of these magnificent, er I mean nothing to see here, move on...

This is actually what I was responding to (but using my Netbook is just plain cumbersome). And while the other instruments I was referring to were actually designed to emulate or represent their historic counterparts, this is NOT what the Rhodes was designed to do.

Harold Rhodes designed the electric piano originally as a portable instrument to be taken to Army hospitals to help rehabilitate soldiers who had been severely hurt or maimed in duty, not to recreate the acoustic piano. Everything that happened after was an extension of its original design (unlike the B3, Clavinet, etc.).

That being said (thank you Larry!), while you don't see what the fuss is all about, as you observed, the Rhodes has its own culture and devotees, and rightly so. The instrument was a worthy one, especially in the hands of those that could wring something special out of it, which is why they lasted so long in the marketplace, and why they have had a sustained 'afterlife'....unlike the ARP piano, which really had neither.

According to Alan R. Pearlman in the famous article "Rise And Fall Of ARP Instruments" the ARP 16-Voice was supposed to rescue the company from it's financial problems due to the failure of it's Avatar guitar synth.

He blamed the commercial failure of the piano to it's noise and faulty switches, which were known in pre-production but weren't addressed because the product needed to be rushed into production in order to save the company.

Truth is, nothing could have saved this piano. It's main event - and reason for being - was as a substitute for an acoustic piano, and it wasn't even close.

I remember when it first came out. Moog and ARP were worshiped back in those days. Any new product from either of them was a really big deal. But this one left us scratching our heads - and shaking our heads because the price was over $2500.

Every keyboard player working in Seattle, including myself, must have given it a spin. But that thing sat in American Music for months. Still unsold, they eventually moved it into their demo studio. I don't know what ultimately happened to it.

thanks tonysounds
although I dont see what all the fuss is about, I do not dispute either that the instrument is a worthy one, but I do believe much of the fuss is to do with a perceived reverence to an instrument that was able to imitate a piano but not replicate it...

that being said it was indeed a fine instrument but those who came from piano into the gigging world only had a few options as to portability, rhodes, wurlie and later CP 70, all fine instruments but all not quite feeling good under the fingers of piano players at that time so therefore they would think...."oh ok that will do"...

sure later on new keyboardists may have actually grew up with on playing these and never touching an acoustic pianos and as such believed this is the only way, but originally it was still a compromise to acoustic players..

but what was once a compromise has become its own level setter, with people now saying nothing replicates the replicator... nothing wrong with that and nothing wrong with the adulation of said instrumenmt...but I just dont get its reverence for its playing feel... i remember at the time thinking gees these just dont feel like a piano, then years later I bought one only to feel...gees these just dont feel like a piano...the fame felt far more outweighted than the actual truth...

admitedly the Arp is nothing compared to modern pianos and even at the time it was still a big compromise on a piano but no more so than a rhodes..but I never alluded to this being better than a rhodes, not at all.

I am just proving that not everyone hated the Arp [although on previous threads that is the lingering vibe]....and the original arp I believe was not aimed at replacing the rhodes...perhaps the later rhodes/arp version mistakenly tried to fakes it way into being "the" replacement because they wanted this new piano to sit in its lineup, but I remember when I bought this that I didnt think it was a replacement for a rhodes..if my memory serves me correct it was marketed as 4 different piano type sounds [in my 4 voice model], perhaps the later Rhodes marketing was different being they had bought the rights so they had touse it somewhere., but by then I was into synthesizers and had no interest in a piano for stage work

sure I loved the Arp at the time but would I play one now....no, would I own one now...no... being i have a house full of keyboards..definately no

playing wise...my Casio Privia will whip the pants off any ancient artifact , hallowed [rhodes] or not [Arp].....finally manufacturers have been able to make the digital piano a very close approximation of a piano [close enough for meto feel piano comfortable on stage] and I am never going back, not for stagework anyway

sure rhodes are still lovely, wurlies cute, CP 70's wonderous in their manufacture but regards the feel of them...nup ...give me a modern digital piano anyday from most of the current manufacturers...many models have no weight to carry, no buggered parts to worry about, no historic acclaim to look up to, just easy playing and a feeling that I am the closest thing to an acoustic I have ever used on stage.

do i dislike vintage gear...no I love it, not only do I collect vintage gear i also collect vintage cars [over 35 unrestored], so vintage is in my blood...and I have well over 20 vintage keys, hence the reason I got the rhodes for nostalgia reasons, so I am not anti vintage keys, but for playing pleasure on stage it must be closest to an acoustic for me, and I even prefer playing synth now on an acoustic approximation...go figure

its like in vintage cars...whats the fuss about mustangs...sure they are lovely [yes I like them] but they are everywhere, and are only a dressed up falcon , their fame is far out of proportion to their actual pro's and cons..but everyone loves them, I also love them , but still think what's the fuss, a falcon with a pretty body that sold well...its nostalgia for a well known vehicle that did what it promissed like the rhodes...in a way this is a similar thing, both items performed well when they were new, both were sold in large numbers [rhodes relative to the market place for keyboards] so more people could own one and thus more people have a direct link to it...a heritage...so is this the fuss, is this what you all see, a good workhorse that was sold in relative large numbers and it did what it did well, a car that wasnt a sports car that people perceived as a sports car and a piano that wasnt a piano but people perceived it as such.

does it really matter if some of us cant see the fuss, does that make us lessor musicians because we dont share the vibe, would I be looked down on as a synth player when I say my Prophet 5 is nice but I think a modern version would be nicer if it has a better keybed, and velocity, and midi controls that are superior to mine [yes I know there is a new version because the bloke [actual original owner with some aussie cred/fame] who sold me his P5 went out and bought it [P8] with my money..hee..cheeky bugger]

even as a vintage collector If it doesnt play the way I would want to use it on stage then it is nice but not the answer...now that is an interesting statement from a collector of everything..[my house is a museum]..sure I collect but I also see the benefit of new design over old too.

but all I said is ...I cant understand the fuss....hee hee

ps I talk a lot of bullshite too as you have seen in the past, so who am I to listen to?

pps I never experienced any of the mentioned problems with the Arp, once I had fixed the loose earth wire it performed faultlessly for the time I had it, I sold it on to get the Korg Trident and would have got most of my money back I believe...in those days your gear sold within a week or two and you got very good return on it...unlike today.

And maybe I should blame it on Keyboard Magazine or similar that I saw it advertised in as the next greatest thing...hee hee..in Australia that is all we had to go by..adverts in keyboard magazine or similar .

wow I owned this Arp 4 voice...I always wanted keyboards that were different to the pack in Australa..this seemed rare at the time...I know why now ...I was the sucker who bought it off their hands..eh. hee hee

Why don't you tell us how you REALLY feel Mike?

Geez, talk about being careful not to offend anyone. You really need to bone up and gives an on HONEST opinion!

Cheers,


Mike T.

Kinda refreshing from the atypical glossy KM product review, donja think?

Wow. Lot of reaction to my post.

Yeah I realize their was earlier versions of the Rhodes piano with tines, sounded better and didn't have anything to do with ARP, but I haven't played any of those either in real life so I didn't know that the ARP Rhodes Stage Piano is a completely different beast.

As I mentioned it was not as glorious as I had anticipated. I certaintly wouldn't give up my Yamaha S-80 for one of those.

I bought one of these things (ARP 16-Voice Electronic Piano) in college. All of the bad comments said about this instrument above are true (from my perspective of owning one). It had to be repaired constantly. In addition to all the other complaints, it was easy to shear off the bolts holding the legs on while setting up if you weren't careful.

I think the post above talking about the ARP company is right: the Electronic Piano and the Avatar killed ARP. Worst keyboard purchase I ever made.

That being said, I did use the keyboard for 3-4 years while I was in college :0)

hi jon G and welcome to the forum, second post I see,....

wow you had your share of troubles with it, I must have been lucky then...

its interesting to hear stuff like that..admittedly I probably owned mine for a short time compared to you and suffered no problems at all, or did the 4 voice suffer less than the 16..I wouldnt think so..being the same basic structure.

It replaced for me the worst sounding piano I had owned the Yammaha CP30 of which my guitarist suggested sounded like a carnival...and yes it did, the Arp sound wise walked over the yammy but the yammy was better feel wise.The yammy was almost as bad as the piano patches on the Korg Trident that replaced the Arp [any old Trident owners are gonna shudder at that]

Man but didnt the Arp piano have the best new piano smell of any keyboard...maybe it was that,....made me "high" on its virtues...hee hee