Rediscovering the Electric Piano

[HammondDave]

Last Saturday night I played one more gig with my band, Raging Sun. Steve (the singer) is moving to northern california and this was his last gig, so he asked me to play one last time.

 

As i already sold my xk3c system, i decided to bring my motif xs and vb3. Although the organ sounds great, i ended up playing the wurlie samples most of the night. I guess i was just in that mood... Plus the key size is just not right for organ playing. I played organ on some of our originals as well as the organ standards (like Booker T.), but played wurlie on just about everything else.

 

The wurlie samples on the xs are outstanding. And once you tweak them with overdrive they sound even better. They were especially satisfying on the classic blues songs we covered and some of our originals as well. The band was surprised but very happy with the sound.

 

But i guess it just brought back the joy of playing electric piano once again. Try it... You may really like it.

[To B3]

I like that minimalist approach regarding the quantity of sounds, sometimes, like you, getting down to one sound onlye. It´s up to the player to imply the variations on the sound and keeping it interesting, much more than having a huge library... Think Danny Louis on Gov´t Mule, with just a B3, Clav and wurly and some effects that get tweaked in real time... That´s my line of thinking instead of the one-thousand synths and splits and stuff... Of course not everyone´s style and bands permit that...

[HammondDave]

Yeah... Thats why its great to play in a blues/jazz band...

[Meisenhower]

These days, all I use are B3, Rhodes, Wuri, Clavinet and AP for 100% of my gigs. If I get a call that requires me to do strings, brass, pads, et al (except for a good synth gig that I"m playing Minimoog on), I simply turn them down. Mad props to the cats that do the entire range of rompler sounds thing, and do it well!!

 

I love playing EP and on my non jazz trio (both piano and organ) gigs, I find myself back to the rhodes/wurli and it is a blast to play.

 

I'll still not carry my Rhodes Stage piano out of the studio, but I'm pretty happy with the Rhodes/Wurli via the Nord or Motif ES.

[Dave Pierce]

I played a gig with a blues band 4-5 weeks ago, and to my surprise the stage was in direct afternoon sunlight. It was a hot day.

 

Long story short -- my Hammond XK-3c didn't work for the first set. Too damn hot.

 

I had the Kurzweil PC1se, and it worked fine. But it's Hammond sounds suck rocks through straws. At least half the tunes in the first set were tunes that I normally play Hammond on, including a ballad that I thought absolutely required B3.

 

I ended up playing all of those tunes on either a Rhodes, Wurly, or piano patch. It turned out to be a really fun challenge, and the ballad worked so well on Rhodes that I might even play Rhodes on that tune from now on!

 

Of course, on the break I pulled the XK-3c back out from it's case, and it was really nice to have it back for the 2nd set.

 

--Dave

 

[To B3]

One thing that I like to do to keep stuff interesting when playing with a minimum quantity of sounds is to ALWAYS vary tha sounds on different sections of the songs, like a 2000-sounds kind of player normally do... Only that I do it with few sounds... The majority of the times, I keep changing the sounds with different from beginning to the end... Sometimes it´s wurly on verses/B3 on chorus kind of thing, sometimes it´s just a bridge or solo on a difrent instrument... I like the approach of Danny Louis (as I mentioned), Ivan Neville of Dumpstaphunk in this regard... Few sounds, but always fresh and moving... I think it gives a little depth to the songs, yet, keeps things to a characteristic ground... But I never say never, and may get back to gigging with just an organ... who knows

[HammondDave]

I played a gig with a blues band 4-5 weeks ago, and to my surprise the stage was in direct afternoon sunlight. It was a hot day.

 

Long story short -- my Hammond XK-3c didn't work for the first set. Too damn hot.

 

 

--Dave

 

If it's too hot for my organ, it's too hot for me!

[Dave Pierce]

I played a gig with a blues band 4-5 weeks ago, and to my surprise the stage was in direct afternoon sunlight. It was a hot day.

 

Long story short -- my Hammond XK-3c didn't work for the first set. Too damn hot.

 

 

--Dave

 

If it's too hot for my organ, it's too hot for me!

 

Nice.

 

I've told this story before -- but one time I met a drummer friend of mine at a local blues jam. He got there first, and told me he had already put my name on the list. Cool.

 

I didn't know what he had written on the list until the bandleader said -- on mic -- "Next up, Dave and his Big Organ".

 

I am still somewhat likely to blush when that crowd calls me DBO.

 

--Dave