The dirtiest electric piano ?

[Theo Verelst]

I have been working on some advanced CP4 sounds, the first of three in this short impression video (there's only playing to be seen, there's some recording hick-up and sync issue) is an electric piano that I feel starts to sound dirty in a varied enough way, which is hard:

 

[video:youtube]C-k82YfOazg

 

Always good to know what an instrument can do, and this one is very playable when certain "sound influences" in it are killed and replaced by more reasonable interpolations. At least I am pretty satisfied now that these sounds are widely applicable and playable, even the recording isn't bad (was recorded with 192/24 AD conv. then down to a file with 24bit/96 kHz, no processing, no editing, no MIDI (of course), and then into the 256 kbps ac3 track that got uploaded to youtube. Youtube sounds ok in this case, but seems to have changed it's mind shortly after uploading the perfectly decent 1080 file that it should offer no more than 720p, and it appears somehow to have changed a the colors a bit, too.

 

Sorry, no sound downloads, make me an offer...

 

Of the recording is straight from the unbalanced outs.

 

T.

 

P.S. I just saw the 1080 choice has returned: use it, it gives the nicest image and sound!

[ABECK]

EP sounds nice. Not sure what you mean by "Advanced." Is this something beyond what anyone could do with available onboard processing?

 

Also, you seem to be very interested in numbers as they pertain to digital processing, then you post a file with digital distortion. Color me confused.

[Brettymike]

Best I have ever heard were created by Mr Dave Weiser , and are already onboard the Kurzweils and Casio PX5 at least.

 

Brett

[Kawai James]

I'm not sure I'd describe this EP sound as dirty...it just sounds like a standard rompler Rhodes, with some interesting chord selections.

 

Also, what's with the recording audio glitches and lack of A/V sync? I wonder if you're overcomplicating the recording process just a little?

 

Cheers,

James

x

[HammondDave]

Sorry... nothing is dirtier than Mac's Wurlie...

 

[video:youtube]

[Brettymike]

^^^ Well , sorry to tell you , they copied Dave W's dirty as a pig in a mud hole "Ray Wurly" :-) >

 

And if you want something really dirty with some dogs balls attached , try "DogPianet"

All on a super board so light and well priced , we could juggle about 4 of them in the air - and not be nervous

 

Brett

[dama]

totally agree with Dave W.'s great Wurly sounds on the Casio.

[Six-string-man]

totally agree with Dave W.'s great Wurly sounds on the Casio.

 

 

 

All of Dave's Casio "Vintage Keys" set are excellent.

 

 

SSM

[miden]

Yeah they are okay, considering the sample base DW had to deal with. But there are better going around. That is NOT a criticism of DW's programming as the Kurz's are pretty decent. Just the base resources of the Casios are not all that good. jmo, so please no flaming!

[AlanV]

My favorite dirty EP sound was always Steve Winwood's Hohner Electra Piano from Traffic's "Empty Pages."

 

Just pure grit, grind, and one of the best electric piano solos ever, in my opinion.

[HammondDave]

My favorite dirty EP sound was always Steve Winwood's Hohner Electra Piano from Traffic's "Empty Pages."

 

Just pure grit, grind, and one of the best electric piano solos ever, in my opinion.

 

Oh yeah! When my wife and I saw Steve Winwood last month in LA I started to tear up at the end of Empty Pages. That song has brought me such joy for so many years.

[hurricane hugo]

This is the perfect time for me to introduce all y'all to my fave Detroit band of the late '90s/early '00s: 500 Feet Of Pipe. They always struck me as an insane mix of Deep Purple and the MC5; the keyboardist/singer played bass on keys, and he had a Rhodes that he ran through a Marshall stack or something similar.

 

[video:youtube]

 

...oh, and gotta give it up to Eddie Van Halen and his Wurlitzer, too:

 

[video:youtube]

[arX]

My favorite dirty EP sound was always Steve Winwood's Hohner Electra Piano from Traffic's "Empty Pages."

 

Just pure grit, grind, and one of the best electric piano solos ever, in my opinion.

Can't believe I've never come across the Electra before. Such a great sound; as someone else put it, "the low bite of a Wurlitzer and the beautiful chime of a Rhodes."

[Theo Verelst]

Well now, I'd almost have to develop double feelings about some of the negative comments, one direction ending with warnings about slander versus fact and blackmail being actually illegal in the western world at least, and the other feeling along the lines of "I've never seen or heard anything from some of those guys that interests me enough to take their musical opinion as meaning anything to me".

 

Anyhow, some nice examples above I'll check out tomorrow while listening to some other youtubes on my main audio system.

 

Of course, there's a multiple interest case to be made about "the Rhodes" sound being fed through a ever so slight tube distortion, on the one side of the line, to on the extreme end, through 3 full power fuzz boxes and two hyper-charged Marshalls!

 

My point was there's sort of a roll-over point of the most types of distortions on this type of sound, which gets good up to a point, and after that, chords are lost, dreadful clipping seems to set in, and (unlike the short moment when the recording was imperfect because I hadn't dialed in enough CPU power and not dialed down all kinds of other things) the whole distorted sound starts to sound either very uniform (especially when using far from perfect sampled simulations, very boring) or simply like a different instrument and extremely ugly.

 

Of course even basic instruments can have their distortion factor screwed all the way to crunch, but that's seldom musically usable! Try for yourself a working sound like I presented is simply not possible on most instruments, I tested it rough enough to make that clear, if you don't understand the difference, try it for yourself to get a good sound with chords and simultaneous lines from an e-piano simulation, it's hard to get right. Easy to just yank in max and pretend it sounds ok, but it seldom will.

 

T.

 

[Dave Weiser]

My favorite dirty EP sound was always Steve Winwood's Hohner Electra Piano from Traffic's "Empty Pages."

 

Just pure grit, grind, and one of the best electric piano solos ever, in my opinion.

 

I'm pretty sure the Empty Pages sound is an RMI Electra Piano.

The Hohner Electra Piano is what Zeppelin used on Misty Mountain Hop.

[HammondDave]

My favorite dirty EP sound was always Steve Winwood's Hohner Electra Piano from Traffic's "Empty Pages."

 

Just pure grit, grind, and one of the best electric piano solos ever, in my opinion.

 

I'm pretty sure the Empty Pages sound is an RMI Electra Piano.

The Hohner Electra Piano is what Zeppelin used on Misty Mountain Hop.

 

I think Dave is correct on this one...

[DulceLabs.com]

Well now, I'd almost have to develop double feelings about some of the negative comments, one direction ending with warnings about slander versus fact and blackmail being actually illegal in the western world at least,

 

Please elaborate what comments you are referring to because I am obviously missing something.

[J_tour]

Maybe OT or at least outdated, but I finally got around to seeing *Wolf of Wall Street* a few weeks ago.

 

Still can't beat Joe Z on *Mercy* -- I am continually surprised that classic tune with that classic Wurlitzer made it into a big-time Hollywood production.

 

For me, that's the classic sputtering, funky EP track. Nothing elegant about it, as lo-fi as it gets -- obviously, great tune.

 

And now that we're on the topic, Herbie doing "Sly" can't really be beat.

 

I love that stuff that just makes the keys sound like the sonic equivalent of Quint from *Jaws*.

 

EP equivalent of Aretha's acoustic piano off "Since You've Been Gone (Sweet Baby)" or whatever that one was officially named.

[AlanV]

Always thought it was the Hohner (I knew about Misty Mountain Hop...also No Quarter, I think).

 

Something about the tone always seemed a little too metallic for an RMI. That sound I'll always associate with Genesis, Rick Wakeman, and Gentle Giant.

 

I put a post on Steve's Facebook page, let's see if he replies.

 

:-D

[mate stubb]

Something about the tone always seemed a little too metallic for an RMI. That sound I'll always associate with Genesis, Rick Wakeman, and Gentle Giant.

 

I put a post on Steve's Facebook page, let's see if he replies.

 

:-D

 

Turn on the harpsi tab, you'll have plenty of metallic. Empty Pages sounds like RMI to me too. Notice that there are no dynamics at all - RMI had no velocity response (although in fairness most of the Pianets didn't either)

[AlanV]

Yeah, was realizing that the tone is very consistent throughout the solo and no dynamics.

 

I'll be dipped. Now I want to find myself an RMI and shed on that solo.

[ABECK]

My point was there's sort of a roll-over point of the most types of distortions on this type of sound, which gets good up to a point, and after that, chords are lost, dreadful clipping seems to set in

 

Agreed. You can't simply throw overdrive or distortion on an EP and hope it will sound good. Too much distortion rarely works on tight, closed voicing chords. Open chords tend to sound better.