Voicing upper octaves on Rhodes

[Gary75]

Managed to sell our house in a few days (not expecting it!) and urgently having to empty the place, all my keyboards are gone to my Dads aside from my Rhodes which I'll keep to noodle until the move date.

 

Anyway, just making a few adjustments. Actually I stripped out the top two octaves (where the tone bars become flat metal) as trying to see between them and getting a tuning driver (no longer have the pivot brackets to lift the harp up) is a nightmare. So at least I can see clearly of placement and make any tuning adjustments with my fingers. (There's enough audible from plucking the tine at the bottom of my iPhone using the Peterson tuner to get quick tuning away from the piano without having them run through an amp)

 

I'm just setting the pickup distance and was wondering if you guys taper the volume on the upper octaves or if you have it mimic an acoustic in that loudness tapers off in the upper octaves?

[burningbusch]

You have to be very careful up there. IMO, it all depends on your prefered EQ, or amp if you're using something highly colored like a Twin. +4db at 1kHz is nice for bringing out the bark in the lower to mid-range, but that's bumping the fundamentals in the upper range by 4db. Those notes are close to being pure fundamentals. I would take a hard look at your preferred EQ and maybe adjust accordingly. Personally, I prefer less aggressive up there. With neutral EQ it sounds right to me, but as up push things it doesn't get out of hand.

 

Busch.

[Ulf]

Yes, the last octave can really cut through in a PA, and in bad cases may sound more like a bell or triangle. So with the type of music we do, I back off the upper register somewhat.

 

As I don't own the Rhodes I use right now I do this on the preamp EQ though.

[ClavAnother]

I set every note on the piano to be as close to the pickup as possible and adjust with playing style and volume knob.

[The Real MC]

I set every note on the piano to be as close to the pickup as possible and adjust with playing style and volume knob.

 

That's my modus operandi too. If you have the old pickups with green coil wire (like those in old silvertops), setting the pickup too close can saturate the coil with hard hits. But I found this to impart a pleasant "thunk" transient that I can control with dynamic playing with the pickup positioned at just the right location. This sounds a lot like the old Herbie Hancock Rhodes sound. The pickups changed over the years. I couldn't get this effect on my '76 Rhodes, which has different pickups; I don't if other pickups can get the same effect.

 

I took my Rhodes to a tech to get it tuned, and when I got it back I found he had changed the position of the pickups

 

The pickups are very sensitive to loading which will change their tone. The stage pianos' passive electronics really suck the tone out of the pickups. The suitcase pianos with the active input preamp were better but not great, albeit it was the best that technology had to offer at the time.

 

I have an old silvertop Rhodes that was missing its preamp electronics and I only had the connection directly off the harp. I struggled with a bad hiss problem that EQ couldn't solve without sacrificing the tone of the piano. I happened to read that a DI with very high input impedance is the tool of choice for recording Rhodes in studios. I didn't have any DIs with high enough impedance (1M or higher). So I ordered a Countryman Type 10 active DI and not only did it eradicate the hiss, it really improved the tone of the piano. I tried the other DIs in my arsenal and none of them performed as well as the Countryman.

[Gary75]

I have to set my pickup distance to coincide with how far I can push the bass pickups. Getting too close pulls the tuning up when the note is sustained, I'm presuming due to the magnetic field and large amount of swaying of the tine.

 

I set the upper octaves as fundamental with no overtones so it's not harsh. Your personal preference of course plays a big part. As for volume of notes, I do note the treble knob on the suitcase preamp really rolls off the top register both in volume and overtone should there be any present. I just never really found a setting I was happy with. For soloing, yes I'd want a touch of overtone with close setting pickups but for padding your going to want a less aggressive setting.

 

Maybe the optimum is as mentioned, set it a bit aggressive in terms of overtone and close placement of the pickup and then eq to taste on each song. The limited eq on the Peterson rolls off the overtones nicely. I guess it's easier to eq something out rather than eq something in that isn't there to start with.