Rhodes shootout

[Delaware Dave]

A little surprised as to how these ranked out. For me it becomes difficult to tell when the actual rhodes is not also played as a reference point.

 

[video:youtube]

[stoken6]

I saw this video a while back (I think it was posted in another thread). It's interesting how much of this is down to taste. The Rhodes sample he didn't like was the Nord - and it was my favo(u)rite. I like that darker quality.

 

Cheers, Mike.

[Docbop]

I agree with there selections and that Nord Rhodes was surprising how it was so dull sounding. The Keyscape was full and very defined sounding and full of Rhodes click, clack, and thump for authentic sound. The Roland and Yamaha YC were good, but top end was a bit soft for my taste. I wish they had brought up the "Lush Rhodes" in Keyscape that is my favorite these days.

 

Weird this post came up today I was tempted to post. For the holidays I got Keyscape and a StudioLogic SL88 Grand MIDI controller. I've been playing that combo a lot and loving it. I had my first piano lesson today in over a year and getting ready yesterday and then the lesson today was was on my RD-2000. I was instantly missing my Keyscape setup the sound of the both AC and EP. The keybed on the SL88 Grand is great the size of the keys and feel are like a grand piano.

 

I don't know how Keyscape samples instruments but they do an amazing job.

[dazzjazz]

I imagine some of the best VI"s loaded into a physical instrument would be a world beater. Is the reason something like that hasn"t been done is the amount of ROM required would be cost prohibitive?

[Docbop]

I imagine some of the best VI"s loaded into a physical instrument would be a world beater. Is the reason something like that hasn"t been done is the amount of ROM required would be cost prohibitive?

 

I think the question should be why aren't companies like Yamaha, Korg, Nord, and other taking the time to make samples as detailed as Keyscape. As for size look at Nord they have different size samples depending on how much space you have or are willing to give up for more detail. Can't Kronos read samples in from SSD. Some people sample, sample and load them into boards.

 

I think time to make high detailed samples and time/expense to alter the internals of boards and put them into manufacturing. Korg did update a lot of their samples when moving them over to the Nautilus. Like Yamaha on the Montage/MoDX seem to of put a lot of work on there sample of wind and brass samples. All boils down to time, money, and what they view the potential marketplace is.

[o0Ampy0o]

...For the holidays I got Keyscape and a StudioLogic SL88 Grand MIDI controller. I've been playing that combo a lot and loving it. I had my first piano lesson today in over a year and getting ready yesterday and then the lesson today was was on my RD-2000. I was instantly missing my Keyscape setup the sound of the both AC and EP. The keybed on the SL88 Grand is great the size of the keys and feel are like a grand piano.

 

I don't know how Keyscape samples instruments but they do an amazing job.

What computer specs are you running Keyscape with?

[1203]

They chose the Nefertiti EP8 sample from Nord and this sounds very dark and dull, if you don't eq it properly - what they didn't do for this video. You can really bring it to shine, if you turn down the bass and crank the high mids and highs. And it has great dynamics, it can really bark, if you grab in, what the player in this video didn't do at all. All in all i think the Nord Nefertiti is one of the best Rhodes samples you can get in hardware - the only problem i see there is in the envelope: It has a very immediate attack and then the decay/sustain is way to short - not very realistic for my ears. For me it"s a very important part of the sound of a well maintained Rhodes, that it has no short sustain.

[Iconoclast]

As a Nord owner, it's just not as simple as pull up the rhodes and play it. There's a lot of front panel buttons that you can set that immediately change the character of the thing.

 

What's the KB touch settings at? What's the Timbre setting at? These have a drastic effect on the tone.

 

I use keyscape in my rig and switch back and forth frequently between Nord patches and VST's. Depends on the song and the settings but to me it's just not as simple as this test would seem to frame it.

[Aynsley Green]

They chose the Nefertiti EP8 sample from Nord and this sounds very dark and dull, if you don't eq it properly - what they didn't do for this video. You can really bring it to shine, if you turn down the bass and crank the high mids and highs. And it has great dynamics, it can really bark, if you grab in, what the player in this video didn't do at all. All in all i think the Nord Nefertiti is one of the best Rhodes samples you can get in hardware - the only problem i see there is in the envelope: It has a very immediate attack and then the decay/sustain is way to short - not very realistic for my ears. For me it"s a very important part of the sound of a well maintained Rhodes, that it has no short sustain.

 

Agreed, with a bit of fiddling that Nefertiti is my go-to Rhodes sound. It just goes to show how everyone's idea of 'what a Rhodes should sound like' is different.

Keyscape is great in the studio, but I ran it live in Mainstage and it didn't cut through at all - stereo trickery, phase cancellation, something? Fiddled with the character knob, the EQ, just didn't work. Quite disappointing, really.

[AnotherScott]

I imagine some of the best VI"s loaded into a physical instrument would be a world beater. Is the reason something like that hasn"t been done is the amount of ROM required would be cost prohibitive?

Yes, except maybe for something computer-based (i.e. Kronos) that can stream off SSD, a topic that has been thoroughly discussed elswehere. Otherwise we're comparing, for example a Nord that has maybe 2 GB total available for all its simultaneously-available piano/EP samples, to Keyscape that has 80 GB (or 30 GB for its "lite" version).

 

As a Nord owner, it's just not as simple as pull up the rhodes and play it. There's a lot of front panel buttons that you can set that immediately change the character of the thing.

That's really true for all of them to some extent or another... they're all tweakable in a wide variety of ways. But you can still discern the basic characters of the sounds. One of my issues with anyone basing their "Rhodes board preference" on this comparison, though, is that the video does NOT compare these keyboards, but rather, the video compares ONE SOUND from each of these keyboards. I'm not talking about accounting for those virtually infinite knob-tweaking variations one can create out of any single piano sample set but rather, that these instruments often include entirely different Rhodes sample sets in them, with characters that can be as different from each other as they are from those of another keyboard. In this respect, Keyscape and the 730 are probably well represented by the one sample each... Keyscape only has one straight Rhodes sample set (an early '70s Mark I Suitcase), and the VR730 has probably just one EP sound worth comparing, the 75 Tine that is one of the VR-730 sounds that are not in the VR09. But the Nord and Yamahas have quality sample sets of numerous entirely different Rhodes pianos, and we're only hearing one of them, which may not be the one you'd like best.

 

My other issue with this particular test is that the playing, as good as it is, tends to be in a narrow dynamic range, which really limits our ability to evaluate even those 1-of-each sounds that are demonstrated.

 

ETA: It is an interesting choice, also, to play them all from the same action. While it does provide an indication of the characters of the sound--and was an approach that was in part nececssitated by including Keyscape and the Reface--another variable remains that a board's sounds can play differently from an action that is not its own, as given finger forces may be triggering different velocities/samples. Since it is highly likely that you'll be playing a board's sounds from its own action, you also need to allow for the possibility--especially in the case where you think two of these sounds are "close"--that while you might prefer the sound of A over B when played from action C, you might prefer the reverse if each were played from its own action. Even the sounds of these boards as they appear in this shootout would likely be somewhat different if he had been playing them from their own actions.

 

Ironically, in hardware, if you asked me abot my favorite Rhodes sounds, I'd lean toward Korg/Vox or Kurzweil, neither of which were represented in this shootout at all! I think Yamaha has gotten more competitive lately, though.

[pawelsz]

I think if Mike Patrick was in the review, Yamaha had to win just after software. He is even playing YC61 in some promo videos...

They "forgot" to compare with: Korg SV-2, Crumar Seven, Viscount Legend, surely some others too. Not to say Yamaha is bad, it is good. But I just find this test not honest enough.

[cp-the-nerd]

Comparisons like this are largely meaningless, especially when they don't even have a real rhodes involved. Why not have a rhodes specialist play several of the keyboards after getting a feel for them and tweaking it on the spot for tonal variety? Then the viewer gets an idea of the strengths and flexibility of the keyboard instead of putting a silly emphasis on the bone stock factory setting.

 

I remember a wurli comparison (with an actual wurlizer) on the same channel where they had an SV2 but actually tweaked the settings in a bewlidering way and it placed last surprising no one. I'm not really a fan of Anderson's comparison videos because I don't find them informative in a practical way.

[Delaware Dave]

Comparisons like this are largely meaningless, especially when they don't even have a real rhodes involved. Why not have a rhodes specialist play several of the keyboards after getting a feel for them and tweaking it on the spot for tonal variety? Then the viewer gets an idea of the strengths and flexibility of the keyboard instead of putting a silly emphasis on the bone stock factory setting.

 

I remember a wurli comparison (with an actual wurlizer) on the same channel where they had an SV2 but actually tweaked the settings in a bewlidering way and it placed last surprising no one. I'm not really a fan of Anderson's comparison videos because I don't find them informative in a practical way.

Your statements resonate well with me. The whole point of a 'clone' (be it organ, leslie, EP, clav) is to emulate the original instrument. I had all the electro-mechanicals at one point in time but the only one I still have is the B3/122; all the others I sold over the course of time. When you don't play one for a while you tend to forget all of the nuances that make that instrument what it is. In my view (others will disagree) when I'm listening to a clone my expectation is that it sounds and reacts like the real deal. You need that reference point to really understand which one sounds closest to the real deal; not how they may sound against each other. someone might like a brighter sound but if in all actuality the real rhodes is dull then that is the sound the clone should emulate, not how it sounds against other clones. My two cents.

[ProfD]

I'm also in agreement that comparisons are meaningless mainly because there is no consensus of the definitive electromechanical sound(s) and it's different according to the musicians' needs too.

 

Case in point...many of the commenters are more enamored with the musician's skill than they are with the various Rhodes facsimiles.

[pawelsz]

Comparisons like this are largely meaningless, especially when they don't even have a real rhodes involved. Why not have a rhodes specialist play several of the keyboards after getting a feel for them and tweaking it on the spot for tonal variety? Then the viewer gets an idea of the strengths and flexibility of the keyboard instead of putting a silly emphasis on the bone stock factory setting.

 

I remember a wurli comparison (with an actual wurlizer) on the same channel where they had an SV2 but actually tweaked the settings in a bewlidering way and it placed last surprising no one. I'm not really a fan of Anderson's comparison videos because I don't find them informative in a practical way.

 

That comparison with Wurlitzer was actually better with real Wurli. I find myself Yamaha the best in emulating Wurli so I'm not shocked that CP73 won. But when he hit that low note on the Korg... that note was even out of range of real Wurlitzer 64 keys! That was not clever at all.

BTW I find the presets on Wurlitzer on SV-2 not really great, they are dark and not responsive to dynamics. I put "Classic Wurli" sound out of the editor library, set the EQ and tremolo to my taste (including the mix ratio of the effect) and it works well. It is actually fuller than that from little Reface CP (which is great for the price).

[AnotherScott]

While it would be nice to have a real Rhodes in the mix, that's not a cure-all for this kind of thing either. There have been some videos where people compare a real Rhodes to a board, and I like those, too. But not all Rhodes sound the same, so picking the one that sounds most like a particular Rhodes may, itself, be a somewhat dubious goal. Still, all Rhodes have a "rhodes-iness" that you can identify. You don't have to have a Rhodes at home to put on a record and go, "oh, that's definitely a Rhodes." Even though the Rhodes on album X may not sound just like the Rhodes on album Y. (Of course, knowing the year the album was made is a clue, too!)

 

Ultimately, if you "know a Rhodes when you hear it," you know whether these sound "real" to you, or conversely, you may be able to notice where the "giveaways" are that what you're hearing is a close simulation rather than the real thing. After that, simply whether you subjectively like the sound is also important, as is whether its expressivity matches your intent when you play it (which gets back to my comment about playing them from their own actions... and is also something you can only tell by playing, and not by listening to someone in a video).

[cp-the-nerd]

Comparisons like this are largely meaningless, especially when they don't even have a real rhodes involved. Why not have a rhodes specialist play several of the keyboards after getting a feel for them and tweaking it on the spot for tonal variety? Then the viewer gets an idea of the strengths and flexibility of the keyboard instead of putting a silly emphasis on the bone stock factory setting.

 

I remember a wurli comparison (with an actual wurlizer) on the same channel where they had an SV2 but actually tweaked the settings in a bewlidering way and it placed last surprising no one. I'm not really a fan of Anderson's comparison videos because I don't find them informative in a practical way.

 

That comparison with Wurlitzer was actually better with real Wurli. I find myself Yamaha the best in emulating Wurli so I'm not shocked that CP73 won. But when he hit that low note on the Korg... that note was even out of range of real Wurlitzer 64 keys! That was not clever at all.

BTW I find the presets on Wurlitzer on SV-2 not really great, they are dark and not responsive to dynamics. I put "Classic Wurli" sound out of the editor library, set the EQ and tremolo to my taste (including the mix ratio of the effect) and it works well. It is actually fuller than that from little Reface CP (which is great for the price).

 

It was certainly a better video in terms of success of intended purpose: real wurli vs the best fakes. I just remember hearing their SV2 and wincing because my factory SV1 setting was closer, and it kinda threw a wrench in the consistency of the process. I tend to go to the Andersons channel for fleshed out keyboard demos, not ultra focused blindfold comparisons.

[pawelsz]

I tend to go to the Andersons channel for fleshed out keyboard demos, not ultra focused blindfold comparisons.

 

The videos with Jack Duxbury and Luke Edwards from Korg are more than enough to love Andertons channel!

[RandyFF]

+1 with many of you. The dynamic range didn't explore the bark of each of these. It also doesn't make sense to pretend there's a neutral starting place, no reverb, just as close to the sample as possible. That's not very useful, any player will tweak these sounds, even if in a simple way. And same with using the same keyboard. That seems the most forgivable, however, just for practicalities sake, and that you can therefore use computer based sounds.

 

Given a blank slate, I'd get at least 2, 3 if possible, good players that lean into a Rhodes/Wurli. Choose a number of different styles/songs that the Rhodes is known for, and let each of the players choose which Rhodes on that board, and tweak individual boards to their satisfaction for these songs in mind. There'd need to be an emphasis on sounds that don't get their character from over the top fx (like strong phaser/chorus/tremolo), keeping it on the sweetened side, not slathered with fx. But I'm not that experienced, perhaps there'd be a song or two that was known for the 'shimmering' sound, so how close can you get any particular board to sound like that.

 

At that point they could use MIDI files for consistency, but at least each instrument has been tweaked to sound its best for that song by a serious player. And the MIDI files could be well-played examples of why it's a song for the Rhodes.

 

How to break that down into a not-too-long video is anybody guess, but I'd find that kind of comparison more useful, more style/song-focused, and thereby move away from trying to evaluate Rhodes as a generic commodity that we all vaguely agree on!

[Jazz+]

Scarbee EP88 Full is my favorite because how it responds to my touch or playing, and the fullness of its warmth and tone. I tried Keyscape , and although it sounded great in the demos ,I could not get it to respond to my touch in playing like the way I can get with Scarbee 88. I only like a clean a warm full bodied tone Rhodes without any effects except for maybe a slight reverb

[AnotherScott]

Scarbee EP88 Full is my favorite because how it responds to my touch or playing, and the fullness of its warmth and tone. I tried Keyscape , and although it sounded great in the demos ,I could not get it to respond to my touch in playing like the way I can get with Scarbee 88.

...which again gets back to my comments about how the boards play from their actions. Sound is obviously very important (and I do appreciate the youtube comparisons), but sound isn't everything. Related, I mentioned in another thread that I didn't care for how the CP73's EPs played from its action. But I found the same EPs much more enjoyable when I played them from the CP88.