Effects loop on Early Mark 1

[Oliver Sheen]

My mark 1 is from 1969 and therefor does not have the accessories 1 and 2 or effect loop. I have seen the VV video on making an effects loop for this but I wondered if there was any advice re mounting the jacks?

There isn't a whole lot of room to the left of the 4pin output and I'd have to drill out the front rail something I'm happy to do but just wanted to get the benefit of others experience who have already done this.

Thanks for any advice!

Oliver

[Fred]

Buy or make two cables: 1x RCA male to 1/4" male (harp RCA to effects pedal/chain "in") and 1x 1/4" male to RCA female ( effect(s) "out" to preamp rca cable). If you get thin enough cables (like Monster) you can drape them over the left side of the piano and even fit the harp cover back on. This way, you won't have to drill through the name rail to add accessory jacks.

Or, as someone who replied to this idea on a FB thread said...

"This is pretty much where I landed. The only change is that one cable is RCA male to 1/4" female. This way when not using pedalboard I can plug the two cables into each other and effectively be straight from harp to preamp without opening up the lid. When using the pedalboard I just add the additional patch cable... I'm sure I've introduced a tiny bit of noise, but negligible. Tx!"

[vintagekey1975]

You could always buy a repro cheekblock and mount the jacks in there rather than modify the name rail.

[Oliver Sheen]

Thanks guys. In all probability I'd leave the same effects plugged in (tube pre, phase, space echo) wouldn't need to unplug at all.

[vintagekey1975]

Hey are you the same Oliver Sheen that bought my Vintage Vibe PSU of ebay over the weekend?

[Oliver Sheen]

Indeed I am

[Oliver Sheen]

Just waiting to get my pickup rail and Peterson pre back from being refurbed. This will be the first time I have heard it since buying it in a very sorry state in 2011 from Andover

[vintagekey1975]

I bet you're excited about that! Did you find a 4 pin cable for it?

[Oliver Sheen]

I ended up buying one from Electric Keys in the UK. Got her back and did a basic tune up before Christmas haven't been able to stop playing her long enough to do any more tweaking. Absolute joy to play. Untreated (as yet) felt hammers sound so incredibly sweet. Tremolo on Peterson pre doesn't go as slow as I remember the one on my last 1978 Rhodes but sounds much more 'human' and less 'robotic' than the Janus. So very playable and dynamic especially adding a small stone phaser. It's like having a new baby

[Student Rhodes]

Tremolo on Peterson pre doesn't go as slow as I remember the one on my last 1978 Rhodes but sounds much more 'human' and less 'robotic' than the Janus.

I get what you mean about the Janus trem sounding "robotic".  I believe it's because it has a "square wave" form?  Meaning it's a hard "on" signal alternating with a hard "off" for each speaker. 

Though I don't happen to own a Rhodes with the Janus "vibrato", a friend has a MkII, and I've found backing off the intensity to about a third of the fader helps quite a bit at making the trem sound less jarring, and more soothing, like a Peterson.