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Hey guys does anyone know the thickness of the key pedestal felt the hammers sit on and where to get it cut to width?

Also does anyone know the capacitor values needed to rebuild a 4 pin peterson preamp? Specifically the ones in the audio path but a full list would be helpfull?

Has anyone installed a switch to turn the speakers on and off for a suitcase? If so what signal would you break and what kind of switch would you use? I mostly record straight off the preamp but would like to add the option to mic the speakers. Currently I have the RCA going to the power amps unplugged?

Also I know one of the power amps have a bad transistor. After a while my preamp will stat going scratchy. Even though the RCA are unplugged in the power amps could the bad power amp be causing this? In addition the preamp no longer works now. And it was rebuild and worked before besides the scratchiness and static after it being on a little while. I wondering if this could be due to the shorting/bad transistor in one of the power amps? But I would think if the RCA are not plugged in it wouldn't matter because I believe one of the RCA are a power signal to the power amps?

Ben,
Im leveling my key heights by shimming the balance rail. My keybed is in the case and screwed down in the 4 corners. But if I push on the center of the balance rail or front rail the whole keybed with move down about a 1/16" in the middle. Is this normal or do I need to put some screws in the middle to draw down the keybed to the case so there is zero slop?

Also in order to get my keys dip form one another to be 3/8" my total shimmed amount including the post felt for the balance rail is .15" I have a .020 hammer rail shim from a different piano. I am wondering if I should try this to see how it makes a difference. The action feels tighter than before I shimmed it and put more pull tension via the damper straps but maybe a little more shallow now.

I wanted to know where should my damper felts land on the last 2 octaves. Are they supposed to land on the tines? Mine currently land half on pickup and half onjust tip of tine. Do I need to bend them to extend them more onto the tines?

Hey guys Im ready to install the miracle mod. I heard there are some that dont like the miracle mod. I was curious of what they dont like about it. I have installed 4 bumps and adjust them and another 4 keys(via damper strap tention) without bumps to get best action feel. I also shimed the balance rail for optimum key height for these keys. I deffinately noticed the bum makes the action much quicker but I also  can hear the note attack have a harder/sharper attack due to the increase in velocity.

I was curious if this would be the complaint that people have. Im sure its very relative on playing style and the bump would be great on fast,aggressive soloing. But Im a slow neo soul player. Im looking for smooth,dreamy Jill scott,gill scott heron,D angelo tone.

Any conversation on this?

Hey guys I am in the market for new tips and intrested in the VV graduated or angled tips. I hear they sounds different. Does anyone have any audio sames of each. A comparison would be great. Particularly intrested in hybrid wood/plastic hammer version but and samples are appreciated.

I have a question about the miracle mod and adjusting the key height. Vintage Vibes shows in a youtube video to first adjust your key height before adding the miracle mod. The only issue I see is the felt that comes with the miracle mod seems to make my keys sit different height than the old felt. So would I have to first remove all the old felts and then glue the new felts in place(Just the very edge to keep it in place) to then shim the keybed?Then lastly do the mod?

I also noticed the mod makes the hammers sit 3/8 higher at rest than before. Is this normal?

Thank You

I know there are many different takes on the rhodes sound. Some like alot of attack,bark,bell ect.
I like smooth buttery neo chords. More mellow dark.

I would like to start a discussion on how to go about setup for this tone in regards to action,harp height,escapement, tine position in relation to pickup and strike line.
I just now am able to know what these these are by vocabulary but need insight on how they effect the tone.

When the manual talks about adjusting the tine in relation to slightly above or inline with the tip of the tine they refer to the tone having more fundamental vs over tones. What does this mean in term of bark vs mellow?

So Thank Goodness I was able to find the keybed I needed with the keys. I was going swap out the hammer rail as they are both mid 74 Mark I. But mine had a shim added to the Action rail. I was told that this is set for the keys and keybed by Fender and I should abandon my hammer rail and take off all my hammers and dampers and swap them over to the new keybed with hammer rail(action rail).

The person that told me this is very knowledgeable and I dont not doubt his experience. I just would like know more about it as this is a big job that I did not want to take on. Im worried about the hammers and dampers having to be aligned due to the fact that they are individual dampers. The hammers and dampers have glue which tells me they may move over time so I would rather not disturb this.

But how critical is the action rail height and how does it effect the piano? Is there a a measurement or something to look for to make sure this height is correct if I just swap out my current action and hammer rail?

Okay well I follow advice and the Keybed was supposedly from a early 1974 I bought and the thing had 1973 stamped on it. The Keys that came with it also was supposed to be from a early 74. The holes were off that the hammer rail was such it was to far back by 5/8" so I had it drilled keeping the faith. Now I got everything back toghter and the freaking metal posts closest to me look like they are spaced differently so that the keys wont go on.

The first 3 go in but make the keys bind really bad and the 4th post is spaced as such that the keys hole is nowhere near where it should be. Looking at my old keybed all the posts towrds the player are more evenly spaced where as this one seems to be grouped in twos and threes.

NIGHTMARE!.

So does anyone have or nowhere I can find a keybed for my piano?

Heys guys I pulled the trigger and bought a Rhodes. It is a late to early 1975 Rhodes which I always loved the sound. But I took it out of the case because it is a stage and I wanted to convert it to a suitcase. I found that it at some point had termites and the wood that the keys sit on closest to the player were tore up. I say 35 percent of it is gone. I drove 9 hours away and got it for really cheap. Returning it is not an option so I was looking into replacing the whole frame that the wood support and everything is screwed to.

My question is I have a 1976 and cant use it because of dimension and screw hole location differences. But i NOTICED IT SEEMS LIKE THE WOOD IS DENSER.

Does anyone here know if different woods were used around 1974-1975 than the later models?It would make sense since each year sounds different.

Does anyone know if there is a difference between a 1974 vs 1975 tines?

Hey guys I hear about this "Golden Era" Rhodes that has gold tine blocks. What years are these and do they sound fuller? Seems like the ones I heard do.

Hey guys I been wanting a 1975 wooden hammer rhodes for years and may have found one. Unfortunately there is no 4 digit number stamped on it or it got wiped off. I only have a serial number on the golden sticker. Can someone please post there serial numbers for 1974s and 1975s?

Its only says Rhodes on the front, not Fender Rhodes. So if it is not a Frankenstein then it has to be a late 1974 to early 1975 because it has plastic/wood hammers. But I have a late 1975 plastic hammer suitcase. I want to drop the harp into mine but it has to be exact 1975.

Hey guys when I play my 1975 88 key suitcase rhodes alittle harder I seem to get some distortion as if it is clipping. Mow my upper register pickups are a little to close and I have to get my rhodes setup soon. And Im not clipping going into my DAW when recording. See most mic preamps have an input gain setting and an output gain stage setting. The rhodes only have volume which I assume is the output stage. So the question is:

Can you clip the input of a Rhodes preamp? And if so what do you do about it? Is this only fixed by the Pickup distance? I checked all my Caps and they are all good.


I also have a thread concerning Escapement set up style with sound clips that may be more appropriate for this section of the forum so instead on flooding this forum I am going to post the link of it.

http://ep-forum.com/smf/index.php?topic=7168.0

Thankx.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTsIgDftGSQ

Any insight on Tracking,escapement tips,effect used or mixing to get this great sound is appreciated.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTsIgDftGSQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8ORbZg5YaI

These are examples of how I want my 1975 88 key suitacse rhodes to sound like. Right now the upper registers are very bright with very little mellow overtones like the examples above. I also think the pickups are to close  in the upper registers because when I record playing the same dynamic the middle is okay but when I get to the higher registers I start clipping and have to turn my preamp on the rhodes way down. I think the pickups being to close would also take away from the smooth overtones like in the videos above right?


Anyways the whole point to this is I want to bring my Rhodes to a Tech( If anyone knows one close to north Florida let me know). But I need to know how to describe to them how I want the escapement set. So listen to my examples can you guys give me some insight on what to tell him?

Thankx.

Hey guys,
I have seen people have a 2nd tier stand above there rhodes for a additional keyboard or synth. How is this done being the Rhodes is not on a stand to connect the 2nd tier to?

I want the original mallory capacitors or something very close to the originals(any advice on specs on new Mallories). Anyone thats says that Fender just used what ever they could get has no credibility so please save it. I dont mean to be rude but even if they did get what ever they could get cheap those caps were made differently then today. THEY SOUND DIFFERENT. I proved this by replacing one channel with the cheap caps in Vintage Vibes rebuild kit,which I dont recommend. I recorded each channel. The Original caps sounded way better,smoother ,richer and had mojo. The VV caps sounded flat and sterile. Of course the older caps sound different from ageing but there is definitely more going on here than that. Why else would Amp tone freaks replace there caps with Orange drops or mallories instead of some generic cap from mouser(what VV uses)?

Okay I finally got my rhodes serviced and up and running. So the question is how often do these pianos typically need to be serviced as far as escapement? I know how to tune myself. We talking years?

Can the Vibrato POT cause the Vibrato to only work on one side or is it a on and off deal?I have a 1975 Peterson suitcase rhodes.

Can the transistors for the Vibrato be the only other thing to cause one side to work. The other side doesnt light up at all when Vibrato is engaged. But both channels and lamps sound and light fine when vibrato is not engaged.

2 Questions.
How many people here dont worry about the rhodes suitacse power supply's 3rd ground prong when it breaks off? How important is it to replace this?

2. Does anyone know the specs on the Pots for the peterson mark I 1975 preamp?

Hello,
I have a 1980 Mark II rhodes 73. The tines go tone bars I have go from 8 -80. I had a bad #51(B) tine and ordered it online. It was too long and the guy told me that the tine numbers are off so I really needed a #44. Well it is obviously an A because I A# is the highest I can tune it before the tine goes dead. So basically I have to now cut it shorter but with all the confusion with the numbering I dont know how to read the tine chart I found online which I think is for an 88 only. Can anyone tell me what the #51(B) tine length should be on my rhodes?

Thankx

Okay guys I have a 1975 4 pin suitcase rhodes. It is 100W and 4 speaker version so Im not sure if it is the peterson or not but both left and right power amps use 2 Delco GM 120725 Transistors.

The thing is the left side has the writing in Green and the bottom number says"7539", which I am guessing is the batch number or something. But the right set is in red writing and the bottom number is " 7515".

So how can you tell if they are Germanium or Silicon?

The reason I am asking is because the Green ones stay cool while the red ones get really hot. I am also getting intermittent distortion when I hit the keys harder at times and the distortion is alot more frequent through the head phones vs through the speakers.


I ruled out the power supply because I swapped the power connectors and RCAs and the power amp with the red writing still gets hot. Also when I disconnect the preamp and run straight off the harp to the power amps they dont get hot. But if it was a problem with the preamp on one side I would think when I swapped the power connectors and RCAs to the Power amps the other power amp with the green transistors would get hot. Also I checked the resistor on the power amp boards and they both have the same values for all resistors.



I tested the green for shorting and it doesnt seem to be shorted.  But when on the multimeter setting to test for shorts it reads 67(which I dont know what this reading is because I have been told too many things from current,to beat,to ohms) but the the resistance does measure 68ohms. Also a note is I can only get a reading for a short or resistance when the positive probe is on the transistor's leg marked "E" and the Neg probe is on the leg marked "B".

Now the Red transistor is weird. It wasnt reading as shorted and the resistance changes every time I test it. It was at 96, then 67 and now its at 61. It didnt beep(indicating a short) but now it is and the reading on the multimeters short position says 79. This is why I am confused of this value because the other transistors reading on this position and ohms were very close but now here they are not.

So here are my questions.

1. Are these red transistors bad because of the reading and is it normal for them to get this hot?

2. How do I tell if they are silicon or germanium because why would the other be written in green that stay cool? And if the greens are germanium and I have to change the red ones to silicon will the Left and Right sides sound different?

3. The power amps on this rhodes have a adjustable pot like on the the power supply. Is this used to set bias on these as opposed to having to soldier in addition resistors? And could this be my heat problem?

4. If this pot is for bias or even if I have to do it the old school way where am I measuring voltage while setting the bias? What terminals,wires ect?

Thankx,
Colin

I bought a suitcase specifically because I thought the sound quality of recording coming off of the power amp vs the preamp was better. But the 2  1/4" jacks labeled," External Amplifiers 1 and 2" on the power amp I thought were actually coming out of the power amp are only second inputs going into the power amp. In other words I could use them to come into the power amp straight from the harp or I could come into the power amp with the preamp 4 pin cable, but the 2 1/4" external amplifiers jack just tap into the input signal.


SOOOOOO

Are you guys actually just recording from the preamp or are just recording the signal out of the headphone jack on the suitcase power amp?

The guy who sold it said the previous owner looked like he tried to do some mod. The jack that from the preamp to the power amp looked like it has been replaced so I am assuming it was a mod because the hole is bigger than the jack needs and the previous owner riveted it in place. Additionally the same kind of jack was installed in the power amp which appears that either the previous jack was different or he drilled the hole there that didnt previously exist.

Let me just ask this. What kind of connector is supposed to connect the preamp to the power amp? The preamp has a 5 pin connector but when I opened it up it only has 4 wires connected. A Red,Black,light gray and blue.

And on the power amp there is a 4 pin connector that has either a 5 alignment pin or connection in the center. But it loks original. Then the same kind of connector that the preamp has(look added by owner) is also on the power amp. It looks like it was installed after the fact. I dont have the cable for it because the guy I bought it from said the preamp was broken and he was bypassing it by using the effects loop of the preamp straight into the power amp. He gave me a vintage vibe preamp rebuild kit,but I am just trying to figure out what is going on with this thing first.



Long story short it is a later 1975 Mark I suitcase.

So can anyone tell me what kind of connector is supposed to be on the preamp and power amp to connect them to each other?

And secondly, what are the 4 wire in the preamp? In other words the Red,Blue,Black and light gray? I might assume the black is ground.

The guy told me it is a 1973. And it has this stamp on it which I thought confirmed it.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/14607425@N06/6217370223/in/set-72157607367109222/

But then he also has this picture.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/14607425@N06/2869873062/in/set-72157607367109222/

Which indicates a later 1975.
Now I know the later 1975s have all plastic hammers and the earlier ones have a wood plastic combo but I dont know how they look. Here is a picture of his hammers.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/14607425@N06/6217895178/in/set-72157607367109222/

It looks like the rubber is wrapped around wood,so would this be considered a wood plastic combo?

Here is another pic.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/14607425@N06/6217892754/in/set-72157607367109222/


Basically I need to know if this could be a 1973 and if it is a 1975 is it the earlier model that is the better sound one with the wood/plastic hammer combo. I suspect its a later 1975 which is not what I want.  It also appears to have 4 latches which I was told the earlier 1975 s have but there is some question because I read that all 88 keys have 4 latches anyways.

Can anyone tell me what year rhodes this is?

Hey guys I had to repair 20 pickups which meant to de solder several other pickups. I have a 1980 Mark 2. Can anyone tell me if the tip of the RCA is wired to the top row of pickup terminals or the bottom rows of pick up terminals?

Also what is the pattern of how the pickups are soldered together, starting from the top left terminal of the lowest pitched pickup?

I thought I had it right but now my last 3 pickups are dead when I know they work. If I run a jumper to connect the first 4 to the next 6,they then work,but this means 10 of them would have the top terminals connected. Is that okay?

I bought a mark 2 1980 and the sustain rod is missing. I work in a machine shop so I can build one but I need to know how long it is and the adjustable length on it. Also the diameter of the end that goes into the rhodes case would be helpful.
thankx

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170683041917&ssPageName=ADME:X:RTQ:US:1123

The guy says 75-76 but cant explain why he says that becuase there is no date. But what is with the blacked out front? I have never seen this before.

Are there any 1972 rhodes owners that can talk about the action. Im not looking for your opinion on if its the best or not. I just want to know if its a stiffer or lighter action and if its a year that has problems with the action ect. For example I have read alot about the 1974 rhodes action being pretty bad. Any information is appreciated.

Does anyone know which year suitcase Brian Jackson was using on the Gil Scott records in the 70s?

Hello,
After painstaking research and listening I have narrowed it down to a 1973 or a 1975 late model rhodes.

Can anyone here compare the tone between the two and which one has the better action? It sounds like the 1973 is a little more belly and sparkly vs the 1975 is more dark and mellow/muddyish.

Here a two sound examples of the sound Im going for.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8ORbZg5YaI


and here is a different tone which I would expect would be more of a 1973 direct.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSYMKUtNuw8

If you can tell me wether you think this was done direct or a miced suitcase vs stage please let me know. Also if you think it was done with a 1973 tone or a 1975 tone I would appreciate it tremendously.