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Chet Baker's 'She Was Too Good To Me' comes to mind with Bob James on Rhodes:

[stark]

Thanks for the reply Alan. So you mean my piano did not spring forth from Buz's brow like Athena from the head of Zeus?  People love a good myth!

To be serious though this does feel like the culmination of a great personal odyssey: buying my first rhodes a number of years ago('79 Stage) and dealing with the disappointment of it not making the sound I was hoping for. After much research I discovered that an older model would be a better bet and I've had my eyes out for one since then. I never ran across the Buz story, but understood that a number of factors led to the early 70s models being the most sought after.

I decided to do the refurb work myself: all the tweaking I did to my '79 gave me enough experience I think. I can't imagine there is anything I could do to it that is so bad a real tech couldn't fix it in the future anyway.

I've got my old one up for sale already, but if it is still unsold by the time I get the '72 in fighting shape I'll do some A/B side by side recordings: the difference is stark!

I recently picked up a beat up 1972 Stage at a garage sale. The pickups, tines, and tone bars are quite corroded, the tuning and voicing are a mess, but even so it still sounds pretty great. I have a 1979 Stage that I fixed up, so I was planing to do the same to this when I noticed a name stenciled in red: 'Buz Watson'. The name sounded funny enough to google it, and now I'm feeling a bit like a lottery winner.

I'm wondering now though if I should just keep my amateur hands off of it and take it down to Chicago for a professional refurbishment. I don't really plan on selling it right away, and would like to enjoy playing it in the meantime. Will I mess up Buz's work by installing new screws and grommets? How would I best preserve the resale value, while still fixing it up enough to enjoy playing it?

So to update this thread, I ultimately did replace all my hammer tips with felt, and still didn't really hear what I was hoping for. I would say the felts were an improvement, but still that certain something was lacking. This was a few years ago now and my Rhodes has mostly been collecting dust since then.

Now several days ago I happened on to a great deal for a beat up 1972 Stage and picked it up. I have a bunch of work to do on the '72, tons of corrosion, dirt and dust. It is way out of tune and the voicing is a mess, but even so I knew from the first Maj7 chord that I struck: this is IT! It barks, it bites, it simply just sings in a way my '79 never could. I can only guess now that this sound I have been seeking is in the tines themselves; the 1972 alloy has that MOJO admixure I guess? Whatever it is, I'm very pleased with this new piano and look forward to how great it will sound after an intensive tune up.

EDIT: Turns out it's a Buz Watson. Explains the extra mojo.

Grateful for the opinions! Thank you

Where from comes the timbre? Is it in the tines? Tips? Tonebars?

Seriously though, I'd like to hear opinions on what the most important components are in imparting the different timbres found across the model years.

As in: would a 1980 mk2 bark like sparkle top if only you replaced the 'X's with 1969 'X's...

Appreciate the replies guys.

Please do get back on the Peterson amp. I have a cheap mic pre that I'm using now, just for a clean boost. I was giving much consideration to some sort of amp modeling pedal, I find the amp modeling section on the SV1 goes some distance in getting a dirtier sound.

I was going to title this thread "Longtime Korg SV1 Owner Buys Rhodes, is Disappointed".

I recently picked up a 1979 mk1 Stage in good condition, it had been in long term storage. It had always been some kind of dream of mine to own a real rhodes, and while I thought the SV1 was an adequate stop-gap, I would never be truly satisfied until I had the real thing.

I had some awareness of the difference in timbre across the different model years, (my preferences are firmly on the older, darker, bark-ier side)though I didn't expect such a dramatic difference. In short I am not super keen on the clean, more bell like tone that the newer models produce, that my particular piano produces.

So far I have replaced all the grommets and screws, scraped off the factory shims and replaced them with slightly thinner pieces of solid wood, experimented with several voicing settings, and while I am able to get some of the nice dark, barking tones in the low and mid-range, the high end is still very chime-y.

I feel like the next step would be replacing the neoprene hammer tips with felt tips but I'm unsure if even this will give me the sound I am looking for. I read that even the tines from older models are different and contribute to that sound, though some argue not.

Any suggestions?