Power for Rhodes Mark I

[jeff2761]

I'm a new member and haven't played a keyboard for 20 years.  My father found a Mark I at a yard sale with the belief that I could pick up playing again.  My question is (and it's probably a stupid one) how do you hook this thing up to power and do I need a separate amp?  I've searched the site looking at pictures of the Mark I and haven't seen any with a power cord.  I've looked at the keyboard and the only thing I've found is the input jack on the keyboard.  Someone help me out.  Thanks.

[Mark II]

to start with, there are 2 types of Rhodes pianos: Stage and Suitcase. the suitcase piano has a speakercabinet with an integrated amplifier underneath the keyboard. on the left side of the speaker cabinet is the amplifier located with al the jacks (power, input, etc.).
The stage piano doesn't have an amplifier. It was cut down in order to save weight. Im guessing you have this kind of model. It only has on 1/4 ' ouput jack on the name rail (named "input").
All you need to get the thing working is plug the "input" jack to an external amplifier (a guitar amp is suiting for that task very well, cause rhodes pianos and guitars are pretty the same concerning construction/ impedance).
A mixer could help, too. Or a preamp. Or a amp simulator like Line6 POD seires or Behringer V-Amp ect. There are a lot of possibilies depending on how much do you want to spend, carry, ect.  
But you need something to blast up the volume of the piano.
Read this for more information about the hight end amplification:

http://www.fenderrhodes.com/models/amp.html

and this one

http://ep-forum.com/smf/index.php?topic=23

Good luck
mark II

[jeff2761]

You're right, I have the stage model.  I'll try a guitar amp.  Thanks very much for the info...Jeff