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My new 1977 stage mk1

Started by fxdfxd, December 29, 2022, 05:44:47 AM

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fxdfxd

Hi everyone,

My name is Francois, I live in Greece, and for almost years I dreamt of owning a Rhodes, after a friend let me his own for few weeks. I'm a guitarist and not a piano player, but I really enjoy the sound of it.
I recently came across a beautiful stage mk1 from 1977 for sale in Greece, that's very unusal, im not sure how many Rhodes there are currently in Greece, but I never saw one before for sale, ever !

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This particular one came to Greece with its russian owner in 1980, and was sold around 8 years ago to the guy I bought it from. The seller is a know composer in Greece, working for TV shows, movies and ads, so that Rhodes was featured in many greek productions :)
It was supposed to be refurbished and setup some years ago, with many new parts from vintage vibes.
Tolex is almost flawless, everything is included, even the small bag for the legs, and all gromets/screw/damper/hammer tips/front felt are new. I also came with a second aluminium bar with an original suitacase preamp ( I thought I was going to buy a converted suitcase model initally).
The only concern is that the setup is not very great. The keys very very uneven, with bellies on the bass and treble, not a single one was straight (horizontally), and the sound is pretty poor, and very uneven too. Here are some pictures :

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On the plus side, all the dampers are pretty much levelled, and hammers too.
I'm really not a specialist, but after watching many YT videos, I decided to give it a go myself, and try to improve things. In the next post I'll show the current work, and ask for some advices too !

Thanks
-fx

fxdfxd

#1
So I decided removed all the keys and started with one near the center, I squared it by adjusting the pin, and worked my way up and down with other keys, trying to level them by using the existing paper shims.

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Everything is pretty much level now, but I ran out of shim, I must order some new ones. Key depth is 42mm from the wood bar, I would prefer 2mm more, but I'll have to wait for the new shims (or is there another way to do it?).

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There is only on key that I can't level for now, I don't know why :

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It sits higher than the other. Maybe I'll compensate when I'll had the 2mm more to the other ones, but I've no idea why this one is not like the other (it's an original keys).
Key dip is around 10mm  (~13/32"), so it's standard right? I also discovered that the keys have been modded with a small lead weight, but I didn't like it, so I removed them, and I prefer it now.
Here is where I'm at now, but now comes the trickier part, in the next post.

fxdfxd

So now there are more concerning problems :

- The keys are not very squared compared to the wooden structure (not only to the case, but also compared to the internal structure).

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They are all at a slight angle, and thus there is a little offset where the keys touch the hammer :

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My guess is that it would be a heavy work to correct this. Maybe like moving the action bar with the pin a little bit to the side, right? But as I understand, it's not supposed to be adjusted, and it's permanently fixed? Is it a big deal to let it like that?

- The sound was wrong. It was really soft, with not much dynamics, no attack or bark at all. I read that it could be caused by a wrong strikeline, so I unscrewed the 2 lateral piece connecting the harp to the aluminium support, and began to move the harp, with great success. I could get some attack and even barking by moving the harp almost 1.5cm (~5/8") to the front. But now of course the holes does not align. Should I drill new one? And tapper them on the support side? Or will the screw from the sides parts be enough? (the piano will never be moved).

- The sound is inconsistant. The tines were all over the place, many not centered with the pickups, and with a big distance gap, some with more than 10mm (~3/8") distance between the tine and the center of the pickup. So I tried to set it up, by ear, and I've some keys that plays well, with a nice attack, good enough dynamic range, but some other I can't seem to set them up.

Some have a softer attack, no matter what I try. Some have poor sustain. I noticed that the one with bad sound are often associated with dampening happening when you force the key into aftertouch.

Is that more of a problem associated with keys themselves, or is it a problem of harp height? There is absolutely no shim between the harp and support, there are some glue residue so something what here at some time, but now it just the harp on top of the support.

- There is a miracle mod installed from a VV kit, but Im not sure it's correctly installed, because it's at the very end of the wooden piece.

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It looks like it was put there without any form of measurement, I'm not sure it's actually usefull. Should I get rid of it? Redo it?

- Last one but maybe the easiest, the output level is very weak, I'm using an active warm audio DI, and I still must push the mic preamp of my mixing table to the max to get a good enough sound.
Is there some typical value that I should read with a multimeter, like total impedance/resistance?
I'm waiting for some parts to build a power supply for the suitcase preamp, so I'll be able to use the included stereo tremolo, im a total sucker for these  :)

Thanks a lot
-fx



steste

I also have a stage '77 and i can say that yours is much better than mine, no rust, great shape of the tines and miracle mod installed.
About action and mechanic and keys i suggest you to start working simply levelling the keys with the paper shims to have a compromise and later you can do more serious work like changing the backrail felt, key bushing for sloppy keys etc , when your knowledge and your hands are in the piano.
About the sound in my '77 i tried to obtain the bark sound moving the harp and adjusting the pickups near to the tines and i can tell you that the result is not like a earlier fender rhodes or mk5 or vintage vibe, my experience is that this piano era do his best in mellow bell sound and the setup for mellow sound is different, any piano is different better catch the good that is inside instead of have a compromise searching a sound that the piano cannot fully produce, this is my experience.
PS do everything with a good preamp connected directly to good headphones.
good luck in your rhodes voyage
Just having fun

fxdfxd

Hey Steste,

For a unknown reason, I never saw your reply. Thanks for the advices and good words :)

-fx