New to the Rhodes Looking for Advice for my 73 Key Mk 1

[aaronstoll]

Hey all,

I just got a 1973 73 Key Mk.1 as a Uni graduation gift from my dad. I have long loved the sound of the early Rhodes in recordings and it has been awesome to own one. However there are a bunch of aspects about the sound and playability of the piano that have really left me underwhelmed and I was hoping for advice on how to go about fixing it.

The piano was bought from a guy who was a DynoMyPiano tech and has a DynoMy pre amp and ground shielding kit installed on it. I am running it through a Peavey VIP 2 Amp that some family friends gave me. My biggest issue with the Rhodes is that it just doesn't sound very good / how I imagined it would. I do not have great vocabulary for describing timbre but its lacking the dulcet hypnotic sound that I mentally associated with the Rhodes all my life. I am imagining this might be a mix of mechanical setup (voicing etc.), the DynoMy Preamp (which I leave both overtone and bass boost at 0), and the main amp I am using (somewhat poor quality and heavily distorts with bass notes. I have seen other aftermarket preamps out there and as far as I can tell the factory mk 1 setup was just some very simple filtering circuits. I am wondering what the recommendation from people on here would be for a good serviceable amp and if I should try and go back to stock Rhodes preamp or a better aftermarket one.

Mechanically the action is a little heaver than I imagined although I'm assuming this is just something I need to get used to. The sustain pedal is the most frustrating and difficult to use aspect, I'm sure it is a common problem that it does not evenly remove the dampers so some notes will be sustained and others wont unless you press it very hard till it hits the floor.

I would love to know more about the piano and have been reading posts here but have not found any to my specific Rhodes tone situation. I live in San Jose Bay Area and would also be open if anyone knows a specialist that could come check it out as I am such a novice to these pianos and would love to get a good setup that I really enjoy.

[spave]

Welcome to the forum!

To answer a few of your questions: The dyno my piano preamp and the voicing setup that usually accompanied it is likely the main reason that your Rhodes doesn't sound like you expect it to. The voicing can be easily adjusted though. The "hypnotic" part of the "classic" Rhodes sound is from the tremolo effect in the suitcase models. However, you would need a second amp in order to make full use of the effect.
(As a side note, you should try plugging your Peavey in to the harp output in the top left corner of the harp and see if you get less distortion that way as opposed to running through the dyno preamp.)

The uneven damper notes can be easily corrected by a tech and the heavy feel of the keys can be lightened by performing the "miracle mod" on the key pedestals. However, just note that even with the mod, the Rhodes will never play as quick and light as a piano due to the inherent nature of the key design.


A couple of other tidbits:

-Your Rhodes is actually a 1972 which is considered one of the golden years for Rhodes production. The "33 72" in the top right corner decodes to the 33rd week of 1972 which is the date that the harp was finished.

-Your Rhodes also started its life as a student model. It originally had a single piece cabinet with a 10" speaker and a small amp with a built in metronome but none of the tone capabilities of the normal suitcases. That's probably why it got the Dyno upgrade back in the day. I can also say that I've ever seen another dyno'd student model so it's pretty rare from that perspective.

Here's an in depth look on what your keyboard would have looked and sounded like originally: https://chicagoelectricpiano.com/rhodes/rhodes-7055-student-model-an-in-depth-look/

Hope this helps!

[73key boogie]

I second the idea of taking the signal out of the harp RCA jack, bypassing the preamp & just running it into a guitar amp. That will give you the natural sound of the rhodes. Try a Fender twin reverb