Rhodes 73 (stage, 1975) harsh attack

[Jerome]

Hello everybody,

I've recently purchased a 1975 Rhodes, and I'm in the process of making it sound as good as it can.
The previous owner did some repairs on it (miracle mod, changed hammer, new tone bar screws and grommets, etc.), but there was still a lot to be done.
After I bought it, I brought it to a technician who worked on the strikeline, repaired the sustain pedal system, repaired a few broken and odd-sounding notes, and did some basic voicing and tuning.
After that, I completed the tuning and voicing, repaired 1 tine that broke and 1 hammer tip that fell off, and added a retroflyer preamp.

The Rhodes really start to sound to my liking, but I have noticed a problem that became more apparent with the preamp:
Starting at middle C#, the notes above start to have an unpleasant attack.
The attack seems to me to be too loud, especially if you compare it to middle C (and under).
You can hear in the audio that I have attached that there is a certain harshness to the notes above Middle C (I took a pause in the audio before hitting C#).
And I can hear that louder attack acoustically, without being connected to anything.

Because of those reasons, I believe that I might need to change the hammer tips, but I wanted to ask some people that might be more knowledgeable than me on how to diagnose problems on this instrument.

So, do you believe that this issue can be solved by changing the hammer tip? Or do you believe that the problem might be somewhere else?

Thank you very much in advance. 

[spave]

Hi Jerome,

That c# is typically where a harder range of hammer tips starts on the Rhodes. If those are an older set, they likely will be harder than usual which would cause the excessive percussive sound. If you're happy with all the rest of the notes, you could probably just buy a dozen or so new tips for that section and that would probably fix most of the issue. https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0666/2821/files/Vintage_Vibe_Hamer_Tip_Guide_Placement_4ffdd7a5-b86b-4b5e-9b38-84e14f4ddf54.jpg?3389212589356662533

If you want to try a quicker/cheaper fix beforehand, you could also try moving those notes further away from their pickups and/or adjusting them to be closer to the "pure fundamental" voicing (see link below) and see if that gets rid of most of the problem being amplified.
https://www.fenderrhodes.com/org/manual/fig4-8.gif

Hope this helps!

[Jerome]

Hi Spave,

Thank you for your reply,  I will most likely go for the first option.
I've already tried in the past to voice those notes toward "pure fundamental ," back up the pickups, and change the escapement, and the annoying attack is still there.

Furthermore, I went back to the original listing for this Rhodes, and the previous owner did mention that he changed some hammers, but he did not mention that he changed the hammer tips.
So, most likely, the hammer tips have not been changed for a long time (if not ever).

For now, I think the best course of action for me will be to order a few "mid" hammer tips, either for Vintage Vibe or Avion Studio.
But if you believe that I should change every hammer tip based on what you heard in my audio (or if you heard note problems), feel free to tell me.
I'm still new to the world of electric piano repair.

Thank you very much 

[spave]

The tone of the whole piano is subject to personal preference, so if you like the other sections already I would leave it the way it is.

One of the worst mistakes I made with a Rhodes was changing things just because I thought that's what I was supposed to do. I picked up a 1971 that had been stored for 20+ years and it still sounded fantastic but I thought that it could sound even better if I took it to a specialist that would obviously make it sound better right? WRONG! After spending $$$ getting all new hammer tips, grommets, and getting it re-voiced, it sounded terrible (to my ears at least). I spent countless hours trying to re-voice it back to where it was before the work but I was never able to and I ended up selling it because of it.

Moral of the story: Only fix what you currently dislike and don't mess around with the other (mechanical) parts unless you would be comfortable not getting them to sound that way again.

Hope this helps!