I think that you will laugh at this

[Miguel Tuna]

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Fender-Rhodes-88-Nord-Stage-88-1-off-UNBELIEVEABLE-/320851296136?pt=UK_Musical_Instruments_Pro_Audio_Synthesisers_CV&hash=item4ab43a3f88

[leon-]

There are some who would disagree with you....

Current bid:   £1,135.15     [ 10 bids ]
Reserve not met

I saw this a few days ago - one of the more original custom jobs I've see. But if I didn't have a keyboard and the price was lower - I'd have considered it...
Im more intrigued about how (in the seller's words) "the fender conversion cost £1500."   

[sledge-mk1]

Hehe.. The worst part of an 88 Rhodes (it's huge and a pain to move around) and the worst part of a Nord (sounds like plastic) combined..

[Tim Hodges]

Only the price of the Nord warrants that auction.

£1500 for the conversion??? the bloke was unfortunately ripped off. I could do a nicer job for a couple of hundred pounds, in fact I do have an 88 case sitting around I might actually do something like that.

T

This was a nice conversion by Elecedge

Rhodes 88 Stage Conversion

[pianotuner steveo]

I like the idea of it anyway....

Billy Joel did the same thing except wth a grand piano shell.

I dont know what keyboard he has inside, but he also has a teleprompter too.

[The Real MC]

Back in the 1970s Vox converted a bunch of leftover Continental shells into disc jockey tables 

[sean]

Oh what a shame to use blonde tolex, when RED tolex would have matched the Nord.

[AFeastOfFriends]

That DJ table is pretty awesome, if only for the impractical way the guy is staning and using it.

And I've seen a youtube video or two where Ray Manzarek was using a G101 shell for his Alesis. It looked like one, but sure didn't sound like it.

[pianotuner steveo]

Wow that s freaky!! The guy in the Vox ad looks like me in 1979 except for the shirt and my hair wasnt quite that long.

[The Real MC]

Wonder if the cocktail glass was included with the DJ table...?

[Miguel Tuna]

[Rob A]

DJ Steveo

[Alan Lenhoff]

I'd seen that Vox Discotape flyer in the past, and always thought it was someone's spoof.  But I discovered that if you go to the Vox Showroom site, they have the actual 1971 catalog pages, including all the specs for it:

http://www.voxshowroom.com/catalogs/1971_p5.html

The truth is that in the '60s, Vox had a meteoric rise to prominence, only to come crashing back to earth in a series of poor management and product moves.  This has to be among their most comic moments on that downward plunge.

Alan

[The Real MC]

I'd seen that Vox Discotape flyer in the past, and always thought it was someone's spoof.  But I discovered that if you go to the Vox Showroom site, they have the actual 1971 catalog pages, including all the specs for it:

http://www.voxshowroom.com/catalogs/1971_p5.html

The truth is that in the '60s, Vox had a meteoric rise to prominence, only to come crashing back to earth in a series of poor management and product moves.  This has to be among their most comic moments on that downward plunge.

Alan

Actually Vox signed a poorly advised agreement with Thomas Organ in the 60s.  Vox was struggling to meet demand and made bedfellows with Thomas to increase capacity.  Thomas violated the spirit of the agreement by shoving those horrid solid state amps down our throats against the protests of Vox.  Thomas rolled over them and made their own separate line of guitar amps with no heritage to the Vox legacy.  Most of the old guard at Vox left in disgust and by 1970 Thomas-Vox was literally in the toilet, nobody wanted their products.  A similar fate awaited the 1970s CBS-Fender, Norlin-Gibson, and Roland-Rhodes.

[Alan Lenhoff]

Yes, that was the most significant mis-step, followed by a number of others.  All nicely chronicled in the book,  The Vox Story.  I thought that book was going to teach me a lot about Vox gear, but it was mostly useful as a business case history -- a warning of how NOT to run a business.

[The Real MC]

Yup I have that book too.  Fascinating read.

Tom Wheeler has a great book on Fender amps with a similar case study of how NOT to run a music instrument manufacturer.  Fender's first solid state amps of the 1960s were worse than the Vox ones - besides sounding like garbage, almost every one of them BLEW UP due to poor design.  Pressure from CBS marketing to compromise quality was the blame.  The only one I saw anywhere is at the House Of Guitars in Rochester NY and I think that one is there just for decoration.