Stage Knobs

[squarebubble]

Hi everyone,

Does anyone know why some 74 and 75 pianos have the silver and black knobs that have the Fender 'F' on the top? It seems a bit odd that if Fender was dropped mid 74 that the knobs didn't change.

[pianotuner steveo]

I assume they used up the old stock to save money.

[squarebubble]

I thought that would be the most likely explanation too. I am curious to know what is the latest piano to have these particular knobs. Maybe someone could share if they have a piano later than 75 with them on?

[camaro guy]

I have a 04 76 (April, 1976, I presume) state model with the black and silver "F" knobs.  It's possible that they were switched by a previous owner, but based on the condition of the piano when I got it, I suspect that they are the originals.

[Tim W]

The knobs with the Fender "F" were used through 1978 on stage pianos.  They switched to the Janus style black knobs in 1979.

There was a short period in about 1974 they were using all silver metal knobs on stage pianos with a black indicator line.

Tim
retrolinear.com

[Ben Bove]

Tim knows his stuff!   Beat me to it!

[squarebubble]

Crikey that's a long time after they dropped Fender. I wonder why CBS did that - doesn't make sense to drop the name but then keep the 'F' on the knobs.

[Tim W]

Actually they used the black plastic "F" caps on the 90 deg. 1/4" plugs for the speakers in the post 1977 speaker bottoms until the end of production in the 80s.

Remember that although Rhodes was a brand, Fender, Rogers and Rhodes were all under CBS.  There was a lot of sharing of parts across the brands.

I think CBS jettisoned the individual brands sometime in the mid 80s.

Tim
retrolinear.com

[Max Brink]

The silver knobs are pretty rare and I can't remember what approximate weeks they ran from in '74 but I have wondered whether or not it was because the F knobs were briefly out of stock or if it was in order to deliberately keep the Fender "F" on the product... If they changed the "Fender Rhodes" name in order to get Rhodes pianos into music stores that were licensed Gibson dealers it sees that choosing to bring back the Fender "F" could have been a subtle way to reinforce the Fender brand.

[squarebubble]

I guess we'll never know for sure why the 'F' was kept on the knobs or the 1/4" plugs. It could well have been a marketing ploy as Max suggests. I'd love to read a timeline of every little change that was ever made. The Rhodes Supersite has a lot of detail but not everything. Has anyone ever produced a complete timeline?

[Max Brink]

It's hard to get exact dates for timelines of minor changes like these because it seems that they used whatever parts were around and there is usually a window of quite a few weeks when dating from the harp.

[Fred]

Regarding the silver knobs (actually solid aluminum), early '74 is my best guess. My '74 (harp stamp 0874) has them, as does the "Sigma Studio A" rig at the shop (stamped 1674). Later '74's I've come across do not have them. A fellow collector once told me he'd heard the aluminum knobs where used because the current spec knob was indeed out of stock, so they used those silver knobs already in use on certain Fender amps.

[Student Rhodes]

The knobs were from the ill-fated solid state Fender amps that went on line in 1968.  They were reputed to sound awful, and were out of production pretty quickly.  In the early '80s, I had this reverb unit, and indeed it was terrible, even to my unsophisticated ears.  Sproinky and very hissy. One of the few pieces of gear I've gotten rid of in all these years.
I put a set of them on my '72 Stage Model, just because I dig the way they look.