Rhodes in ET

[Ra Byn James Taylor]

To the best of my knowledge, A Fender Rhodes is a mechanical keyboard that
uses tines to produce the note. They came in 73 & 88 key models. Steely Dan
uses Fender Rhodes on just about every song. They became unpopular in the
80's as midi & analog synths took over the sound. Recently Fender Rhodes
once again became the rage. One day you could get one at just about any
pawnshop in my town for between $100 & $300. A year later I couldn't even
find one anymore. To tune the instrument, you slide a metal spring along the
tine (a metal rod) to adjust the mass of the tine & thereby change the
pitch. Some are passive meaning that they must be plugged in in order to
hear the note. Others came with an amplifier. Each string has a pickup wired
in series with the rest. Be careful not to break any of these soldier
joints. I spent a whole day off in a ski resort working with the keyboard
player I was touring with trying to figure out how to get the wiring back to
square one.

Hope this helps....

ra byn james



-----Original Message-----
From: Patricia Neely <pneely@thegrid.net>
To: pianotech@ptg.org <pianotech@ptg.org>
Date: Monday, May 29, 2000 8:40 a
Subject: Re: Rhodes in ET


>Hi my curiousity has gotten the best of me what is a Rhodes?  Thanks from a
>curious mind. Patricia Neely :~)
>
>