rhodes model

Hi jeffbart,

I don't think a modelled rhodes would be much of a challenge for these guys, plus the market's been kinda saturated with excellent rhodes renditions in various forms for years - of course you are correct that MODARTT could more than compete (and make some fast, easy money).

I think it would be a misplacement of the genius these boys collectively possess though.  I'd much rather see them continue working on "things with strings", as they certainly have the math and programming chops to do great things with models of guitars - electric and acoustic - mandolins, banjos, balalaikas etc.

Remember Korg's WaveDrum?  Imagine what MODARTT could do with drum models.

Have you checked out the old Roland SAS-based pianos?  They're dirt cheap now and have the best Rhodes implementation I've ever heard - hardware or software - outside of the real deal.  I recently bought an old RD-300s and find myself going back to it's beautiful EP1 every time I need a Rhodes tone.  It's a shame Roland abandoned the SAS concept - it's sooooo expressive, much like Pianoteq!

rightnow I'm using Mr. Ray electric piano, which is modelled. It sounds very rhodes already but sometimes a little sharp

I've tried harpsichord on a virus TI, with FM sync modulation on certain wire like waveforms that already have the characteristic.

the one attempt is better than the other but it's tricky to do the attacks...

did you try the last version of "Mr Ray" also? I find it quite good... and since it's free, you have nothing to loose giving it a try :-) It's here:

http://www.soundfonts.it/?a=read&b=16

Don't forget to download "Mr Donald" too, it's such fun...

http://www.soundfonts.it/?a=read&b=19

I too would like to see Modartt do some work in the area of tine and reed based electric pianos.  The most pleasing Rhodes I have played to date is Mr Ray 2.2 (yes, I prefer it to Mr Ray 73) but it's got glitches and isn't quite "finished".  I don't like Lounge Lizard much unfortunately. (which surprises me) Haven't played some of the other popular ones though.

I'm astonished at how good the just released Pianoteq CP80 is - this is one reason I'm curious as to whether Modarrt could do the same for the tine/reed based instruments. But if it would be too distracting for the team, then maybe they should leave it - I don't know.

Greg.
p.s Someone mentioned the Roland SAS Rhodes - yes it was expressive but I never really liked it much.  Mr Ray is a bazillion times better IMHO.

I'm feeling a little guilty for saying I "don't like Lounge Lizard". Too harsh.  Being technical, I admire the achievement enormously. And I also like the sounds which it produces, and the incredible tweakability. Right now, there are two main aspects of it which bother me, though:

a) I can't seem to create an instrument which plays the way I want it to over the entire key range.  May be able to be solved by using multiple instances but I have not tried that.  Maybe they need to implement regions and allow the regions to be edited seperately.

b) Repeated notes with the sustain pedal sometimes cause very loud and harsh sounds.  I know that this happens to an extent on the real ones too, but I do not think it's this pronounced. It really does bother me a lot - I am constantly on edge while playing it, cringing, waiting for it to happen.

Greg.

Rhodes piano & Wurlitzer piano , - they are not string instruments , and for that , to make them, needs , I think different software engine . If Modartt will make . harpsichord or Hohner Clavinet , it will be nice , because these instruments more relative to piano , because they are string instruments .
Rhodes & Wurlitzer are electromechanic instruments with camertones type sound sources . But in the future it's good to know , that Modartt made Rhodes , Wurlitzer , Guitar , Dulcimer , Marimba ... .... and real Physical Modelling Drums !!!!!

My vote would go for including an upright piano model before any tine- or reed-based models.

Did you forget the AAS Lounge Lizard, really better than the EVP88 !!!

My opinion is that a Rhodes model is very different from an acoustic piano model, and then it is a completely different project.

I prefer Modarrt to improve and enhance again an again their Pianoteq, obviously because they are the pioneers in that kind of modelling. So, new improvements and new Acoustic Piano models, like an upright for example are better ideas than any other kind of keyboard model, I think.

What about a large celtic harp? A string instrument.

Hi, im a new member. I toured a couple thousand gigs 1st with  a rhodes mk1, than 2 and then I switched to a wurly. It took me several years to find the "best" pedal/fx and amp setup...it took forever! At my homestudio I have a K2500 and a yamaha s90es. Im also totally spoiled with a nice full sized real grand. Anyway, to get onto the subject of rhodes and wurly sounds and which I think are the best- (oh yeah, I was playing in bands that were kinda prog-ish- kinda quiet to totally loud) and I think that i've got a pretty good idea about it, just 'cause of the nature of playing in so many different venues and festivals all under different circumstances+recording in a couple of fancy studios...Keep in mind, this is just my opinion which I totally believe but please, no one get offended!

For louder rock music, rhodes for me was worthless. I played on 2 different 73's, 1 suitcase and the big ol' 88. The tines- just the plain old "spirit" of the rhodes does not work out so good for live playing with medium 2 loud music- no matter what amp or whatever it's going thru. It's very bell/vib like, the bottom 2 octaves are completely useless live, there are about 2 and 1/2 octaves on a rhodes that will fit ok in the live...keep in mind that I tried a billion different amp/blah combos as well...so anyway, a studio in chicago had 12 wurlys they were selling- I spent an entire day playing, testing each one. They all were the same model and they all sounded totally different- some were aggressive, some were more like rhodes/smooth, and I ended up getting one that had a whole bunch of bite. After many gigs, I finally found a good amp/fx combo for it which was the wurly going thru an echoplex, a russian-made smallstone phaser and a rotovibe pedal. My amp was a split roland jazz-chorus and a fender twin- and always I would further split by insisting on a D.I. Box. That combo sounded so fantastic- it cut thru 2 other fender twins with tele's and the big fat ampeg fridge. I did some recording at steve ray's old studio and well, studio is totally different (bad). Also recorded wurly at steve albini's (nirvana, page and plant, blah) studio and it sucked as well and im talking vintage U47's with whatever crazy this and that going thru some channel strips that had seen a lot of action. So anyway, the best digital hardware synth rhodes sound in my opinion is the s90es, the wurly sound is pretty ok- definately good enough for big clean venues- not as good in those intense sweaty places. I gig'ed a bunch with nords stuff and aside from the cool look and those wooden mod wheels, I honestly don't see the deal. My k2500 from 97 can out-weird the nord and the s90es imho can out piano out wurly, out rhodes (not to mention out horn, drum, pad, lead etc....) the nord stuff easy. As far as plugs are concerned, they mostly suck- I just use my yamaha and various amp-sims and get a good enough sound where most players could not tell if it was the real thing or not.

My genuine advice- I know that in the past 5 or so years the mechanical piano sound has totally come back into style. In the 90's the Moog sound came back, now it's all electric pianos and stuff. I would just go out and buy both a wurly and a rhodes and work on them- they are like older american gas guzzlers...they need work but they sure go fast. It seems goofy to me to whip out 1, 2 or 300 bucks for some plug-in when you can get the real thing for not that much more. I know everyone here knows this but I gotta say it again- I have about a gabillion virtual instruments- a few years back I was obsessed with giga-samples, I wanted not a triple strike something but something like that crazy EWQL 165 GB sampled stuff...what I have learned is that yes, for doing soundtrack - and commericals etc, that stuff totally makes sense but I make the living off of performing and record sales and nothing ever ever ever will beat the real thing so I tend to do what bands like rush or what the newer bowie does- I blatently use synth sounds because as wendy/walter carlos taught us, they are their own totally legit deal. I stopped chasing the terabyte sample dream of a real sounding fake violin years ago. I just go to a university and post fliers, print out the parts with sibelius or something if I want real real stuff. Those college kids are always glad to do that kind of stuff.

Sorry here, im totally rambling!
Yamaha90es- best rhodeswurly sound! really good leslie sim as well! The older synth samples of those keyboards did not seem to capture how uneven those instros are...they click and pop and rattle and that's why they sound so cool. I have a 500 buck mellotron plug and it totally sounds good in the song but still is lacking somewhere- I also had the luck and got 2 cut a tune on a real chamberlin and a real mellotron mk1 with the original tapes and live, with your person actually in front of the real thing, it's no contest those mellotron strings just sound so friggin cool that all you gotta do is press one key and you feel like a kid again. Anyway, sorry for the 2 long post.

You just tempted me to go and try it again too. I agree, it is playable, but I just don't think it compares to the Scarbee sounds. Scarbee's Wurli sound in particular has such a wonderful and dramatic change in tone over the velocity range. It must be possible to model that!

The sustain pedal problem was a bug that was present until the very last version (you just bought).
The funny was that they wanted money for this update, so you had to pay to get this new version without the bug !! everybody in their forum was mad about it and so was i.
I just send them a bug report presuming i didn't know anything about it was corrected in the new paid update ;-) The support was nice to me and gave me a free link to the new bugfree Lizard with new features version.
And yes... Lounge lizard is just great !  a little like Pianoteq.
It doesn't sound exactly as the real thing but it is SO playable like a real instrument :-)

And at last, talking electromechanical instruments, i would really wote for a Clavinet replica.

Yes, but I noticed the problem in the trial version of EP-3 (but to a far lesser extent than previous versions).  After installing the purchased version, the problem went away in both the trial and purchased versions. And yes, I've seen the forum posts. Support haven't replied to me regarding this issue yet, although now that the problem has gone, it's a bit academic.

Indeed!

Greg.

In case someone is still searching for a great set of EP's and a D6, get Scarbee's.
I have had and still use the Gigastudio Rhodes, and Wurlitzer, but I imagine he made them even better w/ Kontakt 2 and then threw in a D6, even though he cannot call it that.
And yes, I had a real one w/ the Bose speakers back in the day, and I don't miss the - action and the useless 88 note size.
But that w/ an Electric Mistress was happening.
Most of the VSTi stuff I have heard seems to have the sound somewhat, but the velocity layers are too noticable and the bellish overtones are absent.
On Scarbees Giga lib's you get it all. That's why I could never see buying the others, but I want that Clav really bad now, after breaking out my old Gigastudio D6 by Boris. That lib. was 50 bucks, and plays like it too.
Make sure you can mute and have options of release samples on a D6 emulation though. That's half of the sound IMHO.
Played around with the new Rhodes at NAMM and it looks really sweet, but I can't see going back to lugging bulky gear around w/o a crew.

BTW. Vintaudio had the clunkiest sounding Uprights I ever bought. I heard about a new one recently but I am too used to the Honky Tonks I use. No jive IR's, just pedal down harmonics and sounds like your sitting on the bench.
These days there are too many " Chorused " Pianos that are just lame. Even a real recording of a Grand Piano treated by an Eventide Ultra or Eclipse won't cut it.
Uprights are just what they say....Upright and klunky. Perfect for many styles.
I get a kick of Cats that use a perfectly tuned, pristine " Grand " Paino preset from their Motif for Blues and Rock..........yecchhhh.

I don't think we will see so early a add-on for a Rodes piano, cause Pianoteq basic technology it's just for strings, at the present time, and Rodes piano use small metalic plaques instead of strings.

That was the wrongest and shorter prediction I ever made.  Háaa háaaa...   Only 6 hours...    Call the Guines.

By the way, my activatiuon code it's not working.