Rhodes piano

The Rhodes piano (also known as the Fender Rhodes piano or simply Fender Rhodes or Rhodes) is an electric piano invented by Harold Rhodes, which became particularly popular throughout the 1970s. It generates sound using keys and hammers in the same manner as an acoustic piano, but the hammers strike thin metal rods of varied length, connected to tonebars, which are then amplified via an electromagnetic pickup.

The instrument evolved from Rhodes' attempt to manufacture pianos to teach recovering soldiers during World War II under a strict budget, and development continued throughout the 1940s and 1950s. Fender started marketing the Piano Bass, a cut-down version of the piano, but the full-size instrument did not appear until after the sale to CBS in 1965. CBS oversaw mass production of the Rhodes piano in the 1970s, and it was used extensively through the decade, particularly in jazz, pop and soul music. It fell out of fashion for a while in the mid-1980s, principally due to the emergence of polyphonic and later digital synthesizers, especially the Yamaha DX7, and partly through inconsistent quality control in production due to cost-cutting measures. The company was eventually sold to Roland, who manufactured digital versions of the Rhodes without authorization or approval from its inventor.

Rhodes

Rhodes (Greek: Ρόδος, Ródos [ˈroðos]) is the largest of the Dodecanese islands in terms of land area and also the island group's historical capital. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within the Rhodes regional unit, which is part of the South Aegean region. The principal town of the island and seat of the municipality is Rhodes. The city of Rhodes had 50,636 inhabitants in 2011. It is located northeast of Crete, southeast of Athens and just off the Anatolian coast of Turkey. Rhodes' nickname is The island of the Knights, named after the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem, who once conquered the land.

Historically, Rhodes was famous worldwide for the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The Medieval Old Town of the City of Rhodes has been declared a World Heritage Site. Today, it is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Europe.

Name

The island has been known as Ρόδος in Greek throughout its history. In addition, the island has been called Italian: Rodi, Turkish: Rodos, and Ladino: Rodi or Rodes.

Vintage Vibe

Vintage Vibe is a manufacturer of keyboard instruments, based in Rockaway, New Jersey. The company also offers repair services for electric pianos and amplifiers.

In 2011, they debuted their first line of electro-mechanical pianos at NAMM 2011. The piano combines tine tones with modern improvements to deliver an accurate Rhodes sound in a body resembling a Wurlitzer Electric Piano.

History

The company started in 1997 as an instrument rental business, before switching to repairs due to difficulties competing in that market. In 2011, they started manufacturing electric pianos, similar to those manufactured by Rhodes and Wurlitzer. Reviewing their product range, Keyboard Magazine's Jon Regen praised the quality of the sounds and feel of the instrument, but questioned whether there was still a market for a product with moving parts that only produced one sound.

Features

The Vintage Vibe Tine Piano was designed to be half the weight of traditional tine-based electric pianos. The action and tone are inspired by the early Fender Rhodes. The piano uses American swaged steel tines and hand-wound pickups along with a choice of active or passive electronics to achieve its tone.

Electric piano

An electric piano is an electric musical instrument which produces sounds when a performer presses the keys of the piano-style musical keyboard. Pressing keys causes mechanical hammers to strike metal strings, metal reeds or wire tines, leading to vibrations which are converted into electrical signals by magnetic pickups, which are then connected to an instrument amplifier and loudspeaker to make a sound loud enough for the performer and audience to hear. Unlike a synthesizer, the electric piano is not an electronic instrument. Instead, it is an electro-mechanical instrument. Some early electric pianos used lengths of wire to produce the tone, like a traditional piano. Smaller electric pianos used short slivers of steel to produce the tone. The earliest electric pianos were invented in the late 1920s; the 1929 Neo-Bechstein electric grand piano was among the first. Probably the earliest stringless model was Lloyd Loar's Vivi-Tone Clavier. A few other noteworthy producers of electric pianos include Baldwin Piano and Organ Company and the Wurlitzer Company.