Fender Piano
Description: Classic electric piano, many different models.
Production period: 1946 - 1984
Numbers made: A lot?
Used by: Just about everyone at one time or another. But anyway…too mention a couple. Herbie Hancock, Stevie Wonder, Steely Dan, Miles Davis, Radiohead, Chick Corea, Massive Attack, The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Magma.
Keys: Varies between models.
Weight: The all weigh a lot, really horrible things to tour with. On an Akaba tour in the U.K. we took it on a train from Manchester to London. Not to be recommended.
Description : In some way or another there always seems to be a Fender Rhodes piano at Roth Händle studios. For a long time it was Tobias Ed's (trumpet man for Temple of destruction) and then later on it was Hugo Törntorp's (Celestine). This also explains why the Fender Rhodes piano looks different in different pictures on the site.
The Fender Rhodes, Hammond organ and Mini Moog are all really classic keyboards so they are difficult to write about because everyone has they're own opinion and/or experience from them.
The Fender Rhodes together with the Wurlitzer are the two most common electric pianos around and the are the most common and popular because they sound great and can be used in almost all styles of music. Jazz, rock, fusion, progressive, pop, electronica. They are real genre sluts. The two sound pretty different. The Fender Rhodes having a bit more of a heavy chunky sound and the Wurlitzer being more oily, dreamy and softer (at least to my ears).
The first idea for the Fender Rhodes electric piano came from musician/inventor Harold Rhodes who during the second world war wanted to create an instrument which injured soldiers could learn to play and practise as therapy while lying in bed. So he created the “ Xylette “ a lap top piano using aluminium rods from B-17 cut to harmonic lengths as tone bars…as a sort of piano glockenspiel. 2 ½ octaves. It was a big success and over 125 000 Xylettes or Army Air corps pianos as they were officially called were made.
The first electric pianos that Harold Rhodes built that resembles that Fender Rhodes that we all know and love were built in the early and mid 60's. One of my favourite models that I recorded a couple of times but never owned or actually had in the studio is the Piano Bass. This model is simply the bass section of a Fender Rhodes piano and is a very solid substitute for a real live electric bass as Ray Manzarek from the Doors eloquently proved.
Hugo Törntorp's Fender Rhodes is a model 54 and as the name might hint it is one of the smallest Fender Rhodes pianos to be built (the piano bass obviously being the smallest ones). It was manufactured in 1980 and was aimed at live musicians who didn't need a full-scale electric piano to haul around. One good feature for Hugo is also that it is a flat top, which means that he could set his Bergman Klavitron on top and then place his fuzz pedals on the note stand of the Fender Rhodes. He also uses a MXR phase 90 to great effect. And to my amazement I found out through surfing the net that the Rhodes/MXR phase 90 combo was a favourite sound used by Billy Joel (Just the way you are) and Paul Simon (still crazy after all these years).
Some of the Fender Rhodes models came with speakers and with Vibratos and they are very friendly instruments to mess with sound wise. Great instruments to distort, tremolo, eq madly or drench in reverbs and echoes. One favourite of mine is to run it through the Electro-harmonix Talking Pedal and then out through an Amp. They are really full sounding instruments so they need a bit of framing occasionally to fit in without using up all the frequencies.
On the new Änglagård songs that we performed live in 2003 we used a fair bit of Fender Rhodes sounds. A really great combo is to mix Vibraphone and Fender Rhodes. On the old stuff we never had one around long enough to get into.
For more info and some great pictures please check out this great web page: www.fenderrhodes.com
Hugo plays