RHODES PIANO FOR NEMESYS GIGASAMPLER

BACKGROUND ON THE INSTRUMENT AND SAMPLING PROCESS
The Rhodes piano sampled here is a late 1970's era 73-key Suitcase model. I rented this unit from a local pro rental shop. The sampling took about a week to complete. The recording was done directly from the harp, bypassing all of the preamp circuitry. This allowed me to get a much cleaner sample with far lower noise. The instrument was directly interfaced to a high-end 24-bit ADC. From that point forward all manipulation of the sample was done in the digital domain. Each note was sampled at four velocities. The release noise was also sampled for each note. The samples were normalized and trimmed. When all edits were complete, each sample was converted to 16-bit (dither applied) and saved as a .WAV file. There is no looping. Every note was allowed to decay naturally.

THE PROGRAMS
I provided three programs (all based on the same set of samples). Even though this is a 73-key instrument, I stretched the high E to high C. To my ear this sounded OK. The low notes were not as cooperative. They sounded awful stretched below the low E. Personally, having owned MANY 73 and 88 note Rhodes in the past, I think the original design of 73 notes was probably a wise decision. At the extremes, the tines lose a lot.

The three programs are identical except for a lowpass filter applied. Standard Rhodes has a small amount of filter applied which subtly smoothes out the instrument. Soft Rhodes has even more filter applied and might be suitable for comping. Brighter Rhodes has no filter.

If you're astute enough to look at the region mapping of the samples in the Instrument Editor you'll notice that not all of the samples were used. If you've played a number of real Rhodes pianos you can attest to the fact that these are each unique instruments. In fact, in comparison to other electro-mechanical keyboards of that era (Hammond, Clavinet, Wurlizer) the average Rhodes piano was far less consistent note-to-note. One note might bark wonderfully, while the next note sounded lifeless. The instrument that I sampled was no exception. I was told the instrument was in good repair and had been well maintained, but given the fact that it was 20 years old I did find inconsistency note-to-note. When confronted with a less than perfect note, I choose to borrow from a neighbor. In addition to eliminating the problem note, this tends to make the instrument sound more consistent.

In total, the .gig is over 500MB in size and does require 128MB of RAM (according to the GigaSampler Editor).

The instrument was tuned AFTER it was sampled and brought into the Instrument Editor (tuning the original Rhodes isn't my idea of fun).

I DON'T HEAR ANY TINES
I am not a big fan of the tine (bell) sound which many people consider synonymous with the Rhodes sound. I prefer a mellower tome, more in line with the sound players like Herbie Handcock, Chick Corea and others achieved. This sound, I feel, is more suitable for doing things like comping behind singers and blowing solo lines. If you're looking for the tine sound, you're going to be disappointed because there aint much of it here. I suggest you just use the Rhodes sounds found on just about every waveform-based synth from Roland, Korg, Yamaha and others if that's what you're after.

IS THIS .GIG PERFECT?
No it's not. I am happy about some aspects of it and not others. The loops are perfect, because there are none. I am happy with the sampling and don't feel anything compromised the sound during this process. I do wish the original instrument was more consistent. I wish I could have gotten ever note in the mid-range to bark, for example. It did not. I do think the instrument is highly useable in the right context. You be the judge from the MP3s. I hope you find it to your liking