Rhodes Mark 7

[Trp]

Originally Posted by goldphinga

Nothing will ever beat a real Rhodes except a better real Rhodes and that is what we are about to get our hands on!

Maybe. Maybe not. No one has played the production run, yet, so that´s pure speculation. To be honest, I haven´t played the exhibition prototypes, but two friends (both professional pianists) have at the Messe. According to them it sounded good, but not on par with a top serviced rhodes and felt a little worn out already.

We´ll see...

[dergerd]

The prototypes at musikmesse still had the old action. They extremely improved the action since than and at NAMM 09 they already had the new ones.

[goldphinga]

Originally Posted by Trp

Maybe. Maybe not. No one has played the production run, yet, so that´s pure speculation. To be honest, I haven´t played the exhibition prototypes, but two friends (both professional pianists) have at the Messe. According to them it sounded good, but not on par with a top serviced rhodes and felt a little worn out already.

We´ll see...

People have played the production model-thats what was showing at the latest NAMM.

A top serviced Rhodes can still have a dubious action.Every Rhodes is different, in fact things changed from month to month back in the day. Quality control was not one of the old Rhodes companies strongest points. Many Rhodes that have been teched out and had loads spent on them often come to me when the owner has shelled out £100's and the Rhodes still sounds and plays like crap.Thats because there are only a handful of great Rhodes and a shedload of substandard ones.

I get them sounding and playing as good as they can (it amazes me what some techs consider to be a proper service) but many just dont have the potential to be great without complete rebuilds and blueprinting which takes forever and is very costly. The new ones WILL eliminate those headaches of action problems, poor tines, etc which were always the achilles heel of Rhodes. Thats why i can safely say the new ones will be better. Oh yeah and they come with a guarantee. There's a simple choice here though. If you dont believe the Mark7 will be top notch then dont buy one. Get an old one and be prepared for constant headaches!

The people ive spoken to that have played the Rhodes Mk7 most recently at NAMM were blown away by the new action and sound.

Ill report back as soon as i get one in for review.

[sparker]

Morning..

Not sure what Arbiter's closing will mean for Rhodes, but I'd be surpried if there's much if any of a delay.

I've not spoken to Rhodes yet, but I'd be pretty certain that they will have something worked out very soon.

Cheers

Steve

[tHe_sAa]

Hey all,

I've been waiting for this product for about 2 years now, and decided to give up. They said late 2008, then Feb 2009, now it is nearly the end of Feb, and i'm simply tired of waiting. So i ordered a Nord Electro 3, which has a pretty mean Rhodes sound (obviously not exact in terms of sound, and nothing like the action). However, once you plug it into a sound desk and play with the rest of my band, people are not really going to complain that the Rhodes sound isn't perfect!

I wish Rhodes either communicated more, or delivered when promised!

[Sounds Great]

Originally Posted by tHe_sAa

So i ordered a Nord Electro 3, which has a pretty mean Rhodes sound (obviously not exact in terms of sound, and nothing like the action). However, once you plug it into a sound desk and play with the rest of my band, people are not really going to complain that the Rhodes sound isn't perfect!

It isn't just about what the audience hears. More importantly it is the relationship and the feedback the musician gets from his instrument. It isn't going to be the same with the Nord, though it certainly may be good enough, depending..

[The Beatsmith]

Originally Posted by Sounds Great

It isn't just about what the audience hears. More importantly it is the relationship and the feedback the musician gets from his instrument. It isn't going to be the same with the Nord, though it certainly may be good enough, depending..

Er yes, but the new rhodes isn't even an option, so what's he to do?

[Trp]

Originally Posted by The Beatsmith

Er yes, but the new rhodes isn't even an option, so what's he to do?

Buying an old one and having it properly serviced is still the best option IMO.

[The MPCist]

Rhodes should have just kept everything under wraps while they worked on this project and only when they were really ready to ship, take it to NAMM and make a big PR thing out of it.

Waiting for all this time, 2 years is it?... That's a recipe for PR disaster as it tends to disappoint people.

I'd like one too.... that's what I thought years back when they first announced they were making one but I had no idea it would take them this long...... I guess they don't want my money and I'll just have to live with my old well-maintained Rhodes....

[JRF]

Looking at the pictures on the Rhodespiano site it seems they're using the same keys asthey did on the Mark V. They also use the same hammercombs and snap in hammersolution that they used on the Mark V. I've rebuilt a few Mark Vs in my time and I find it strange that they use the same hammer and key design as the Mark V eventhough the chief designers of the Mark V later admitted that the longer hammerthrow on the Mark V wore out the hammerpins faster making them sloppy sideways and after a while they broke completely. If you look at the dampersection on the picture where the lady installs a key you can also see that the piano she works on has the older style dampersection and not the improved dampers you can find on the Mark V.

I for one would love to own one of the new Rhodes pianos if they will be available but to say that they will be SO much better than the older Rhodespianos is to take it a bit too far... From what I can see they haven't taken the new Mark 7 any further mechanically than what they did with the Mark V except for a pre amp, MIDI and a new outer case. The prototypes were made up of leftover Mark V parts given to the RMC so what people have been playing at NAMM and Frankfurt is basically a newly assembled Mark V with new old stock parts and some old parts... Some friends of mine who took a peek under the hood could report of old and oxidized tines and tonebars so I guess they weren't NOS...

But I guess we'll just have to wait and see right? That's wat we've been doing the past two years so we're getting pretty good at it too ;-)

[djshq26]

Hi All

Goldphinga & dergerd I too am a true believer and am waiting hopefully for a positive outcome as I have a gloss red 73 AM, legs and flight case on order. Now waiting for the midi to be sorted. I'm in Australia and have talked to Joe supossedly about 2 months to be ready. Let me know if you hear of any other news My restored Mark 1 is looking forward to a well earned break!!!!!!!!

[dergerd]

Originally Posted by djshq26

Hi All

Goldphinga & dergerd I too am a true believer and am waiting hopefully for a positive outcome as I have a gloss red 73 AM, legs and flight case on order. Now waiting for the midi to be sorted. I'm in Australia and have talked to Joe supossedly about 2 months to be ready. Let me know if you hear of any other news My restored Mark 1 is looking forward to a well earned break!!!!!!!!

Yeah Joe told me the Midi-ones would take them a bit longer than the S and M verisons. Latter should ship mid-march according to Joe, since they just waited for the chinese-made pedals to arrive. Hope this is the case. I'll post as soon as I know anything new.

[Marzzz]

Originally Posted by Sounds Great

So you are saying we might actually see this thing before the world premier of Chinese Democracy?

Not at this rate.....

[teamsterjim]

PR, SHMEE-R,.............
These instruments are a one of a kind.
When it finally does become available many old lovers and new will buy it.
I have been fighting sample libraries and hardware romplers since the '90s, and of course I am getting by, but a real Rhodes is exactly that.
My immations all have 2 out of the 3 sound requirements I need, but zero action. I did however get a fair action emu from the Oberheim MC3000 with it's intensely deep programmable velocity curves and tables.
But at the end of the day the Rhodes, D6 and Wurly are still far from being emulated. But the sounds are close enough to keep me happy.
I just got an expensive DSP rack that was a year late being released, and many cacklers complained and said the company would die on the vine, etc.
But when you release a top shelf, bug free product, if it's hot, it'll sell.
Be thankful our hardware isn't like software that developers seem to release and fix as they go. That kind of trickery don't fly w/ hardware.

[Sounds Great]

Originally Posted by Marzzz

Not at this rate.....

Too late.

[goldphinga]

Rhodes need to clear up and give dates on the exact launch- as it stands it all seems quite random..

some people have theirs but are they in full scale production or not?

will someone from Rhodes please step up to the table and tell us what is going on!!!!

[James Lehmann]

Originally Posted by coleelsaleh

...aside from the pretty pictures on [The Rhodes] website it doesn't seem like the current "keepers of the flame" are doing anything at all to preserve that old Rhodes credibility. Many a great product has been denied its ascension to the throne by bad business practices. It seems obvious to me that the Rhodes Music Corporation needs to spend just a little more money and hire a PR guy or two before the rest of their enthusiastic potential customer base loses interest and they get stuck with a warehouse full of unsellable behemoth bathtub-pianos.

My sentiments exactly.

I wrote the following in another thread on this very topic.


The vague introductory video on the Rhodes website says [release in] "February 2009" although it's not at all clear what exactly is going to happen in February 2009.

The out-of-date message from the Rhodes CEO reads:

"The new Rhodes Company is very proud of our introduction line to be released to the market in summer of 2008"
Joseph A. Brandstetter, CEO, Rhodes Music Corporation

There appears to be no effort to correct this untruth anywhere on their website.

What I will never understand is why companies think no news is better than some news. It's like being kept waiting for a plane - passengers would at least rather be told that there's been a delay and the flight will leave in two hours than not being told anything at all. How hard would it be for someone to put a quick note on the Rhodes website updating the erroneous information on the site? It's basic customer service and it seems Rhodes are so far missing the mark, which does not bode well for the future. In the absence of any information at all speculation and rumour can quickly turn into negative publicity.

If I was Mr Brandstetter as a bare minimum I would:

1) Keep the company website updated with accurate news about the company and its products (last entry on the 'Press' page was 2007)
2) Hire an intern to answer questions and disseminate accurate information about the company and its products to the large potential client base on Forums like this

He appears to have done neither.

[goldphinga]

its no small deal producing a Rhodes..

[teamsterjim]

Deadlines To Meet........

[goldphinga]

Originally Posted by XITE-1/4LIVE

Deadlines To Meet........

Whats that supposed to mean?

[Kaneepa]

Rhodes Mark 7 - Rhodes Piano - Rhodes Music Corporation

It seems they've started shipping!!

[Darius van H]

Sweet, where can you buy one in Europe?

[Mind-Over-Midi]

Good news. I really want one of these!

[GYang]

Contact them.
They reply.
Production is running and probably orders are getting quite fast.

[goldphinga]

I had a long chat with the CEO 2 days ago and all is good. He's knows he is producing whats gonna be the best Rhodes ever. He listened to me and we chatted for about an hour and i liked all he had to say and he is taking the product very seriously indeed.

[Sounds Great]

Great news! Can they take an IOU?

[bexarametric]

This has become the new UAD2/Lynx PCIe thread.

[The MPCist]

So..... now that they're shipping, anyone on the board get one yet?

[dergerd]

As I'm one of the few (?) European Preorder Customers I can say that my instrument (73 keys A model) is ready for shipping. Only problem: I have to take care of the shipping, the costs (taxes, duties...) myself. This is harder than I thought It would be. I'm looking at a 500 USD Fedex shipping costs + 19% VAT for import and 3 % duties.

Also the pedal is not included yet, because it's still not ready. But it will be shipped free of charge as soon as it is finished.

Is there anyone else here from Europe, especially Germany? Can somebody give some advice on getting a better deal with the shipment?

Best,

Gerd

[goldphinga]

videos up of the factory tour...

Inside the New Rhodes, Part 1

10 more videos to come asap

:O)