Good amp/cab sim for Fende Rhodes?

[Prime Mover]

I'm interested to hear what others are doing for amp sims on Rhodes VIs. I'm using Scarbee's Kontakt Mark I, which I really love, but the built in amp sim is pretty "meh". One of the sounds I really love on a Rhodes is what I would call, the "grouch", a sort of resonant distortion on the sharp attacks, reminds me of an old guy snapping at someone. You hear it in a lot of fusion stuff from the 70s. What would be some good combinations of modelers to use with a Rhodes VI?

[midilance]

Just one idea. Fender or a facsimile of a fender. Go for two cabs so you can get the stereo panning. Or just try a bunch until you hear what you like.

[David Polich]

Amplitube Fender is probably the best Fender amp emulator there is.

http://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/fender/

Interestingly, I just acquired a Mark I Fender Rhodes Stage 73 from
the bassist in my tribute band. It needs some serious work...but it
did come with an owner's manual, and in the back pages Fender listed
three amplifier recommendations - the Rhodes Super Satellite System (
a 100 watt power amp head and two 2x12 cabinets), a Fender Super Six
Reverb amp (a 100-watt combo amp/6x10 speaker cab), and a Twin Reverb
amp. The Stage 73 Rhodes itself does not have a preamp, you just connect
the single mono output to the input on an amp or a mixing desk.

Back in the day, Rhodes players would usually run their Rhodes Stage through
an amp. Jan Hammer used to put his through a Marshall stack when touring
with Mahavishnu. I saw Chick Corea in a club in Boulder Colorado in 1971,
running his Stage 73 through a Maestro Ring Modulator pedal, a Fender Blender fuzz tone pedal, and then from there to a Hiwatt stack. People who
played Rhodes Suitcase pianos would either run from the line out to an amp
or mixing board, or play through the suitcase speaker cabinet (2 x 12) and
put a mic on the cabinet. The Suitcase preamp could be driven into distortion if you cranked it all the way up.

One thing that jumped out at me when I acquired my bass player's Rhodes
was how noisy the mechanical action was, and that the pickup amplified
not only the hammers hitting the tines, but everything else - the wooden
cabinet thump, the metallic sympathetic resonance of the harp, the damper movement, and the noise of the key mechanisms. One of my issues with Scarbee has always been that they didn't pay attention to these other
"noises' and components of the Rhodes sound. The mechanical noises and
resonances also figure strongly into the sound and their absence can
make distortion or amp simulation seem less realistic.

[supersonic]

I have a suitcase rhodes from 1977 and i soemtimes use The UAD amp simulation. Anything goes really. Using the pedals is a great idea too.

[HCMarkus]

I used to love my Stage 73 through a Roland JC120, back when chorus was a must-have for the Rhodes.

[daniel.sneed]

Ampeg Portaflex 500 / 18" cab, is my go to.

[Tobor]

I used to have a Rhodes 54 (topped with a DW8000 at the time) and ran it through a Fender Twin. Boss Chorus pedal. Yes, it could rock! Memories.....

I like the Scarbee Mark I, but good points about the lack of noises. Amplitube is my favorite guitar sim, and with all the other virtual pedals now available I should experiment more to find a higher level of funkiness.

[Dwetmaster]

http://www.overloud.com/products/VKFX.php

This is the amp That scarbee himself made for his original Rhodes Sample set. He sold the Rhodes to NI and the Amp to Overloud.
The two team up pretty good together.

[mhschmieder]

Actually, Overloud developed VKFX for Scarbee, and it went to their website after Scarbee stopped directly marketing stuff. I don't think of it as an amp emulation, but rather a an effects suite. It's still very good but very CPU-intensive. I may eventually move away from it, but have a feeling it's still the smoothest on electric keyboard sound sources.

I would go with a Fender amp emulation for the amp part. Probably the effects should happen before the amp stage though -- especially if the reverb is engaged.

[David Polich]

Actually, Overloud developed VKFX for Scarbee, and it went to their website after Scarbee stopped directly marketing stuff. I don't think of it as an amp emulation, but rather a an effects suite. It's still very good but very CPU-intensive. I may eventually move away from it, but have a feeling it's still the smoothest on electric keyboard sound sources.

I would go with a Fender amp emulation for the amp part. Probably the effects should happen before the amp stage though -- especially if the reverb is engaged.

Excellent point, Mark. Just as most guitarists run their guitars into their
pedals and then from there into their amp, running your "Rhodes" into effects first and then into the amp is the classic old school way to go.

The Suitcase Rhodes included what was essentially a Fender amp/speaker cabinet. So yes, a Fender amp emulation would be the best way to emulate
a Suitcase Rhodes.

[stainless]

[quote]I used to love my Stage 73 through a Roland JC120, back when chorus was a must-have for the Rhodes./quote]

+1 I had a Stage 88 and the Chorus 120 was a great sound for it. I used it with a Twin for a while, but my nit was the Twin needed to be turned up a bit too much for small rooms to have a good tone (it was a blackface with JBLs ... no master vol)

having said all this, I don't know if anyone has a good sim of the Roland Jazz Chorus 120

[Dwetmaster]

Actually, Overloud developed VKFX for Scarbee, and it went to their website after Scarbee stopped directly marketing stuff.

Thanks, I didn't know this.

[mhschmieder]

The Roland Jazz Chorus is the amp that almost killed me. I had a double flight of stairs and a tight corner with a narrower second flight, and that sucker's center of gravity was just WRONG.

I bought it because I didn't know any better, it was before the internet, and I lived in the sticks where I only had the advice of one experienced musician to live by.

It's the worst piece of gear I've ever owned, and turned me off of amplified music for many years. But of course it's a matter of taste. So if you want an emu, think about the existing emus of Roland dual chorus pedals (not the small foot stomp units but the larger ones such as the Roland Space Echo), because I'm pretty sure it was the same circuitry or very close to it.

[David Polich]

I used to love my Stage 73 through a Roland JC120, back when chorus was a must-have for the Rhodes./quote]

+1 I had a Stage 88 and the Chorus 120 was a great sound for it. I used it with a Twin for a while, but my nit was the Twin needed to be turned up a bit too much for small rooms to have a good tone (it was a blackface with JBLs ... no master vol)

having said all this, I don't know if anyone has a good sim of the Roland Jazz Chorus 120

There's a Roland Jazz Chorus emulation
in Amplitube 3, and it''s quite good. It's
not called a "Roland" though..I forget
what its name is in Amplitube 3.

That said, the best chorus for the Rhodes
was the Tri-Stereo chorus that Chuck Monte
included in his Dyno-My-Piano customizing
jobs. THAT is the chorus you hear on
Styx's "Babe" and Billy Joel's "Just The Way
You Are". The second most used chorus
for Rhodes was the Boss CE-2 chorus pedal.

[mhschmieder]

The Dyno-My-Piano chorus has been modeled a few times. One of those is available via Gospel Keys for MachFive. I can't remember if I bought that upgrade/crossgrade during the recent sale but think I did, if only as a learning experience to compare a Kontakt library vs. an equivalent in MachFive and really do a shootout with a reference sound I know well.

I think there might be one in that large collection of plugs from the plug-in-company-that-keeps-changing-its-name too. And certainly some CE-2 emulations and settings show up here and there.