The Vintage Vibe Variable Voice Control
Variable Voice Control
Now you can personalize your tone, instantly!
With its appearance on thousands of iconic records, it’s not hard to hear just how versatile the classic Fender Rhodes sound can be. But there are a myriad of factors that contribute to the sound of a Rhodes piano, like the vintage of piano used, and how each of those instruments was set up. With an original production run of approximately 20 years, many different iterations of Harold Rhodes’ design were produced, and over the past 50 plus years, countless musicians and technicians each had their own idea of how to voice their piano.
What is Voicing?
The traditional Rhodes design allows for the timbre of each individual note to be adjusted from full fundamental to pure overtone, and anywhere in-between. Voicing is the process of selecting a tone and adjusting all of the piano’s notes to sound uniform, from one note to the next. The downside of such adjustability is the time it takes to voice an entire piano, as well as the effect such voicing has on the feel and performance of the piano. Many action specifications are altered by adjusting the height of the tine in order to change its position relative to the pickup.
How can voicing versatility be achieved in a minimum of time without adverse effects on the piano’s playability?
The answer is the Vintage Vibe Variable Voice Control. By globally repositioning the pickups as opposed to the tone generators, the complete sound spectrum is available to the musician instantly, and with infinite adjustability. Strike line, hammer blow distance, escapement, and damper lost motion all remain unaltered, preserving feel and response throughout the timbral spectrum.
How Does the Vintage Vibe Variable Voice Control Work?
Our US Patent No.11,475,868 design floats the pickup rail from the piano’s harp assembly, allowing a lever to alter the position of the entire pickup rail in relation to the tines. For a working musician, simply sliding a lever left or right results in the most instantaneous global voicing ever achieved!
Set to the middle of the slider’s travel is the sound Vintage Vibe has become famous for; Balanced fundamentals with a hint of overtone under a light touch. More aggressive playing introduces more overtones, which (and here’s the key) gradually decay back to those beautiful, balanced fundamentals.
Moving the slider to the right introduces more and more overtone. “Bark” and “bite” are accentuated, gradually thinning the overall tone into late Rhodes-era territory. Want headroom? Moving the slider all the way to the right virtually cancels out all fundamentals for a unique, ethereal tone in the treble, with a multi-footage effect present in the bass/tenor section.
Moving the slider to the left allows the fundamental tone to shine through. Add-in high frequency response available through our latest Stereo Vibe preamp (included), and the results are full and rich with a sparkling attack. Continuing all the way to the left of the slider’s travel and the piano recreates the early tones of 1960’s Raymac tines, right down to the quick decay of harmonics that were the hallmark of the “Silver top" and “Jetsons" pianos.
The Vintage Vibe Variable Voice Control allows you to physically voice your piano on the go, something no electronic circuit can do.
For the most customized electric piano playing experience, all roads lead to Vintage Vibe!