I have some Leslie 60's getting worked on right now in Chicago with my Wurlitzer 270, I have only used these on Wurly's which sound amazing! I will have to see how I can integrate it into my Rhodes Suitcase and use some stereo setups.
George William Knowles (aka "Bubba") gave me his Rhodes in 2013 after it had been sitting in his outdoor garage shed for a few years. He insisted I pay $101.01 for it, but I just gave him one C note. I drove to Columbia, SC to pick it up, and after loading it he would not let me come inside his cottage for a visit. He was like that sometimes. He would go into seclusion and would not be social for a week at a time. I was a little miffed, because it is a 3 hours drive. As it turns out this Rhodes was in the worst condition of the five I ended up with. In fitting fashion he made me work on it for almost ten years, before it was playable. Key bushings were something new to me, so I had to buy "cauls" to hold in the Steinway felt to glue them. Anyway, it was a labor of love and remembrance. Like any good stage model Rhodes, it is not complete without its own amplification system. There are not many good keyboard amps commercially available, and certainly not the Roland KC models. I have used these a lot mostly on the ships. But a Rhodes is an electro-acoustic instrument, and its sound being produced from a mechanical vibrating tine/tone bar assembly. Don Leslie, after his company was purchased by CBS, came out with this system to compete with the Janus system made by Harold Rhodes' company. There is not much information on its origin. The Janus system also included in the Suitcase Rhodes, had 12" speakers and 50 watt amps. The suitcase had four 12's, two facing back and two forward. The Janus system was a bit too big and tall, but I think had two 12's. These are really better, one because they are much smaller, and two because they only use 10" speakers, but in 4 ohms. They are plenty loud, 100 watts. I replaced the original utah speakers with jensens which are much lighter because of a lighter weight magnet. The Utahs are very good, so now I have four of them as spares. But the jensens eliminate the low end rumble and scale the Rhodes beautifully for any playing situation. With a suitcase Rhodes with a Peterson or janus preamp built into the rail, you can take a line out in stereo to run to your mixing console. I think Herbie Hancock and chick and the rest did this for live shows. You could hear yourself on state but send the signal to the house mixer. The Retroflyer doesn't offer this patching capability, but it does have the stereo tremolo effect. You can use it in mono or stereo. I never have miked up my cabinets ever while gigging. But now I am learning how to do that. The Shure SM-57 is the appropriate choice, because it is meant to be used on the human voice close up. So if you stick one on a speaker a few inches away you get a great sound. Of course dangling the mike in front of the speaker from the cord isn't the best option, because you are only getting a small portion of the mikes pick up. I have had to make four different sets of mike booms to record keyboard instruments. Convenience is nice, so you can just sit down and play comfortably, but get a studio quality sound if you want to record what you are playing. I did not play anything much here. Just testing this new/old set up.
I have some Leslie 60's getting worked on right now in Chicago with my Wurlitzer 270, I have only used these on Wurly's which sound amazing! I will have to see how I can integrate it into my Rhodes Suitcase and use some stereo setups.
George William Knowles (aka "Bubba") gave me his Rhodes in 2013 after it had been sitting in his outdoor garage shed for a few years. He insisted I pay $101.01 for it, but I just gave him one C note. I drove to Columbia, SC to pick it up, and after loading it he would not let me come inside his cottage for a visit. He was like that sometimes. He would go into seclusion and would not be social for a week at a time. I was a little miffed, because it is a 3 hours drive. As it turns out this Rhodes was in the worst condition of the five I ended up with. In fitting fashion he made me work on it for almost ten years, before it was playable. Key bushings were something new to me, so I had to buy "cauls" to hold in the Steinway felt to glue them. Anyway, it was a labor of love and remembrance. Like any good stage model Rhodes, it is not complete without its own amplification system. There are not many good keyboard amps commercially available, and certainly not the Roland KC models. I have used these a lot mostly on the ships. But a Rhodes is an electro-acoustic instrument, and its sound being produced from a mechanical vibrating tine/tone bar assembly. Don Leslie, after his company was purchased by CBS, came out with this system to compete with the Janus system made by Harold Rhodes' company. There is not much information on its origin. The Janus system also included in the Suitcase Rhodes, had 12" speakers and 50 watt amps. The suitcase had four 12's, two facing back and two forward. The Janus system was a bit too big and tall, but I think had two 12's. These are really better, one because they are much smaller, and two because they only use 10" speakers, but in 4 ohms. They are plenty loud, 100 watts. I replaced the original utah speakers with jensens which are much lighter because of a lighter weight magnet. The Utahs are very good, so now I have four of them as spares. But the jensens eliminate the low end rumble and scale the Rhodes beautifully for any playing situation. With a suitcase Rhodes with a Peterson or janus preamp built into the rail, you can take a line out in stereo to run to your mixing console. I think Herbie Hancock and chick and the rest did this for live shows. You could hear yourself on state but send the signal to the house mixer. The Retroflyer doesn't offer this patching capability, but it does have the stereo tremolo effect. You can use it in mono or stereo. I never have miked up my cabinets ever while gigging. But now I am learning how to do that. The Shure SM-57 is the appropriate choice, because it is meant to be used on the human voice close up. So if you stick one on a speaker a few inches away you get a great sound. Of course dangling the mike in front of the speaker from the cord isn't the best option, because you are only getting a small portion of the mikes pick up. I have had to make four different sets of mike booms to record keyboard instruments. Convenience is nice, so you can just sit down and play comfortably, but get a studio quality sound if you want to record what you are playing. I did not play anything much here. Just testing this new/old set up.
and well, you can just unscrew the windscreens on the SM-58 which have foam in them to accentuate the high end. Sounds better this way.
Now if I just had a joint and some Christian Brother's Brandy, Bubba would be in the house. I am wearing one of his sweat suits.