Electric Piano – Everything You Ever Wanted To Know
Electric Piano – Everything You Ever Wanted To Know
The EP is the first electronic piano to be commercially successful. Manufactured by the Farfisa company of Italy, it was introduced in 1964 and initially sold for about $800.00. The EP was compact and light enough to be carried by one person, and its distinctive sound has been described as a cross between a clavichord, harpsichord and celesta. The name of the instrument is short for “Electronic Piano”, though this name was never actually used by the makers (who called it simply “Pianorgan”).
The EP had only 49 keys (4 octaves) compared with 88 keys (7 octaves) on standard pianos. It had no pedals; but these were added in later models (the EP200). The sound volume of the EP was controlled by a set of drawbars similar to those used on a Hammond organ.
Farfisa also made a double keyboard companion to the EP, called the Duet, which had two manuals (keyboards) each with its own set of drawbars. This was intended primarily for church use where two people would play at once, one on each manual; however, it could
Electric Piano – Everything You Ever Wanted To Know
EPCD12-1
(EP)
In this masterclass you will learn everything about the electric piano. Electric pianos are often used in pop music and many other genres. They were invented to play parts that a grand piano cannot, but they have also become very popular in their own right. In this tutorial, we focus mainly on the Fender Rhodes model and variants like the Wurlitzer, Hohner Clavinet, Yamaha CP-70 and CP-80. We also look at the development of analogue synthesisers based on the same principles as these instruments such as the Roland Jupiter 8, Oberheim OBX and Yamaha DX7.
In part one of this masterclass you will learn what an electric piano is and how it works. We will explain the basic building blocks including tonebars, pickups, amplifiers and speakers. You will learn what is special about them compared to other keyboard instruments and how to use their unique sound in your music. We begin by looking at electric pianos from the early days of rock ‘n’ roll in the 1950s until around 1980 when digital synthesisers became very popular. This was when the instruments were used on many classic recordings by Stevie Wonder, Her
If you want to make a recording of an electric piano, there are several things you need to know.
First, what do you mean by electric piano? There’s the Fender Rhodes, which is a sort of electric xylophone that produces tones by hitting metal rods with hammers. Then there’s the Wurlitzer, which is a kind of electric xylophone that produces tones by hitting metal rods with hammers. And then there’s the Hohner Clavinet, which is a kind of electric guitar that produces tones by hitting metal strings with hammers. And then there are all the other kinds.
Second, why do you want to make a recording of an electric piano? There are two reasons most people give: they’re in love with the sound; or they need it for some song they’re writing and can’t find anything else that will work in quite the same way. You should think about which category you fall into.
If you just love electric pianos, my advice would be not to record one. The thing electric pianos do best is break your heart; their tone is poignant in ways that real pianos’ aren’t because it decays so quickly. What makes them wonderful to listen to makes them hard to record well
The Rhodes piano was first introduced in the late 1940s, and was named after Harold Rhodes, its designer. The instrument has a simple design which consists of a cast aluminum frame, steel tines and a wooden case. The piano has a distinctly mellow sound, which is due to the steel reeds and the dampers above them. The sound is produced when the damper is lifted by pressing one of the keys on the keyboard. When the key is released, it returns to its original position and the damper covers the tine again.
The Rhodes piano has been utilized by many musicians over its long history. However, there are only two types of electric pianos that were ever released commercially: Stage Piano (later called Suitcase Piano) and Stage Mark II (also known as Pre-Piano).
Stage Piano: Before releasing their first electric piano in 1959, Rhodes manufactured an upright acoustic piano between 1949 and 1955. This acoustic piano had an electric pickup that converted vibrations into electrical signals, which were then amplified through external speakers. The Stage Piano had a suitcase-like design with a handle on top so that it could be easily transported from place to place.
Stage Mark II: In 1970 Fender bought out Rhodes and released the Stage Mark II in 1973
The first electric pianos came out in the late 1930s and by the mid-late 1940s were available from several manufacturers. Initially, electric pianos were designed to imitate existing piano sounds and nothing more.
Early electric pianos such as the Fender Rhodes used metal reeds to convert electrical impulses into mechanical vibrations. These impulses were then amplified and converted back into sound waves by a speaker.
The earliest Fender Rhodes models used an electromechanical design, but in the late 1960s, solid-state circuitry became standard.
The electronic piano is a new and exciting musical instrument in which you can compose your own music. With the help of a computer you can create music without knowing how to play the piano!
An electronic piano is an electric musical instrument that produces sounds through the use of synthesizers. These are musical instruments with keyboards, which generate sound using oscillators and filters. Synthesizers are usually controlled by a keyboard, but they can also be controlled by other means. A synthesizer may also be used to control other musical instruments or sound generators. The sounds produced by these instruments are often called “tones”.
A synthesizer can produce almost any kind of sound you can imagine. It is capable of producing complex sounds such as drums and cymbals, or simple tones like sine waves and square waves. Synthesizers have been used in pop music since the 1960s and 1970s. They were first introduced as a means to create electronic music back then, but they have since evolved into a tool for creating almost any type of sound imaginable.
The electronic piano has many different names, such as the digital piano or digital keyboard. It’s also known as a MIDI keyboard or MIDI controller because it uses MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) technology to control its sounds. This
Pianos are probably the most complex instruments ever invented. And they’ve been around for a while.
Before I was building electronic instruments, I used to work as a piano technician – tuning, repairing, and rebuilding pianos. One of my jobs was to take apart and rebuild old pianos. This would give me an up-close look at some of the most beautifully engineered machinery that exists. It’s amazing just how well the design works after hundreds of years.
The piano is basically a very simple instrument. When you strike a key, its corresponding string is struck by a felt hammer. That’s it! But when you consider that there are 88 keys, each with three strings (except for the bottom two octaves which have only two) and that these strings are under tremendous tension, things get complicated quickly.
A typical upright piano has about 10,000 moving parts (give or take 2,000). A grand piano has about 15,000 moving parts (give or take 5,000). The action is made up of thousands of tiny pieces of wood and felt and metal all working together in perfect harmony (pun intended). All this complexity ensures that every time you press a key, the corresponding hammer will strike the string with exactly the right force at exactly