Before I got this piano, I had attacked several music shops with questions about synthesizers with Fender sound in it. The salesman gave their best to persuade me to buy one of those Yamaha or Roland keyboards which emulates the Fender sound. But having the sound of Ray Charles right in my ears no "machine" could convince me despite of the attractive prices.

Next experiment: I borrowed a highly adjustable Roland synthesizer from my friend and tried to set it up by comparing the generated signal to a CD Record from Ray Charles in assistance with my oscilloscope. It was not possible to produce something comparable to an original Fender piano although the sound was also nice :-)

In 1994 I almost had the chance to buy a wurlitzer piano from a music teacher. But he finally decided to keep it for his little son to chingle with. Why the hack he asked me to buy it? I still don't know...

Finally I could realize my dream. In 1996 I got this famous piano manufactured in 1976 by chance, and - sorry guys - almost for free -  if I may mention that. It was in a quite acceptable condition, but I had to clean up the whole thing, readjust the tines and revise the case. After cleaning the keyboard panel and freeing the keys from nicotine, they looked as white as new.
Having done all this, the piano surprised me with a clean tight sound. Before I was disappointed because the sound was dump and dull.

Several weeks later, I bought an old wah wah  pedal (from Wah Face) on a flea market. This sounds really great by connecting it between the piano and the amplifier, although it was constructed for guitars.

Look at the front panel: There's only one jack, a bass boost and a volume knob. There is no equalizer or other effect generators on the front.
Glad to own such a piano, I hope it will lead me to musical success!

This is how it works:

The unique tone of the Rhodes piano derives from the principle of a tuning fork. While the common tuning fork has two legs of equal length and mass, the Rhodes tuning fork is compounded by the tone bar (7) and the tine (2). They are alike only in pitch. Without the tone bar, the sound made by the vibrating tine would die immediately. To set up the exact frequency, there is a Tuning Spring assigned to the Tine acting as a pitch control by moving.
To transform the tone in a electric signal, there's a pick up mounted in front of the tine. This pickup could be compared with a pickup of an electrical guitar.

Hey - that is it!

(Note: A spectrum diagramm will follow soon!)