60s and 70s sounds

smythology

New member
What's the best Keyboard company for making 60s and 70s era keyboard sounds like rhodes, B3, mellotron, etc?

I downloaded some rhodes sound ROMs that Kurzweil put together and they sounded great but I get hounded with Roland PR saying that they offer every 60s and 70s sound under the sun...but I haven't heard them. And Kurzweil seems a bit more expensive

robin
 
As far as I know they don't have mellotron (yet? wouldn't put it past 'em to offer that sound as future download), but for screamin' B3 and great Rhodes, Wurly, Clav, and electric piano (if you're into that), I think Clavia's Nord Electro 2 just smokes. Also, as I alluded to, they offer patch updates you can download for free from their Website.

It ain't a cheap board, tho. But for performing those sounds, I liked it better than anything I tried from Roland, Yamaha, Kurzweil (and I HAVE a PC2), Korg, and Alesis. The Electro has way more balls and bite.

It's definitely a specialty keyboard; MIDI handling ain't too feature-rich, and it only does those sounds, but it's VERY easy to tweak on the fly: It's a performer's keyboard, for sure. No sequencer, no multi MIDI channels simultaneously, no strings, horns, expansions (other than downloading new patches in place of old), etc. But it does one thing -- classic electromechanical keys -- and does it VERY well. Onboard effects don't even include reverb (my one chagrin), but dial in tremolo, pan effect (can you say "retro"?), phaser, ring mod, chorus, distortion, etc., and/or the best Leslie sim I've heard on a 'board, and how can ya not be havin' fun? :D

My .02

gg
 
I just demo'd the EMU Vintage Keys rackmount, and it sounds excellent - almost bought it.

I decided to dig up a Vintage Keys Q-card on ebay for my QS6 and I'm glad I did - I'm blown away by how incredible it sounds.

You can pick up QS rackmounts for cheap on ebay - the Vintage keys card will cost about $75 on ebay (they're tough to find though).
 
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