Modern and Vintage Keyboards

Here at Redlands Studios we have one of the best collections of modern and vintage keyboards in south Florida. They are all here for your use at no additional charge with all recording and rehearsal studio time.

Roland Fantom X8 | Yamaha Motif Rack ES | Hammond B3 Organ and Model 122 Leslie
Fender Rhodes Stage 88 Mark I | Yamaha DX7 | Wurlitzer 200A

Modern:

Roland Fantom X8

The Roland Fantom X8 is a very intuitive and easy to use workstation, and the weighted keys are the best around. I love the Progressive Hammer Action on the X8. If you're looking for a realistic piano feel, this is pretty darn close.

The Roland Fantom X8's 2nd most obvious unique feature is the new, improved 16 rubber Dynamic pads. We use them for triggering drums, vocals and other sounds. The 128 Polyphony is great...four tones can give you some awesome sounds.

The Roland sounds seem to work well in a mix. The beauty of this board is that you can tweak, sculpt, change or create almost any sound you want with the powerful synthesis engine under the hood.

Yamaha Motif Rack ES

The MOTIF-RACK ES delivers a massive collection of studio-quality sounds for a wide variety of musical genres. The 1,152 voices and 65 drum kits are easily accessible via the front panel Category Search function. From the Emulative Sounds of acoustic piano and orchestra to the Extreme Synthesis of cutting-edge hip-hop and electronica, the MOTIF RACK ES delivers. Performances that layer and split up to four Voices and over 1,700 arpeggios from realistic Guitar strumming, to Drum Grooves to classic techno riffs, inspire new musical ideas to get your creativity flowing.

Vintage:

Hammond B3 organ and Model 122 Leslie

One of the most unique instruments you can find is the Hammond B3 organ. No matter how sophisticated software synth becomes, you just can't find a good replacement for the gritty, intense sound of a Hammond B3 with Leslie cabinet.

Ours speaks through a Model 122 Leslie and just sounds great in the live room. We have a complete set of working bass pedals and is well maintained and ready to add authenticity to your recordings.

Since its introduction in 1950s, the Hammond B3 organ has been one of the most popular keyboard instruments in popular music. Its devotees range across decades and musical genres, and have included such greats at Ethel Smith, George Gershwin, Keith Emerson, and Greg Allman; artists such as James Brown, Billy Preston, Ray Manzarek of The Doors, and John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin brought the Hammond to a wider public and made it part of popular music.

Fender Rhodes Stage 88 Mark I

The Fender Rhodes electric piano possesses one of the most recognizable sounds in modern music. The Rhodes' popularity has waxed and waned over the decades since its introduction, but its sound is still in vogue today

The classic Rhodes sound is highly expressive — part bell, part xylophone, and part piano. With its relatively soft, muted tones and brilliant dynamics, the Rhodes piano is especially well suited to the subtleties of jazz. Hitting a note really hard produces anything from a harmonic or a dull thwack to a clear, loud, crystalline tone.

Two hardware pieces that greatly influence the Rhodes sound are the amplifier and the effects processor through which the piano is played. Our Silver-face Fender Twin Reverb is our amplifier of choice for the Mark I, in part because of its appropriately moody tremolo and also because of the tube tone it imparts. We also have a collection of stomp boxes and plug-ins that we use to add chorus, phase or a number of other effects.
The Rhodes piano has enjoyed a resurgence of popularity beginning in the 1990s — with contemporary artists highlighting the instrument, including Portishead, Cibo Matto, D'Angelo, Erykah Badu, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, the Doors, Steely Dan and Stevie Wonder.

Yamaha DX7

One of the most popular digital synths ever was the DX7 from Yamaha, released in 1983. It featured a whole new type of synthesis called FM (Frequency Modulation). It certainly is not analog and it is difficult to program but can result in some excellent sounds. Almost every keyboardist bought one at the time making the DX-7 one of the best selling synths of all time!

The DX-7 has been used by the Crystal Method, Underworld, Orbital, BT, Talking Heads, Brian Eno, Tony Banks, Mike Lindup of Level 42, Jan Hammer, Roger Hodgson, Teddy Riley, Brian Eno, Supertramp, Phil Collins, Stevie Wonder, Daryl Hall, Steve Winwood, Scritti Politti, Babyface, Depeche Mode, , Front 242, U2, A-Ha, Enya, The Cure, Astral Projection, Fluke, Kitaro, Vangelis, Elton John, James Horner, Toto, Donald Fagen, Michael McDonald, Chick Corea, Level 42, Queen, Yes, Michael Boddicker, Julian Lennon, Jean-Michel Jarre, Sneaker Pimps, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Greg Phillanganes, Jerry Goldsmith, Jimmy Edgar, Beastie Boys, Stabbing Westward and Herbie Hancock.

Wurlitzer 200A

From Joni Mitchell to Ray Charles to Motown, many great recordings have been made using these great electric pianos. I love the natural distortion inherent in this instrument. When I listen to Ray Charles' "What'd I Say" or Marvin's "I Heard it Through the Grapevine", I love the distortion that I hear on them. This similar effect can be achieved, to various intensities and settings, with our Fender Twin Reverb amp as well.
The instrument is really straight forward with a volume knob and settings to control the rate of the tremolo effect. It has a sustain pedal and built in speaker so you can just turn it on and play without having to hook it up to an amp, however, it also has outputs that you can send to an external amp if you want to.

Being a sucker for the electric piano, this has all the qualities I look for in one. For starters, the action of the piano is real fluid and easy to play, but the tone quality of this piano is the best part about it. It is rich in tone and the tremolo is awesome. This piano has become a classic as it has its own unique electric piano tone that is highly sought after.

Great for jazz, blues, rock, gospel, even great hip-hop and dance music.