The Rhodes keyboard sound was created by Harold Rhodes as part of an effort to teach piano to recovering soldiers during World War II. It was first produced by Fender (as a smaller, cut-down model) before the company was sold to CBS, where it would go on to market the full size instrument to jazz, pop, and soul musicians in the 1970s. Eventually, the Rhodes would find their way into the 80s, particularly with the popular Yamaha DX7.
Rhodes are smooth, creamy sine-like tones when played softly, and twinkle brightly when played with higher key velocity.
Recreation[]
Without a proper synthesizer, rhodes can either be obtained as a soundfont (*.sf2) and modified with effects to the musician's liking, or they can be emulated in softsynth applications.
- Massive (in Ableton)
- Sylenth1 (in FL Studio)
- ZynAddSubFX (in LMMS) - already has presets.
- Dexed