What do you guys use for your Rhodes piano sound? I have Lounge Lizard and it's okay but it seems to lack a little of the "life" the old Rhodes pianos used to have. To me there is just nothing like a phased Rhodes!

I use the ones built into Logic and the ones from Komplete myself, but often I'll patch in the Rhodes sounds from my venerable old Yamaha S90 as I feel like it. Nothing I've played has quite managed to fully captured the magic of a real Rhodes, though there were a few Korg's and Nord's that came close!

I have Lounge Lizard (modelled), XLN's Addictive Keys Mark One (sampled), and Arturia's Stage-73 (modelled) patches in Analog Lab (I don't own the instrument itself). I have other, less-capable Rhodes VIs as well.

LL is just fun to play. No way around that.

But I would definitely demo the XLN and Arturia VIs. They're currently priced at $79 and $199 respectively. But... Black Friday is coming.

For price and flexibility, Velvet 2 is really nice. It's often on sale for $15, emulates a bunch of electric pianos and comes with a bunch of usable presets. It's got lots of effects, including chorusing and a phaser.

I've also got the Addictive Keys electric is also nice.

Orange Tree Samples just released their electric piano, which sounds really sweet. But it's brand-spanking new, so hasn't gone on sale yet. That's one that I haven't got, so I can't really comment on it.

I actually had a Rhodes piano once upon a time.... I believe I gave about $50 or so for it. At first I liked it but the more I played it, the more I wanted to sell it....so I did.


I forget the keyboard synth that has it in it.... might be the Kontakt synth from NI. Possibly also the Cakewalk Sound Center synth. I rarely ever feel the need to torture myself with that sound so I don't really keep track of where it is hiding. Yeah, I still don't like the sound of those things.

Another +1 for Velvet 2.

Maybe one of these will work for you:

https://www.stockmusicmusician.com/blog/best-rhodes-vst-plugins-for-all-budgets

If you have the full version of Kontakt then Indigius has a Rhodes for $5 which is a very good deal IMHO:

https://indiginus.com/5dollar.html

Good luck.

There's a Rhodes "shootout" video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuMd581mI7E

Not a complete set, but a reasonably good sampling of what's out there.

I just played my XLN Rhodes and Velvet.

The XLN sounds a bit more realistic, with a nice bell tone in the upper register. On the other hand, it's not sampled to maximum velocity, so when I really whack the keys, that's bit is missing.

On the other hand, Velvet 2 responds nicely to velocity, all the way to a nice hammer smack against the tines and distortion. And it's a lot easier to dial in the sound that you want, with options to adjust the distortion, wah, modulation, cabinet, reverb and delay. Plus, it's got a Mark I, Mark II, SC73, A200 and Pianet.

As you can guess, I find the Velvet a lot more fun to play.

I've tried many.
My favorite for authentic feel and sound is the Scarbee Classic 88.

https://scarbee.com/products/scarbee-classic-ep-88s?variant=31893495185470


-rob

One of the many things I should have not sold. They are worth $1500 to $4000 now days.

I had a Rhodes for about a decade then someone borrowed it & it disappeared with the someone.
it def has it's own sound.
A friend of mine gigged with the suitcase version...heavy duty lugging.
The electric piano in BIAB is close.

Apologies in advance for the dad joke, but I can't resist. This comment reminds me of the time I loaned a guy $5000 for plastic surgery. Now I can't get my money back because I don't know what he looks like. (rimshot)

Actually through the generosity of Mr Schlecta I now have a module with several really good Rhodes sounds in it. The Nord has a so-so one but when I blend it with the one from the Proteus it's outstanding.

And as long as I'm doing dad jokes, let me tell you about my farmer friend who took his stimulus check and bought baby chickens with it. He got his money for nothing and his chicks for free...

OK, that last one made me laugh .. and yes, out loud .. so I guess LOL (?)
Ya know I'm going to 'borrow' that one, right?

Edit:
I should have opened the post with "that's the way you do it" .. missed it by that much <grin>

Harv, even with comedy it's all your fault...

yeah, I know
all too well
thanks Mac