Steinberg Scarbee R.S.P. 73 Operation Manual
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Musicians of all persuasions became captivated by Rhodes® Piano’s expression and dynamics, which range from warm and mellow, to bright and ‘barking’. The spectrum of expression possible from this instrument has enabled musicians of quite different backgrounds to make the Rhodes® ‘their own sound’ - from Beck to Brand New Heavies, Ray Charles to Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock, or Pink Floyd to Portishead. The Rhodes® sound is almost uniquely versatile, which is why many musicians have been happy to endure some of its shortcomings - including its considerable size and weight, the need to retune regularly, the inconsistencies deriving from its mechanical nature, and the odd broken tine. It is this uniqueness and versatility which has made the Rhodes® ‘inimitable’ - up until now. Links: http://emusician.com/ar/emusic_fender_rhodes_stage/ http://hem.passagen.se/daveo/fender_english.htm http://www.cmd.uu.se/AcidJazz/Backup/1997-Mar/0483.html http://www.fenderrhodes.org/ http://www.cmd.uu.se/AcidJazz/Backup/1997-Mar/0483.html http://www.melmusic.com.au/articles/classicrhodes.html Copyright 2003, SCARBEE - Denmark 11
6. Preparing The Piano In order to guarantee that the Rhodes® was as close to, or better than, it’s original 1976 condition as possible, an exhaustive process of refurbishment was undertaken prior to the recording process. All rubber hammer tips and damper felts were replaced. Hammers, keys and harp were modified for optimal response/action. Rubber grommets on the tone bars were replaced to improve sustain. New tines were carefully selected for ideal timbre and sustain. Tonebars, tines and pickups were also carefully adjusted to provide a perfectly balanced sound – ranging from warm and mellow to but bright and barking! Anne Skarbye - wife of Thomas Hansen Skarbye was the boss... fortunately she just love to do stuff like this! All Rhodes parts were purchased form Major Key. During the whole programming phase we even used a proprietary system of sampling in order to ensure that the sound, action and feel of the original was mirrored and maintained. We went to this kind of trouble because a key element in recreating the experience of playing a real Rhodes® is accurately capturing the response dynamics. As a result of this effort, the action and feel of the Scarbee R.S.P. ‘73 exactly duplicates that of a well “hot rodded” Rhodes® MK 1. Damper felts were replaced using glue and a scalpel. Different sizes were used as directed by the manual. All rubber hammer tips replaced using glue, a Dremel and a scalpel. The tips were color coded to make sure that they were mounted on the right place! Copyright 2003, SCARBEE - Denmark 12
Keys and hammers were modified for optimal response and action. Bad sounding tines were replaced. Dampers, tines and pick-ups were adjusted. Lots of tweaking and tuning lasted for almost nine months! Copyright 2003, SCARBEE - Denmark 13
7. The R.S.P. ‘73 “feel” Why is the “feel” important? If you are a composer or piano player, you will no doubt be able to answer this question for yourself. The Stage Piano MK 1 - 73 is one of a select few instruments which can honestly claim to be a writerxs primary compositional workhorse. Not just a tool for committing already firm ideas to a recording medium, but an inspirational tool - an instrument which works in a synergistic way with the composer to generate fresh new musical ideas, simply through the act of sitting down with it and playing freely. We believe that this inspirational quality is largely the result of a combination of the basic timbral range of the original Rhodes® piano and its very organic dynamic response. We dare to say that the Scarbee R.S.P. ‘73 has, for the first time, captured that same tone and feel - the “soul” of this classic keyboard. The R.S.P. ‘73 is an instrument you really look forward to sitting down and just playing.* Why sampling in preference to a physical modelling approach? Physical modelling is a great synthesis option which allows us to break down and explore the nature of a sound, but it relies very heavily on the software engineer’s ability to fathom the unique elements which combine to create that sound, to analyse and measure them, to write code which can accurately recreate them, and to find a hardware platform capable of delivering enough DSP muscle to realise the software in high resolution. This process requires that many subtle, and some not so subtle, choices be made by the engineering team. As a result, the end product is often the combination of a few individuals’ opinions, a programming team’s expertise in coding, and the processing abilities of the host platforms available at the time the software is designed. It’s a bit like computer animated characters in movies. Although they are generated by extremely sophisticated software and hardware, and can, say, morph from a person to a grapefruit Copyright 2003, SCARBEE - Denmark 14
and back in seconds, they’re still just “pretty close” when it comes to delivering a credible alternative to a real actor. The Scarbee R.S.P. ‘73 is more like film of a human actor in comparison. Perhaps not able to morph into a grapefruit, but totally believable in its main role as a “real actor”. Unlike a modelled instrument, the Scarbee R.S.P. ‘73 is not a software engineer’s approximation of the elements which combine to create a Rhodes®-like sound. The Scarbee R.S.P. ‘73 is a high definition mirror image of an actual Stage Piano MK 1 - 73 piano. Copyright 2003, SCARBEE - Denmark 15
8. The Beta Test Team The Scarbee R.S.P. 73 would never have been the same without my 12 beta testers! They were all great! The Super Beta Team: The Super Beta Team Jules Bromley Ian Stewart Cairns Rick Chadwick David Govett Didier Icart Nick Manson Lennie Moore Alfonso de Prisco Thomas Serafini Justin Schwinghamer Lars Daniel Terkelsen Larry Thompson Apart from playing and testing the R.S.P. ‘73 some of the guys made cool demoes for internal use (testing sound) or for official demoing: Lars, Lennie, Nick, Didier, Ian and off course Christian Vinten (who was actually not on the beta team, since we worked on a Giga version first - he owns Halion...) Lennie was the chief in the tuning department - he borrowed a Peterson Strobe Tuner from Eric Percing (Thanks!) and did the Stretch tuned versions too. Chadwick did a scaring list of all timbre-fixes - ouch! He really made me work hard for many days... Lars - who is the owner of the real Rhodes® was off course an expert in the sound and feel - he was really satisfied when we did the Old School sound!! Phew! Initially I had borrowed his favourite keyboard for two weeks - nine months later it was still in my house! (Sorry) Thomas S. did the calculations on the Classic sound EQ and he and Alfonso worked on some new secret Scarbee stuff ... Copyright 2003, SCARBEE - Denmark 16
9. Sampler Formats 09.1. 24 bit Kontakt, EXS24 MK II and Halion The 24 bit native Kontakt, EXS24 mk II and HALion editions are not conversions. They have been programmed ‘from scratch’ using the “Direct from harp” sound. Programming this way allows us to utilise every facility available on the native sampler, rather than create something which might have taken mere minutes to port, but which was only ‘pretty close’ to the original version because of inaccuracy in the porting software. In fact, critical comparison of the three versions has confirmed that they have identical timbre and response. In order to overcome the current HAlion release trigger obstacle, we created 876 special release samples for the HALion version of the R.S.P ’73. The result is that the sound, feel and action of all four editions (Giga, Kontakt, EXS24 and HALion) is identical! Programs R.S.P. ’73 – Direct RSP73 Direct 12V RSP73 Direct 12V - Lite RSP73 Direct 8V - Lite RSP73 Direct 4V - Lite RSP73 Direct 12V S RSP73 Direct 12V – Lite S RSP73 Direct 08V – Lite S RSP73 Direct 04V – Lite S Copyright 2003, SCARBEE - Denmark 17
Samples:
Sustained Samples Release Samples
Sustained Hard 1 Release Hard 1
Sustained Hard 2 Release Hard 2
Sustained Hard 3 Release Hard 3
Sustained Medium 1 Release Medium 1
Sustained Medium 2 Release Medium 2
Sustained Medium 3 Release Medium 3
Sustained Medium Soft 1 Release Medium Soft 1
Sustained Medium Soft 2 Release Medium Soft 2
Sustained Medium Soft 3 Release Medium Soft 3
Sustained Soft 1 Release Soft 1
Sustained Soft 2 Release Soft 2
Sustained Soft 3 Release Soft 3
The complexity of the Scarbee R.S.P. 73 is scalable, to suit the
power and resource availability of the system upon which it is
installed.
The fullest realization is available in the 12V version. In the 12V
there are 1752 separate samples.
Each key controls 24 unique samples: 12 different velocities of
samples for the sustained notes, and another 12 velocities of
samples for the release samples. These release samples are a
critical factor in capturing the feel and tone of an actual
Rhodes®.
We have attempted to give the user as much control over this
scaling as possible. Variations in the program type are indicated
by suffixes in the program title:
12V - 12 unique velocity level samples for sustained notes, 12
unique velocity level samples for release triggers.
08V - 8 unique velocity level samples for sustained notes, 8
unique velocity level samples for release triggers.
Copyright 2003, SCARBEE - Denmark
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04V - 4 unique velocity level samples for sustained notes, 4 unique velocity level samples for release triggers. Lite - Samples of white keys only, some stretched up or down a maximum of 1 semitone to cover black keys. Copyright 2003, SCARBEE - Denmark 19
09.2. 16 bit Giga The Giga edition includes two versions of the R.S.P. ‘73: The “Direct” version, was recorded directly from the harp, bypassing the passive tone controls and the “Classic” version, which simulates the output from the front panel socket, with the “bass boost” knob set at 5 (the middle position). Each Giga version utilises 1752 samples and weighs in at 1.5 gigabytes. Registered Scarbee R.S.P. 73 (Giga) owners freely download 16 bit Kontakt, EXS24 MK II and Halion versions! Programs CD1: R.S.P. ’73 – Classic CD2: R.S.P. ’73 – Direct RSP73 Classic 12V RSP73 Direct 12V RSP73 Classic 12V - Lite RSP73 Direct 12V - Lite RSP73 Classic 08V - Lite RSP73 Direct 8V - Lite RSP73 Classic 04V - Lite RSP73 Direct 4V - Lite RSP73 Classic Bright 12V RSP73 Direct Bright 12V RSP73 Classic Bright - Lite RSP73 Direct Bright - Lite RSP73 Classic Bright 08V - Lite RSP73 Direct Bright 08V - Lite RSP73 Classic Bright 04V - Lite RSP73 Direct Bright 04V - Lite RSP73 Classic 12V S RSP73 Direct 12V S RSP73 Classic 12V – Lite S RSP73 Direct 12V – Lite S RSP73 Classic 08V – Lite S RSP73 Direct 08V – Lite S RSP73 Classic 04V – Lite S RSP73 Direct 04V – Lite S RSP73 Classic Bright 12V S RSP73 Direct Bright 12V S RSP73 Classic Bright – Lite S RSP73 Direct Bright – Lite S RSP73 Classic Bright 08V – Lite S RSP73 Direct Bright 08V – Lite S RSP73 Classic Bright 04V – Lite S RSP73 Direct Bright 04V – Lite S Samples: Copyright 2003, SCARBEE - Denmark 20