Bruce Hornsby's "The Way It Is" on a Wurlitzer 200A

Hi, thanks for watching! This is one of my all-time favorite pieces of piano music, Bruce Hornsby's "The Way It Is", as played on Gertrude- my Avocado green Wurlitzer 200A 'Electronic' Piano. If all things are working properly, you should hear the original recording on the left speaker and me on the right.

Since the original is just so nice on its own, it felt almost sacrilege to play anything other than his original piano voicings. I did change a few things as you'll hear- like the LH in the main riff, and obviously the LH in the solo is an addition for the most part. Missing, to me, is the amazing quadratic effect he gets from the original recording, which as far as I recall is on a Baldwin. The Wurlie just can't produce those kinds of harmonics, so some of the octave tricks sound a little dry to me here.
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Also I think the 3 opening chord stabs sound much better on a real piano. That first one, the G4, is such a lovely chord on piano but is a little edgy here. But on the bright side, I think the main hook sounds just nifty on the Wurlie. Especially that last note of the hook, that G- she really sings right there in the 'cello range, I think.
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So in case you dig equipment, here you go:
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She's a finicky little old princess and I've just scratched the surface in getting her all tweaked out. Double-strikes, lagging sustain, and a really uneven response means I'll eventually be replacing all the reeds and de-gunking the action... but she sounds pretty damn good right now so I'm really excited to see just how lovely she can sound.
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I bypassed the OEM aux out on the bottom, as it had probably been set down with a cord attached and beat the jack all to hell, which I'll eventually replace. I tapped points 11 and 12 with a modern, high-grade Monster shielded cable and ran it out the back with the AC cord- yes, they're parallel for about 3". :-)
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Vibrato is at 45%. The line out goes in to a MOTU 828mk3, firewire to a Mac 8 core in to Logic Pro. In Logic, the Wurlie goes through Logic's Pedalboard and then Amp Designer, then Space Designer to simulate a very small room or off-axis cabinet recording technique. The mic sim is set to Dynamic and is about 30° off axis at its max distance setting.
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Mastering was done in Pro Tools. For playing, I made a 4-count at 112 and pasted it in front of the song audio, to give me time to hit the space bar, turn around, and come in on time. There's a Bomb Factory Urei 1176 sim set to 4:1, and a high shelf on the Wurlie. The camera audio is left open only at the top and bottom of the recording. Original song is panned hard L, Wurlie is hard R.
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Thanks again for listening!!!!!
Peace, love and Jupiter
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Category:

Music

Tags:

• Bruce Hornsby
• The Way It Is
• Wurlitzer
• 200A
• Wurlie
• Electric Piano
• performance
• 80's hits
• 80's top 40
• 80's music
• classic rock
• solo
• rock keyboards
• play rock 'n roll

[MrIsaacDB]

Killer Wurli-bird. I love the paint job

[smpaudio]

@MrIsaacDB Cheers mate! The color is actually OEM, they made a handful of avocado and orange tolex 200A's in the mid 70's. :-)

[civan1234]

i need to come where you are to learn from you. if most of this is by ear from what i read, you have one HELL of an ear! beautiful! i loved it!

[smpaudio]

@civan1234 You made my day with your comment, cheers!

[hottubs40]

i wish i could play the piano. Brilliant mate well done

[smpaudio]

@hottubs40 Cheers!

[mfpierce]

I'd love to see a keyboard display of this video. It would be a public service to keyboard players everywhere.

[mfpierce]

Flawless. 

[rmitchelloh]

You are amazing...great playing!|!



[bladerunner190]

pretty good

[gzwbyc]

After watching you play this, I'm gonna take up playing the Triangle. Aint no-one gonna get close to being this good 'cept maybe ole Bruce himself.

[1991maryjane]

that's 2pac - changes bit

[estdenis1]

Very well done!  Thx Man!

[MrFerdell]

Excellent man!