Rhodes Chroma Demo, Part 1

Here's the first of a four part series demonstrating the Rhodes Chroma, arguably the greatest polyphonic analog synthesizer of all time. The video was shot with the help of Mike Thompson, who's doing the majority of the playing in this demo. One of the channels on the Chroma is not working, so what you're hearing is 7 out of its 8 voices. The Chroma Expander shown is not currently functioning (we'll get to it someday though).

I acquired this Rhodes Chroma on trade in non-working condition with the hope I could one day get it up and running. I had the power supply replaced and purchased the CC+ upgrade available through RhodesChroma.com. After that, I had three voices working. With a little troubleshooting and swapping around of voice cards I was able to get four voices. Mike was super motivated to hear the Chroma in its full glory (which we've yet to do, mind you). With his help and determination, we figured out that the Chroma had four dead voice cards and one bad channel. We're still trying to figure out what to do about that. In the meantime, I acquired the Chroma Expander, which is non-functional but had good working voice cards. So we pulled some cards from the Expander to make our 7 voice Chroma, which is demonstrated in the video.

Check out http://www.formusiciansonly.com/blog to see pictures of our vintage keyboard studio.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Rhodes
• Chroma
• ARP
• polyphonic
• synthesizer
• analog
• poly
• synth
• ARP 2600
• ARP Odyssey
• Solina
• Philip Dodds
• Yamaha CS-80
• Jupiter 8
• memorymoog
• minimoog
• Moog
• Oberheim
• OB-Xa
• Sequential Circuits
• Prophet 5

[thelandingsmusic]

theres no such thing as a best synthesizer- they are all good ,cheap or expensive anologue or digital they all have something different to offer.

[hardcorehouse]

Quite the dumbass as usual, contradicting his own words by claiming that today's stuff is sterile but then saying the ion's better than the Chroma. What a genius!

[Rikk303]

Wakeman could play a packet of crisps and I'd achieve an embarassing trouser lump!

[UMAMIMAMU]

@javiceres I felt the same way!

[Muziekschuur01]

beautiful sounds. Recognised alot from famous recordings...

[javiceres]

That Mellotron Flutes patch was unspected and brilliant.

[javiceres]

@JedoubleKI I think it's a stack of 2 units.

[BigAssTuba]

@fsol13 It pains me more! I was working for them! One of my favorite jobs ever! Stayed after hours in their showroom studio frequently. Never got to hear the Chroma. It was bought by Fender/Rogers/Rhodes/Squiers at their R&D shop in Woburn, MA which I went to visit once, hoping for a new job. All I remember there was the prototype ARP Electronic Piano in a fancy miniature grand piano cabinet. Alan Pearlman, Phil Dodds, Mark Smith and 1 or 2 other ARP R&D guys were all that worked there.

[fsol13]

It pains me that ARP made some of the greatest synths ever, yet went bankrupt.

[MonoPolyST73]

Amazing warm sounds..!

[CoolColJ]

sounds like a dx7 .... :)

[zenmachinefilms]

@plungerdrum - Thumbs up, but Pearlman is 86 years old as of 2011! He did accept an award though from Craig Anderton last year at AES though, and gave his stamp of approval to the TimewARP 2600, the only soft synth he has given his approval to.