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Speakeasy Rhodes Restorations reviewer: James Garfield (06/07/2006) Speakeasy Vintage Music has a constantly growing reputation as one of the best in the business of both Rhodes parts remanufacturing and customizations. I had already purchased one of their replacement Mark II-style flat tops for my Mark I, but I had no idea what they were capable of aside from pictures and second-hand stories about what their parts could actually do for an old, road-worn piano. So I decided to send them my half-destroyed Mark II Sales Demo and see what kind of sales demo they could make out of it! Before... 
This little guy had spent years buried in a dark corner of the old Fender factory and was literally falling apart. The plastic keys actually lived up to their original design principle, being completely intact compared to all of the wooden parts of the mini-piano. The tolex was peeling off everywhere, the tines had oxidation, the pickups were discolored and the tonebars had lost their plating. Plus there was a non-functional hole in the bottom where the Stage Piano's sustain pedal pushrod would go, and some indications that the salesperson had installed their own electronics, with mysterious holes on the back and a disconnected LED on the front next to the INPUT jack. A mud wasp or some other insect had taken advantage of these holes at one time, building a small dirt nest in one corner under the pickup rail (no, I am not joking!!!). Many Rhodes pianos have been to hell and back, and this is definitely one of them.
In terms of playability, there's not a lot you can do with a 12-key piano, but it does give you an idea of what the action and sound of a plastic-key Mark II are like. Simply put, the output was even weaker than usual for the Stage Piano, and the action was all but dead. Pounding on the keys was the only way to get any response, which added even more fuel to the "plastic keys suck" fire that has already been burning in many of our minds....
More Pictures:
Action Closeup -
Closed Up -
Hammers & Keybed -
Harp Cover Underside -
Namerail Closeup -
Preamp Inside View #1 -
Preamp Inside View #2 -
Rear View
...After! 
So I packed my little friend up and shipped it off to Steve Hayes, asking for the full Speakeasy makeover. When it returned a few weeks later, it was extremely well-packed, contained in several layers of bubble wrap and surrounded in styrofoam peanuts (which went everywhere as I pulled the piano out of the box in excitement...). The first thought that came to mind was a single word: wicked. They had totally rebuilt the wooden enclosure (which had rotted out) with high-quality plywood, then covered it with red tolex, replaced the rear Rhodes logo with a new/old stock one and replaced the outer hardware with their trademark black amp corners & hinges. So what did it look like inside???
The next step was to remove the harp cover and see what happened to the important stuff. Some huge improvements were obvious, including a new set of dampers (stainless steel) and the Speakeasy double-felts (red on the bottom and white on the top). The tonebars had been replated and had a beautiful shine, with new grommets and an alternative screw for attaching the tine generator (which I'm guessing is much less prone to stripping than the original hex screws). The tines were the original ones, as were the pickups, which was comforting in a way.
More Pictures:
Action Closeup -
Closed Up -
New Tonebar Screws -
Namerail Closeup -
Rear View -
Tonebar Closeup
Finally, there was the play test. The plastic keys were actually very responsive, which I couldn't believe, maybe even better than my late-70's Mark I. Except for the part about feeling plastic, I'm convinced that the Mark II keys aren't nearly as bad as people seem to think. I should thank those guys for setting the action to one with more throw to it, part of the Mark II's 3-level adjustable key design that most of us still don't understand how to use. In terms of tone, the volume and harmonics from key to key were fairly consistent, except for the top note (B above middle C). It was much louder and had a lot of "clang" to it, which I was able to tone down myself by adjusting the pickup & tine placement, but the "clang" was still there. I discovered that it had to do with the new hammer tips...on a full-size Rhodes that's where the hammer tip hardness switches, and they decided not to use the same tips for all 12 keys. Maybe that's their incentive for me to buy one more hammer tip. In the end, I was very impressed with the quality of the parts these guys provide. Steve Hayes and his team seem to have adopted the Dyno-My-Piano philosophy of making the Rhodes piano "better than new", playing better, sounding better and looking better than ever. As everybody knows by now, their prices are on the steep side, but sometimes you get what you pay for. |
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