Rhodes Chroma Demo, Part 1

YouTube via NonDigitalTom

"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."

Rhodes Chroma Demo, Part 2

"Here's the second installment of our Rhodes Chroma demo. The Chroma originally had one bank of 50 patches, but the CC+ CPU upgrade expands the memory to allow 4 banks of 50 patches. This demo is all the second bank (which we've been referring to as "Bank B"). This time it's just me playing. One thing I really love about the Chroma is the velocity sensitivity, especially for envelope-controlled filter effects. You can see this demonstrated here in some of the patches where I just used the left hand. That (combined with the weighted real wood keys) really makes the Chroma a blast to play. I can't say enough good things about this synth. Seriously. Can't wait to get the Expander going!

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

Rhodes Chroma Demo, Part 3

Uploaded by NonDigitalTom on Apr 15, 2009

"Here's the third part in our Rhodes Chroma demo series, this time featuring sounds from Bank C (including the patch we used for our ominous intro). These all came preloaded with the CC+ upgrade - we haven't even gotten to programming our own yet. Should be a lot of fun! This demo features a mix of Mike and myself taking turns going through various patches. Keep in mind, there's no reverb, delay, or effects of any kind in any of these videos; just the Chroma being recorded direct.
Check out http://www.formusiciansonly.com/blog to see pictures of our vintage keyboard studio."