Guide to Electric Pianos, Organs, and Other Vintage Keyboards

Thanks to modern digital sampling, musicians and songwriters now have available to them, at reasonable cost, the sounds of vintage instruments that would otherwise be hard to find and expensive to acquire. In order to use these sounds authentically in my own demos, I've done a bit of research into the electric pianos, organs and other keyboards that were used during the 1960s, 70s and 80s, including who used them and what recordings they can be heard on.

While it's not about songwriting per se, I'm sharing this information on Better Songwriting as it may be helpful when the time comes to record demos of your songs or perform them live.

Electric pianos

Fender Rhodes

The Rhodes, with soft tones that blend well into any musical setting, was the most popular electric piano of the 60s and 70s. Riders on the Storm by the Doors is a great example of the classic Rhodes sound, but there are numerous other examples:

• You Are the Sunshine of My Life - Stevie Wonder
• Daniel - Elton John
• Still Crazy After All These Years - Paul Simon
• I Can't Tell You Why - The Eagles

Billy Preston showed that the Rhodes can work in a rock setting when he sat in with the Beatles during the sessions for the Let It Be album. Preston's Rhodes (a suitcase model) is heard on Don't Let Me Down, I've Got a Feeling, One After 909 and, most famously, on the keyboard solo in Get Back.

To better hear Preston's contributions (he also played Hammond organ during the sessions), listen to the Let It Be...Naked album, released in 2003, which is stripped of Phil Spector's heavy-handed production.

The Rhodes can also be heard prominently on Peter Frampton's Frampton Comes Alive, one of the biggest selling albums of the 1970s, and is featured on many jazz records of the era from Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Miles Davis, Weather Report and others.

Wurlitzer Electric Piano

The Wurlitzer electric piano was also very popular during this era. Often referred to as the Wurly, this piano had a distinctive, bright sound. Where the Rhodes would blend easily into a mix, the Wurly would stand out. To hear the classic sounds of the Wurly, listen to these songs:

• What'd I Say - Ray Charles
• I Heard it Through the Grapevine - Marvin Gaye
• Mama Told Me Not to Come and Joy to the World - Three Dog Night
• Do it Again - Steely Dan
• The Logical Song and Goodbye Stranger - Supertramp

Hohner Pianet

Another electric piano used on many 1960s recordings is the Hohner Pianet, which had a similar sound to that of the Wurlitzer. So similar, in fact, that some people say Burton Cummings played a Pianet on These Eyes by the Guess Who, while others say it was a Wurly. I can't tell, but I know the Pianet was used for sure on these recordings:

• Louie, Louie - The Kingsman
• Summer in the City - The Lovin' Spoonful
• She's Not There - The Zombies

The Beatles used a Pianet on several tracks of the Help! album, including The Night Before, You Like Me Too Much and Tell Me What You See. The keyboard on Revolution (the single version on the B-side of Hey Jude) is also a Pianet, played by session musician Nicky Hopkins.

The 1960s recordings used either the C, L or N model Pianet. The T and M models that were produced in late 1970s apparently have a totally different sound.

Organs

Hammond Organs

A Hammond B3 organ and Leslie speaker cabinet.

Source: Salli CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

The best-known name in organs is Hammond, and Hammond organs were used on a large number of classic recordings. The most commonly used model was the B3 (or the C3, which produced the same sound but had some cosmetic differences), but smaller M-series models produced a very similar sound and were often used as well.

The Hammond's trademark sound is created by playing it through a Leslie speaker system (a large cabinet with rotating speakers) which creates a swirling sound. These recording are great examples of the classic Hammond sound:

• Gimme Some Lovin' - Spencer Davis Group (B3)
• Black Magic Woman, Evil Ways, Oye Como Va - Santana (B3)
• Easy Livin' - Uriah Heap (B3)
• Time of the Season - The Zombies (B3)
• Like a Rolling Stone - Bob Dylan (B3)
• Stormy Monday, Whipping Post - The Allman Brothers (B3)
• Green Onions, Time is Tight - Booker T & the MGs (M3)
• Foreplay/Long Time, Smokin' - Boston (M3)
• Whiter Shade of Pale, Conquistador - Procol Harem (M102)

Vox Continental

The Vox Continental, with its reversed
keyboard color scheme.
Source: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

Hammond organs are very large, heavy instruments. In the 1960s, manufacturers began to introduce portable organs to be used on stage in place of the Hammond. Many artists liked the unique sound of these organs and began to use them in the studio as well.

The most popular of these "combo" organs was the Vox Continental. The Continental, which had keys with the black and white colors reversed, was used by the Doors on Light My Fire and other songs. The Continental was also used on these classic tracks:

• House of the Rising Sun - The Animals
• In-A-Gada-Da-Vida - Iron Butterfly
• Incense and Peppermints - Strawberry Alarm Clock
• Because - Dave Clark Five

John Lennon can be seen playing a Vox Continental on I'm Down during the Beatles' first concert at Shea Stadium.

Farfisa

The Farfisa organ was nearly as popular as the Vox Continental. It had a similar sound, although some describe it as being somewhat brighter and thinner. It was used on these songs:

• When a Man Loves a Woman - Percy Sledge
• Double Shot (of My Baby's Love) - The Swingin' Medallions
• Wooly Bully - Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs

Elton John used a Farfisa on Crocodile Rock to get a retro/oldies sound. Opinions vary as to whether the signature organ part on 96 Tears by ? and the Mysterians was played on a Vox Continental or a Farfisa. Apparently, both organs were in the studio, and the musician who played it doesn't remember which he used. Obviously, the sounds of these two organs can be very similar.

Other Keyboards

Hohner Clavinet

The Clavinet produced a funky, staccato sound. The classic examples of the Clavinet sound are Stevie Wonder's Superstition and Higher Ground. Use Me by Bill Withers and Billy Preston's 1972 instrumental Outta Space also provide great examples of what this instrument can sound like.

Mellotron

The many strips of magnetic tape containing
the Mellotron's voices are visible in this
view of the instrument's interior.
Source: eric haller, CC-BY-SA-2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

The Mellotron was actually an "analog sampler" containing pre-recorded sounds on strips of magnetic tape. It was intended to enable keyboard players to emulate the sounds of other instruments. The Mellotron was capable of creating many sounds, but the most popular were its string and flute sounds.
Partly because the Mellotron couldn't recreate all of the possible attack and decay sounds of the instruments it emulated, nor the articulations a musician playing those instruments might use, the Mellotron had a distinctive sound, and was really a unique instrument unto itself.

The Mellotron is best known for the intro to the Beatles' Strawberry Fields Forever, which McCartney played using the Mellotron's flute sound. Less well-known is role the Mellotron played in the classic sound of the Moody Blues, who created the orchestral sounds for songs such as Nights in White Satin with a Mellotron.

The Mellotron can be heard on 2000 Light Years From Home and other tracks on the Rolling Stones' 1967 excursion into psychedelic music, Their Satanic Majesties Request. The string and flute sounds on David Bowie's Space Oddity also came from a Mellotron. Many progressive rock bands of the late 60s and early 70s, such as Genesis, Yes and King Crimson, often used a Mellotron as well.
The Mellotron can be heard in some surprising places, including the string sounds on Jethro Tull's Cross-Eyed Mary, Aerosmith's Dream On, and Led Zeppelin's Kashmir, which mixed the Mellotron sound with real strings for an exotic sound. Elton John also used a Mellotron for the flute sounds on Daniel. The best use of a Mellotron (or Mellotron digital samples), however, is to recreate the "groovy" sounds of the 1960s and the progressive rock sounds of the early 1970s.

Synthesizers

Identifying synthesizers can be difficult. They're capable of making so many sounds that even if you know which one was used on a recording, you still need to know what patches and settings were used. Sometimes the patches are known and have been recreated as presets on modern synths, other times you'll need to experiment to find the right sound.

From the late 60s until around 1980, only a handful of synthesizer models existed. Any synth sounds you hear on recordings (and movie soundtracks) from this era most likely use one of the following synthesizers:

Moog

The Moog, a monophonic synthesizer (capable of playing only one note at a time), was the first synthesizer used in popular music. It first appeared as a background instrument on several late 60s recordings, including the Beatles' Abbey Road, where it can be heard on Maxwell's Silver Hammer, Here Comes the Sun and other tracks.
The Moog was first brought to the forefront as a solo instrument by Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Their song Lucky Man contains the first recorded Moog solo in rock. The Moog, or the smaller Minimoog that followed, was responsible for nearly all synth sounds and synthesized basslines that are heard on recordings from the late 1960s and early 1970s.

A polyphonic version capable of playing more than one note at a time, the Polymoog, was introduced in the 1970s. It wasn't very successful, although it can be heard on Cars by Gary Numan and Dream Weaver by Gary Wright.

Polyphonic Synthesizers

The Omni, a polyphonic synthesizer, was introduced in 1975 by Arp Instruments. The most notable use of the Omni was by the Cars, who used it extensively on their 1978 debut album. Other polyphonic synthesizers released around this time were the Jupiter 4 from Roland and the CS-80 from Yamaha. These synths can be heard on some recordings from that era, but the first polyphonic synth to really catch on was the Prophet-5.

Prophet-5

The Prophet-5 was introduced in 1978 by a California company named Sequential Circuits, and was probably the most-used synth of the late 70s and early 80s. It can be heard on everything from the Cars' Let's Go to the soft pad sounds on In the Air Tonight by Phil Collins and True by Spandau Ballet.

A Prophet-5 and a Minimoog (or their software equivalents) would be a good basic selection of synthesizers for recreating most of the synth sounds heard from the 60s through the early 80s.

1980s and Beyond

The early 1980s saw great advancements in synthesizer technology. Polyphonic synthesizers became more affordable, and numerous models became available from several manufactures. For recordings made from this era forward, you'd have to research a specific artist or recording to see what was used.