[ColeKeys]

I am a working keyboardist and always loved the synth electric piano sounds on Dead Set Mt first show was 1986 RFK Dylan / Petty / Dead – I was 16 years old.

I was in front of the stage right speaker stack when Brent played a trill on that elec. Piano.

Since then I figured it was layers of synth modules, a little synth marimba and some FM (DX7 family) synthesis EPs.

The EP solo on the slow “Friend of the Devil” on Dead Set sounds really good. Lots of character and attack.

As for Brent’s B3, attaching one Organ to six Leslies is no small feat. Leslies get their electric feed from the organ so this took some engineering. Also tricked out the B-3, new caps soldered in until Brent was happy, TREK II pre-Leslie reverb. And I don’t know what else. Hearing him wind up all six of those Leslies live before he hit the main organ riff of “Gimmie Some Lovin” changed my life. There might have been some kind of sync circuit to all the Leslies but I am guessing he just hit “fast” on that half moon switch and let the six Leslie 147s spin up and do their magic.

I do indeed own a road worn B-3 and a Leslie 145. Putting my Nord Electro Two into the Leslie 145 produces magical organ sound, for me anyway. Not the same as playing the Real Deal, you kind of have to clime in and drive a real tone wheel Hammond. Like driveing a Big Rig vs an automatic transmission rental truck.

I do believe the superiority of real vibrating membranes verses digital synthesis and usually Tubes vs. Solid state for Guitar and Organ. You want Clean for your Pianos so solid state is better suited.

I MIDI trigger my Electro with a Yamaha P-200, hitting those Nord Rhodes samples with the p-200’s hammer action is fun. Missing some character and magic of a real Rhodes but no broken or out of tune tines and I haul my own gear so my Rhodes stays at home.

I have been lucky enough to play some back lined shows where Hammond / Leslie, Rhodes ( I had the sound guys plug it into a Fender Twin reverb and point it to me and mic it with a SM57 ) and an 88 key hammer action digital piano were provided..

The digital stuff today does a pretty good job of emulating the electro-mechanical keyboards of the glorious past. Passable.

My two cents.

-Cole Alanson

[JamminJommy]

By the end, all of the 147s had been modified to (souped up) 122 specs. A special relay panel was installed on each of the Leslies that also included its own independent three prong AC line. Even if the B3 is off, the Leslie remains under its own power, spinning happily away. But mainly, the relay panel made it so an indefinite number or speakers could be chained together and all be operated by the one console.

Sorry to Necro!

-Jommy

P.S. Brent had 6 speakers behind him, but at one point there were as many as 12-15 onstage... simply because they had that many available to run!

[Naataanii]

I'm no keyboardist and stick to my guitar. but my 13 y/o is an ascending piano player. self taught. uggh. kids with natural talent kill me. lol. anyway would love to get something of a Brent tone organ for him and out of the loop as far as whats new that is close to the B3 sound. any suggestions? i'm know nothing beats the real thing but technology has had to come up with something that can come close to a B3 and a fender Rhodes.

whats ya'll got?

besides, i want to jam with my kid

SGP

[Naataanii]

oh, almost forgot. for the record Brent was the Frickin man!

[ccw3432]

I'm no keyboardist and stick to my guitar. but my 13 y/o is an ascending piano player. self taught. uggh. kids with natural talent kill me. lol. anyway would love to get something of a Brent tone organ for him and out of the loop as far as whats new that is close to the B3 sound. any suggestions? i'm know nothing beats the real thing but technology has had to come up with something that can come close to a B3 and a fender Rhodes.

whats ya'll got?

besides, i want to jam with my kid

SGP

There are some great digital organs being made today. I've owned a few made by Hammond and am currently playing the two manual SK2. I love it. They make a singe manual version called SK1 which is smaller and less expensive. I play it through a either a Roland keyboard amp or through a QSC K12 powered PA speaker. I use to own a digital Hammond XK-1 and an XK-3c. All of them are great organs. The cheapest good digital option would probably be a used XK-1. Nord makes some excellent modern digital organs as well that get the Hammond sound. All of these digital organs have built in Leslie simulators which is a must for Brent tone if you're not playing through a real leslie. They do a great job through a standard keyboard amp.

If you wanted something less expensive and less portable you can sometimes find some good deals on old Hammond organs. The M3 can often be found for about 60 dollars and it's pretty nice but has less octaves. It has a built in speaker, but no leslie or leslie sim.

[pablomago]

You do realize that a lot of the organ on Europe '72 was Merl Saunders overdubbed in after the fact? Merl had a gold record for that album. Not to dis Pigpen, 'cause I loved that guy. But facts are facts. I always dug Pigpen's Vox organ sounds on the first album. And he did nice fills in the early '70's.

Brent used a Mini-Moog on Alabama Getaway and I've always thought the album version solo was as close to a guitar solo as a keyboard player could get. In fact, I learned that solo on guitar when I first learned the song. Brent was a hell of a B-3 player. I liked what he did in Bobby and the Midnights where I first heard him.

Yeah, Bralove really screwed Vince as far as I'm concerned. Though I saw a couple of shows where he got to cut loose pretty well. Having someone else pick my sounds when I play would drive me crazy. The '90's weren't the Dead's finest hour.

[pablomago]

It's funny. I always liked Brent best with Bobby and the Midnights. B-3 and Rhodes (and maybe a synth?). His voice hadn't gotten all raspy yet. He and Bobby Cochran harmonized beautifully with Bobby.

I saw more shows with Keith then Brent, so that might be my personal bias. Everyone had strengths and weaknesses and brought something unique to the table. That's what made it fun for me as a listener.

[brandonk]

Hey there friends of the devil.... my first post on rukind and on the thread that brought me here. Brent Tone!

I know this conversation has gathered a bit of dust but it has some great info and opinions.

I am playing keys in a band that covers a few Dead songs and I have always been facinated wtih Brent's sounds. They are not always my cup of tea but they find their way into the zeitgist of the Dead all the same.

Some of the sounds that seem to be the more controversial ones seem to track back to the Yamaha GS-1 and later to the Kurzweil PC-88. He definately liked clarity on the top end and was an inovator unafraid to use modern gear and unique tones.

It's the GS-1 that caught my curiosity the most. What a freaky thing that instrument! I was trying to find a VST library that had actual samples or emulations of the GS-1 and I finaly did. IK multimedia has the "GS-V" library for SampleTank 4 which I run inside of GigPerformer as my live VST host.

So I have been experimenting with different ways to get his tone from that era, often layering it with an acoustic piano or a stage piano and trying to come up with something pretty accurate. The closest I've come is using the "Classic GS electric Piano 9" and the "Muted FM Malet EP 2" sample patches.

The much discussed Marimba tone on this thread is a bit elusive, the GS-V has marimba patches but they don't sound like what we're used to.

Has anyone else experimented with these or other GS libraries to produce a mid-80's Brent Tone?

The PC-88 took the place of the GS for him and I would assume he found in that similar enough patches or built some custom ones and since those don't live on a punch card like they would have with the GS-1, perhaps someone has formulated some patches from this era?

[brandonk]

**a correction to my last post... he didn't play a PC-88 in the late 80's it was a Kurzweil Midi-board apparenly driving Roland MKS-20 piano modules and a Kurzweil K250 piano sound.