6 Types of Electric Piano Sounds: Rhodes, Wurlitzer, DX7 and More

The six main types of electric piano sound are the Rhodes, the Wurlitzer, the Yamaha DX7’s E.PIANO 1 preset, the Yamaha CP-70 electric grand, the Hohner Pianet and the Hohner Clavinet. The Rhodes is the warm, bell-like one, the Wurlitzer is reedier and punchier, and E.PIANO 1 is the glassy chime of mid-1980s pop ballads. The other three are rarer: the CP-70 is a real stringed piano with pickups, and the Pianet and Clavinet are short, percussive Hohner designs you hear on 1960s pop and 1970s funk.

Five of the six are electromechanical: a key sets something physical vibrating (a steel tine, a reed or a string) and a pickup turns that vibration into a signal, the way an electric guitar works. The DX7 is the odd one out, a digital synth imitating a Rhodes with math.

Rhodes and Wurlitzer: what the two classic electric pianos sound like

1. Rhodes piano (Harold Rhodes, first sold under the Fender name). Tine electric piano, 73 or 88 keys, first sold in 1965; new ones are built to order today. Each key throws a hammer at a thin steel rod called a tine, attached to a heavier tone bar so the pair rings like a tuning fork, and a magnetic pickup reads the vibration. Played softly, a Rhodes piano is round and bell-like with a long, warm sustain, and when you dig in it growls, a sound players call bark. The Suitcase model adds a built-in amp and a tremolo that bounces the sound between two speakers (some panels call it vibrato). The original company’s last model was the Mark V of 1984. Hear it on Stevie Wonder’s “You Are the Sunshine of My Life”.

2. Wurlitzer electronic piano (Wurlitzer). Reed electric piano, 64 keys, made 1954 to 1983. Hammers strike flat steel reeds, and an electrostatic pickup (charged at 170 volts, a bit like a condenser microphone) reads them. A Wurlitzer electric piano sounds sweet, almost like a vibraphone, when played gently, then turns snappy and reedy with a gritty bark when played hard. The model 200 is the one most people mean: around 88,000 were built, with two speakers facing the player and a tremolo. Ray Charles’s “What’d I Say” features the earlier model 120, and Supertramp used one on “Dreamer” and “The Logical Song”.

Rhodes vs Wurlitzer: telling them apart by ear

The quickest tell is the tail of a note. A Rhodes keeps ringing like a bell long after the attack, while a Wurlitzer fades sooner and has a nasal, reedy edge the whole way through.

Try this three-part test on any recording, sample set or plugin:

• Hold one note around middle C (C4) and count. The Rhodes tail lasts noticeably longer and stays pure.
• Play a low chord hard, such as C3, G3 and E4. The Rhodes growls in a rounded way; the Wurlitzer snarls with a brighter, reedier bite.
• Play soft seventh chords in the middle of the keyboard, like Cmaj7 (C, E, G, B) to Fmaj7 (F, A, C, E), both from the chords in C major. On the Rhodes the four notes ring on and melt into one soft wash; on the Wurlitzer each note stays distinct and the chord dies away sooner, so it sounds tighter and closer to you.

That last difference is what decides it in a band. A Wurlitzer cuts through guitars and drums, and a Rhodes sits underneath and fills the space. To compare the two without owning either, our Gelato Chord app includes recordings of a 1977 Rhodes and a Wurlitzer EP200, so you can hold one chord and switch between them. The Rhodes is one of its three free sounds; the Wurlitzer comes with the $4.99 unlock.

The DX7 E.PIANO 1: the 80s electric piano sound

3. Yamaha DX7 E.PIANO 1 (Yamaha). FM synth preset, voice 11 of the DX7’s first factory ROM bank, 1983. The DX7 cost $1,995 when it launched in 1983, and its factory electric piano imitates a Rhodes but took on a character of its own: a clean, glassy tone with a metallic ping at the front and very little growl underneath. Music theorist Megan Lavengood studied the preset and found it on about 40 percent of the Billboard Hot 100 number ones of 1986 and 61 percent of that year’s R&B number ones. The Twin Peaks theme is the easiest place to hear it on its own, and Whitney Houston, Chicago and Phil Collins all used it, often on power ballads.

An FM electric piano is built with FM synthesis: one sine wave (the modulator) wobbles the pitch of another (the carrier) so fast that you hear new harmonics instead of vibrato. E.PIANO 1 uses algorithm 5, which is three separate modulator-and-carrier pairs added together, and the factory patch data shows what each pair does:

• Two pairs at a 1:1 ratio make the round body of the note.
• The third pair has its modulator at 14 times the note’s frequency, with an envelope that fades faster than the body. That is the tine ping at the start of every note.
• The three carriers are detuned slightly against each other (+3, 0 and -7 on the DX7’s detune scale), which adds a slow shimmer.
• The ping modulator has the maximum velocity sensitivity, 7 out of 7, and the two body modulators sit at 6, so soft notes come out mellow and nearly pure and hard notes ring like a bell.

You can build a simpler version on any two-operator FM synth. Set a sine carrier and a sine modulator at ratio 1 for the body, and give the FM amount its own envelope with an instant attack, about one second of decay and a low sustain, so each note starts bright and settles into a purer tone. Set the volume envelope to 0 ms attack, 2 to 3 seconds of decay, sustain at zero and about 300 ms of release, so the note fades while you hold it, like a struck tine. If velocity can control the FM amount, turn that on, as the original does. On Gelato Synth, the E-Piano and Tines presets in the Keys category are FM electric pianos, and the Envelope to FM slider on the FM page is that bright-attack, purer-tail control. For more on what ratios do, read FM synthesis explained simply.

CP-70, Pianet and Clavinet: three more electric piano types

4. Yamaha CP-70 and CP-80 (Yamaha). Electric grand piano with real strings, 73 keys (CP-70) or 88 (CP-80), made 1976 to 1985. Wooden keys fire hammers at real strings with the same action as an acoustic piano, but there is no soundboard: piezo pickups mounted on the iron frame send the sound to an amp. It sounds like a small grand piano through a PA, bright and a little metallic, and its bass strings are only about 27 inches long, so the low end is thinner than a real grand’s. The CP-70 cost $4,000 in 1976 and was built for touring, since the harp lifts off the keyboard so it travels in two parts. Tony Banks used it heavily in Genesis (“That’s All”), Peter Gabriel used it on “In Your Eyes”, and Alicia Keys has toured with one as her main piano.

5. Hohner Pianet (Hohner). Reed electric piano, 61 keys (60 on later models), made 1962 to 1983. Designed by Ernst Zacharias, the Pianet has no hammers. A sticky pad rests on each steel reed, and pressing the key lifts the pad, which pulls the reed up until it lets go and vibrates. The pad lands back on the reed when you release the key, so every note stops the moment your finger lifts. Notes start buzzy and settle into a cleaner tone, and the instant damping suits bouncy staccato chords. The Zombies’ “She’s Not There” is the classic example, and the Beatles used one on “I Am the Walrus”.

6. Hohner Clavinet (Hohner). Electric clavichord, 60 keys, made 1964 to 1982; the D6 from 1971 is the classic model. Another Zacharias design, it presses a rubber pad under each key against a string, fretting it like a guitarist’s hammer-on, and electromagnetic pickups like an electric guitar’s read the strings. The D6 has four tone switches (Brilliant and Treble cut the lows, Medium and Soft cut the highs), two pickup switches marked AB and CD, and a mute slider that damps every string for a muted, plucky sound. It is a funk rhythm instrument first, often run through a wah or an auto-wah. Hear it on Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition”, Bill Withers’ “Use Me” and Led Zeppelin’s “Trampled Under Foot”.

How to get these electric piano sounds today

Of the six, only the tine piano is still built new. Rhodes Music Group in the UK builds the Rhodes MK8 to order and also makes the Stage 61, a 61-key tine piano that weighs 59 lb. Vintage Vibe in New Jersey builds its own tine pianos to order in 64-key and 73-key sizes. The Wurlitzer, CP-70, Pianet and Clavinet ended production decades ago, so owning one means buying used and budgeting for a technician. For everyone else there are three easier routes:

• Stage pianos. Yamaha’s CP88 and CP73 have Rhodes, Wurlitzer, Clavinet and DX-style electric pianos in their electric piano section, plus a CP80 sound in the piano section.
• Software. Arturia’s V Collection has Stage-73 V (a Rhodes), Wurli V, CP-70 V, Clavinet V and DX7 V.
• iPhone. DX7-compatible apps such as KQ Dixie 26 and M2DX load DX7 .syx patch banks, so once you load the original factory bank you can play E.PIANO 1 itself on your phone. Our list of FM synth apps for iPhone compares them.

For a Rhodes or Wurlitzer sound, add tremolo: start around 4 to 5 Hz with the depth near 30 percent, and slow it to 2 or 3 Hz for ballads. For a Clavinet, reach for a wah or auto-wah, the way funk players did; Herbie Hancock also played his Rhodes through a wah-wah. E.PIANO 1 needs the least help, since its detuned carriers already give it movement.