Introducing the RMI Electra-piano 368x

  / howa   ____R__M __I________ 00:00 - About this RMI 03:36 - RMI Sounds 04:25 - Organ Mode 06:13 - Tuning the beast 07:19 - Adding FX 09:17 - The Panoptigon and MS20 12:54 - Otari 5050 CV control 15:02 - Cocoquantus 18:23 - Final thoughts 20:02 - Eric Slick plays the rig 21:48 - Rob Burger and me on the rig The unique, clunky and charming RMI electra- piano 368x is back in the mix here at the studio. I've owned this beauty for quite some time but it's been largely neglected. That was until I started obsessing over the music of Roedelius. His self portrait records made heavy use of the Farfisa Professional Piano which has a related tone to the RMI. I thought it was time to bring the beast out of retirement, rusty legs and all. That sent me down a familiar rabbit hole where I kept imagining ways to surround and augment the instrument. I added the panoptigon to the mix, an MS20, Echofix delay, Strymon Volante, Mutron Phasor, Moog murf, volume pedal, Shure auxpander, Otari 5050 CV modded tape machine, piano, wellspring fx unit, coco quantus ... (phew) all tracking into the console as a big multitrack via DI lines. It took me ages and I must say this is something I get up to fairly often but I rarely archive the process. Before I tore it all down (which I did the other day) I filmed it and it's a long and in depth affair so not for the casual viewer. This really might as well serve as a Raymond Scott style document of what a system was. A system I came to call the "German set up" as it was hugely inspired by Roedelius. His setup was likely very VERY much more minimal and relied on good playing and internal counterpoint. I am not a great player but I had Rob Burger and Eric Slick swing by to jam. I've now come up with a more minimal (ish) set up with the RMI feeding get Revox B77 and to bounce mono tracks back and forth. That's the real way it was done and it's a lot of fun! Anyway I hope you enjoy this :)