Back in June of 2012 we were recording Grand Marimba at Canterbury Music in Toronto. Studio owner Jeremy Darby was showing us his collection of vintage instruments, and let us try his Rhodes Suitcase 88. It immediately struck us as one of the most beautifully maintained and best sounding Suitcases we’d ever played.

In the summer of 2016 we went back into Canterbury to sample it, and with the invaluable help of Adam King and Robbie Grunwald we got an amazing, authentic and dynamic sound. We recorded three different signals, the line-out, the tightly close mic’d speaker cabinet, and natural room ambience.

That was just the beginning. After several months of painstaking editing, we finally have what we feel is the best sampled Rhodes available, presented as The Canterbury Suitcase.

Spoiler: Instrument details

Original instrument:

• Rhodes Suitcase 88 1976, Canterbury Studios, Toronto.

Channels:

• Line out
• Speaker cabinet mics: AKG414 pair with brass C12 capsules
• Room mics: Soundfield MKV at mid distance

• Fully configurable velocity sensitive filter on each channel: filter types include HPF, LPF, LP Ladder, BPF, Phaser, Notch, Peak.

Library specifications:

• 24 bit 48 kHz sampling.
• 16 GB library (8 GB with Kontakt NCW compression)
• over 11,000 samples
• 21 to 25 velocity levels per note, with intelligent round robin
• key-off & pedal release samples
• Tuning preset library with user micro-tuning function
• 1st, 2nd, 3rd Harmonic voicing adjustment
• Velocity curve setup
• Custom effects insert chain
• Custom IR reverb processor with Soniccouture IR library

• Kontakt Player + NKS compatible. Requires Kontakt 5.6.8

INTRO OFFER 30% OFF!

Until 21st August you can get 30% off The Canterbury Suitcase!

ENTER CODE: ARNS3S83SH

http://www.soniccouture.com/en/products/24-vintage/g59-the-canterbury-suitcase/

 

not a single fuck given about this Rhodes? the sound is righteous, baby!

audio demos on their website are more telling, though.