What's your favorite keyboard used by Rick?

Discuss all things Richard Wright from his epic keyboarding to the wonderful songs he created for the band!

What's your favorite keyboard used by Rick?

Farfisa organ (late '60 and early '70. On The Endless River too)
16
36%
Hammond Organ (from early '70)
9
20%
Acoustic piano
4
9%
Electric piano: Wurlitzer (ObC, DSoM), Fender Rhode (from mid '70) , and Honher Clavinet (on WYWH and Animals)
4
9%
Analog Synthesiser: VCS-3 (early and mid '70), Mini Moog (from DSotM to Animals), Arp Solina & Quadra, Prophet 5 (late '70)
11
24%
Digital Synthesiser: Roland JX-10 ('80) and Kurzweil ('80 & '90)
1
2%
 
Total votes: 45

duffOnTheRun
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What's your favorite keyboard used by Rick?

Post by duffOnTheRun »

Rick used a multitude of keyboard during his career. All these instruments have contributed to created a big parts of the "Pink Floyd sound".

So, among all the instruments used by Rick, what is your favorite?
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nosaj
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Re: What's your favorite keyboard used by Rick?

Post by nosaj »

Farfisa!
Such cool sounding stuff that suited the era.
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Re: What's your favorite keyboard used by Rick?

Post by Hudini »

I voted Farfisa too. Although a keyboardist not using a Farfisa in the late 60s was a rarity, Rick's use of the instrument was somehow unique or at least I just like to think so. I'm also very fond of his work on the Mellotron, which isn't listed here and would definitely be my second option.
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Re: What's your favorite keyboard used by Rick?

Post by my breakfast. »

Farfisa for me. If you listen to any other recording of a Farfisa it sounds like a buzzy, tinny '60s electronic organ. Rick managed to get an entire orchestra of sound out of the thing. Live version of Cymbaline feature him playing slow accordion or harmonium swells. Live versions of Set the Controls feature those drawn out ambient space sections where he used the 'repeat percussion feature' (an inverse sawtooth tremolo for those that care) into an echo unit to make these amazing peals of sound. In the middle of Astronomy Domine on Ummagumma it sounds almost like he is using a mellotron, yet it is just him with the Farfisa and volume pedal into a slightly wobbly echo unit. Rick Wright was almost a hesitant player, unwilling to vamp along or reel of burning solos like Jimmy Smith or Brian Auger. Yet, with a fairly 'entry level' Italian electric organ he was capable of ringing out a vast range of textures and tonalities that might not be technically all that but are really inspired and impressive.

For example, early Tangerine Dream owe him fairly substantially for their similar use of Farfisa organ. Listen to this live recording from the Ossiach concert of 1971;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_emavwYS684

Farfisa seem to have got in the bin at some point, as they made the telecom system in my flat and it is pretty broken.
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Re: What's your favorite keyboard used by Rick?

Post by danielcaux »

I like the stuff he plays on the "Any Colour You Like", "Welcome To The Machine" and "Sheep" solos. I don't know what that is though :(
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Re: What's your favorite keyboard used by Rick?

Post by Hudini »

"Any Colour You Like" and "Welcome To The Machine" were played on a VCS3. I'm not sure about "Dogs", but I've read somewhere that the middle section was played on a newer version of a EMS synthesizer, most probably a VC10.
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Re: What's your favorite keyboard used by Rick?

Post by my breakfast. »

Hudini wrote:"Any Colour You Like" and "Welcome To The Machine" were played on a VCS3. I'm not sure about "Dogs", but I've read somewhere that the middle section was played on a newer version of a EMS synthesizer, most probably a VC10.
I didn't know that about Any Colour You Like, though it makes sense. Must have been one with the outboard keyboard though. I always thought that was a great lead synth sound, especially with the epic delay on it.
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Re: What's your favorite keyboard used by Rick?

Post by duffOnTheRun »

It's good to see that the old Farfisa finally receives acknowledgment!

See Rick playing with Farfisa for Echoes on OAI tour in 2006 gave me the same feeling to see David with then Black Strat for Live 8 in 2005!

The middle section of Echoes, where Rick plays the Farfisa moved me every time I listen! Rick could have used his Kurzweil with a similar sound, but it will not have been the same.

I'm glad to hear Farfisa on The Endless River too!
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Re: What's your favorite keyboard used by Rick?

Post by Ageless Stranger »

You are missing the Fairlight from that list, even though he didn't use it on any Floyd track he used it on Zee
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Re: What's your favorite keyboard used by Rick?

Post by Hudini »

Nobody likes what Rick did on Fairlight.
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Re: What's your favorite keyboard used by Rick?

Post by raisemyrent »

I picked the Moog because he is rarely recognised as a Moog giant, despite having churned out EPIC tunes on it:
- horn sound at the beginning of Shine On and It's What We Do. the one sound that is to me Richard Wright/Pink Floyd so much more than anything else (the gentle mastery and elegance of it)
- Any Colour You Like (such a unique and smart solo)
- Have A Cigar (big keyboard, super loud for Rick with Floyd)
- Dogs (highlight of the album)
- Keep Talking (classic moment when he solos, albeit sampled on a Kurzweil I believe)
- Wearing the Inside Out (I believe sampled on a Kurzweil, a Wright song with a lead solo on it! albeit brief)

I also have a Moog and it makes me all giddy to find a sound like his and play one of his parts.

edit: sources: http://www.watersish.com/archives/cat_wrightish.html
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Re: What's your favorite keyboard used by Rick?

Post by moodyblue »

The most beautiful sound he ever made is the Organ intro on Us And Them.
I was never a big organ fan but the chord progression he uses ranks as one of my favourite introduction to a song.
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Re: What's your favorite keyboard used by Rick?

Post by theaussiefloydian »

Which keyboard did he use to make that mournful sound in "Shine On You Crazy Diamond Part I" and "Part IX"? Because whichever one that was, that.
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Re: What's your favorite keyboard used by Rick?

Post by mosespa »

Hammond Organ and Electric Piano were my votes.

Honestly, though; I love them all.
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Re: What's your favorite keyboard used by Rick?

Post by ZiggyZipgun »

The Oberheim on Wet Dream is my favorite.

Others had used the Leslie speaker with a piano, but the sound he got with it was the best.

I've always preferred the Wurlitzer to the Rhodes, and again, others had used a wah-wah with an electric piano, but he did it best.

The pairing of instruments is interesting on Dark Side, because he always uses the Wurlitzer with the Farfisa, and the Rhodes with the Hammond - if you swap those pairs on any of the songs, they would sound drastically different.

The leads on "Shine On" were played on a Minimoog.

"Any Colour You Like" was recorded with the VCS3 but played live on a Minimoog.