Valen Tines Rhodes Piano is a Rhodes-like electric piano. Download it from the Dev link below.

Use this sound for free

• The synth plugin (Surge XT) is free and open source, available as VST, AU, and CLAP, for many platforms.
• My patches are free, released under a maximally permissive CC0 licence.
• You can donate to support this work.

• Download Surge XT
• Download Dev pre-release patches
• All my patches

Load the patch

1. Download and unzip the patch file.
2. Drag the file Keys > Valen Tines Rhodes Piano into Surge XT.
   Alternatively, copy the file into your User Patches folder, and select it from the Surge XT patch browser.

Play the patch

• Play it like a piano accompaniment, or as 'bass and rhythm'.
• Use key velocity and the sustain pedal.
• Use the mod wheel for tremolo.
• Bring your own effects and reverb, or enable the effects I already configured in the patch.
• If you perform live, and your CPU can't handle enough polyphony (16 or more is ideal), then set the Scene mode to Single, and play just Scene B for a simpler sound.

Configure the patch

Use the macro controls in the UI of Surge XT, or map your controller to use CCs 41−48. By default, my Sticky Fingers touchscreen web app has keyboards and macro sliders for Surge XT over MIDI.

Macro	MIDI CC	Name	Description
1	41	Decay	Set low to damp notes quickly, set high to ring out.
2	42	Vibraphone+	Adds more metallic high-frequency percussion.
3	43	Warmth	Adjust the pickups, to increase or dampen the rich harmonics.
4	44	Pre Gain	Amplify the sound before the waveshaper, to increase harmonic distortion.
5	45	Waveshaper	Shape the harmonic distortion, especially for hard-played notes.
6	46	Phaser Amount	Control the amount of stereo phasing.
7	47	Phaser Speed	Control the speed of stereo phasing.
8	48	Distortion	A global distortion that applies once to all notes together.

Customize the patch

• Try enabling CH (chorus) in the FX section.
• Try enabling RV2 (reverb) in the FX section.
• Try enabling AW (AirWindows Galactic) in the FX section, to add tight resonances or body.
• To make your chords sound different, try alternative temperament tunings if your composition allows.

Tuning

While ET12 is standard in Western music theory, you can achieve pleasant harmonic intervals or near misses using variants of ET12. Explore them with my XeTune web app and the Scala library.

More demos

I'd love to hear about your challenges and successes with this patch.

Let me know in the Surge Synth Team Discord #using-surge, #surge-content-sharing, or #music channels.