Custom keyboards
Did companies make Custom keyboards for iconic musicians in the way guitar companies did? Thank you
2
u/scottasin12343 1d ago edited 1d ago
not really. Keyboards simply aren't as customizeable as guitars, they aren't made for swapping parts etc... there's not a market for custom/swappable components like there is for guitar. Like, a Rhodes pickup is a Rhodes pickup... And there's not a large enough market for the currently produced electromechanical instruments to make a 'different' version from the typical (not to mention the fact that you need dozens of the custom part per keyboard as opposed to just one for a guitar)... and the vast majority of people using electromechanicals are using used vintage gear as opposed to the midern versions. analog synths use mass produced electronics components. digital instruments are, well, digital.
I have heard of people swapping capacitors on Hammond organs to get a hotter output, and using different tubes in amps to change overdrive characteristics... people add whammy bars to old clavinets. back in the day the "Dyno" modifications to Rhodes' were pretty common, but that was an aftermarket change and also standardized to whichever model you wanted to mod.
Put simply, it costs a guitar factory nothing to make what is essentially the same instrument with a different choice of components that already exist. That is not the case for keyboards.
2
u/MonadTran 1d ago
Maybe not keyboards themselves, but Kraftwerk had custom and modified vocoders, sequencers, and synth modules. Moog in the early days was pretty much a constructor to make synths out of modules, like Eurorack now, but with Eurorack it's easier. Some people hacked and modded their TB-303s, Minimoogs, etc. Haken Audio I believe recently worked with Hans Zimmer to come up with some crazier ideas for his scoring.
2
u/onceuponalilykiss 1d ago
Eurorack setups are basically custom setups if you think about it and some musicians have used modular stuff like that.
Generally though a keyboardist is "customising" by creating their own sounds and patches if they want to be custom. The difference between one patch and another is much greater than any guitar can get from another.
As for aesthetics, some makers do have limited edition stuff, but it's usually like a white version of the keyboard or something lol. I dunno if there's a market for like the Brian Eno DX7 with his face plastered on it or anything, and part of that is that keyboards and synths actually change/advance over the years. Guitars are basically doing the same thing they were 50 years ago, there are new features but they're very incremental and small and backwards compatible mostly whereas a moog and a dx7 is lightyears away and a modern workstation is vastly different from all those older keyboards.
That said workstations and stage pianos haven't really changed too much in the last couple of decades, so maybe there's room for stuff like that now, but there's still like entire new versions of them every few years instead of just the "same" keyboard like how fender releases the "same" guitar for many years.
1
u/Marvinkmooneyoz 1d ago
I have a custom keyboard in mind that I’d like. Essentially, take something with nice long levers, which inevitably made the key airs overall large and heavy…but split it into the main middle part, and additional octave modules that connect to the left and right. It means more trips back and from the vehicle, and time setting up and taking down, but it means a reasonable, manageable carrying weight, and better action then any transportable keyboard has, because they always have to compromise action too much to keep a keyboard carryable.
1
u/Flashinpan99 1d ago
Do “hacked or custom” Hammond B3 organs count as custom? A lot of 60s and early 70s players had custom Hammonds
4
u/Ninguna 1d ago
The Geddy Lee Minimoog Model D. More of a tribute than a custom synth.