SETH VANEK: Hi. I’m Seth Vanek. We’re here at Milquetoast Studio. This is what we would call the live room or the coach house or the rehearsal space or the band room. Anyway, it’s where we keep all of our instruments we’ve collected and I thought I would show you some of the vintage keyboards that we use starting with a new acquisition here.

Again, I will invoke the name of Mr. Kent Lambert who brought us this Roland EP-30 piano, which is I’ve never only seen other one -- one other like it. It has some -- I’m getting some static over here. Anyway, so the Roland EP-30 here has some piano, harpsichord sounds and a great vibrato.

[SETH VANEK PLAYING A CHORD ON THE ROLAND EP-30]

I don't know if you can hear that but...

[SETH VANEK PLAYING A CHORD ON THE ROLAND EP-30]

...it gives you a nice vibrato sound.

[SETH VANEK PLAYING THE ROLAND EP-30]

Sort of an early synthesizer almost.

[SETH VANEK PLAYING THE ROLAND EP-30]

Nice range.

[SETH VANEK PLAYING THE ROLAND EP-30]

So, that’s a fun one to use for plinky, poinky stuff. Next is the Juno 106 analog synth. This is a rather common analog synth that a lot of people use. It’s gotten some wear and tear over the years. You can see the missing fader but, you know, good for, you know...

[SETH VANEK PLAYING THE ROLAND JUNO 106]

...portamento, sliding around like that, you know, LFO sounds.

[SETH VANEK PLAYING THE ROLAND JUNO 106]

Every once in a while you need something spacey and weird and that’s what this is for, so.

[SETH VANEK PLAYING THE ROLAND JUNO 106]

Also, I’ll just sit right down and play a little Fender Rhodes, the classic ‘70s electric piano that is just, when it comes to recording electric piano, you need something that just sounds smooth and thick you mix right together like glue, that’s the Rhodes, and...

[SETH VANEK PLAYING THE FENDER RHODES]

...sometimes I like to run it through a guitar tremolo pedal to emulate the classic Rhodes vibrato that you hear sometimes on the suitcase model or the stage model. I have a suitcase model here that doesn’t have that. But like everything else at Milquetoast, we rig it up to make it sound as best as we can, even our crackly rehearsal amp.

And lastly, this old war horse, a cable piano. I’m not sure when this was built but I’m pretty sure it was built as a player piano. You can see here that this is where you would put in the rolls and you even have this little nice drawer with controls in here where you would control the player piano, but it’s been converted to just be a regular piano and it’s old and out of tune and -- but sometimes, when you want an acoustic piano sound, you know, a digital piano just won’t substitute so it’s worth having extra character of a, you know, of an old upright piano. So, I’ll just play a little bit of this for you.

[SETH VANEK PLAYING AN OLD UPRIGHT PIANO]

Honky tonk style. And I thought I would show you some of the mallet instruments that I like to use when I’m making recordings here. We’re very fortunate to have some rather rare and expensive instruments that, you know, they don’t move around well but if you have the space to have them and if you can record them, then they make for I think a really nice and interesting recording. So, first one is this vibraphone. It’s a Deagan from the 1930s and really in great shape. We got this through Luther Rockchester, and it sounds like this.

[SETH VANEK PLAYING A 1930’S DEAGAN VIBRAPHONE]

And so it has a nice sustain pedal and you can get a range of sounds, and it’s a very beautiful instrument. If you need something a little more higher pitched and twinkly, that’s why we have the glockenspiel here.

[SETH VANEK PLAYING A GLOCKENSPIEL]

And it sounds like that, always good for the very tippy top of your mix. And then over here is a xylophone for a more woody sound with less sustain but useful all the same.

[SETH VANEK PLAYING A XYLOPHONE]

And it sounds like that. I use these rubber mallets on that or sometimes a harder plastic mallet for more attack, but you know, I think that mallet instruments give you -- can give you a nice, orchestral sound and they’re good for rhythm and melody and whatever you need. So, hooray for mallet instruments.

[“MESS” BY FAKE FICTIONS, ENGINEERED BY MILQUETOAST SOUNDS, PLAYING]