The famous Fender Rhodes Mark II stage 73 electric piano!
Essential if you plan to do funk-jazz, deep house, or any soulul music.
The Rhodes keys can be heard on countless tracks, from Herbie Hancock to Stevie Wonder, the Doors & Ray Charles, Chick corea & JojoLapin.

It’s funky, soulful, deep, smooth, jazzy, lounge, groovy.
Here are the best FREE VST emulations of the e-piano:

The days of Linux being a barren plug-in desert may at last be over. And if you’re a developer, there are some other nice things happening to VST development on all platforms. Steinberg has quietly rolled out the 3.6.7 version of their plug-in SDK for Windows, Mac, iOS, and now Linux. Actually, your plug-ins may. The Twonker is a free VST MIDI Plugin that allows a digital piano (or any MIDI instrument) to play tones from the Overtone Series. It is designed to run within most Digital Audio Workstations as a Synth Plugin on MacOS, Windows, and Linux. The Twonker allows a musician to play overtones in a predictable and flexible manner, using a regular MIDI.

1. MrRay73 & MrRay22 VST by Guido Scognamiglio

MrRay 2.2 ! rhodes 4 ever

These two VSTi are donationware.
and they are pure synthesis, no sample involved.
The sound is very good, Mr Ray 73 VST gives you that funky feeling when you play it.
Mr Ray 22 has more parameters and some good classic effects : a chorus, a wah wah, a tremolo/autopan, a distortion and a stereo delay.

Mr Ray Charles:
https://blog.wavosaur.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Mr-Ray-Charles-Shake-a-Tail-Feather.mp3

stormy !
https://blog.wavosaur.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/riders-on-the-storm-mrray22.mp3

straight Rhodes e-piano
https://blog.wavosaur.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/mrray73.mp3

soft deep house chords
https://blog.wavosaur.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/mrray22.soft_.mp3

Rhodes piano through wah wah effect!
https://blog.wavosaur.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/mrray22.wahwah.mp3

2. MDA ePiano

Based on a small but clever wavetable, the antique MDA ePiano still sounds fresh in 2014!
and since MDA plugins became open source, you can also find version for Mac & Linux, and also 64 bit versions => http://sourceforge.net/projects/mda-vst/files/mda-vst/mda-vst-src 20100214/

MDA ePiano VST is simple & effective, of course it’s more limited than Mr Ray, but sounds great!

riders on the storm!
https://blog.wavosaur.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/riders-on-the-storm-mda-epiano.mp3

Ray Charles – Shake a Tail Feather
https://blog.wavosaur.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Ray-Charles-shake-a-mda-epiano.mp3

3. EP-Station VST by Big Tick audio

EP station : more groovy keys

A very nice FM modeled electric piano. EP-station is now freeware.
The plugin is not a straight emulation of a Rhodes piano.
It can also do the ” DX 7 e-piano “, the famous FM piano as heard on 95% of the pop / ballad / tv show theme / etc.. tracks produced between 1983 & 1989.
The EP-station also features a chorus & a phaser effect.

smooth sound for deep house
https://blog.wavosaur.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/ep-station1.mp3

phased Fender Rhodes !
https://blog.wavosaur.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/ep-station2.mp3

ultra smooth Deep house Rhodes+phaser
https://blog.wavosaur.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/ep-station3-effectrhodes.mp3

FM pop piano ! the sound of the 80’s
https://blog.wavosaur.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/ep-station4-dxpop.mp3

4. 4Front R-Piano VST

Based on samples, but not only, this emulation gives you a clean sound.
It comes for Windows 32 & 64 bit, and Mac OS X.
4Front R-piano also include a reverb.

soft e-piano for lounge house
https://blog.wavosaur.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/4frontrpiano.mp3

plucked style
https://blog.wavosaur.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/4frontrpiano2.mp3

5. LazySnake VST by Andreas Ersson

Lazy Snake VST

Linux Piano Vst Free Download

Back to a 100% synthesis emulation !
The Lazy Snake electric piano gives you this lounge and mellow sound.
The synth is easy to tweak, and you have a tremolo + wah wah effect.
It’s not really a Rhodes piano emulation, but it’s perfect for deep house chord.

soft clean deep house chord
https://blog.wavosaur.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/lazysnake-smooth.mp3

wah wah effect!
https://blog.wavosaur.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/lazysnake-wah.mp3

Ray Charles shake a snake
https://blog.wavosaur.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Ray-Charles-shake-a-snake.mp3

6. Orange Lounge 2004A by StarrFish Lab

A funky japanese VSTi , created with Synthdit.
It’s not a Rhodes MK2 emulation, but it’s also groovy, and well suited for that deep house feeling.
We can feel the FM modulation but it’s nice!

pretty hard tremolo effect for this e-piano
https://blog.wavosaur.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/orangelounge-deep1.mp3

funky !!
https://blog.wavosaur.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/orangelounge-deep2.mp3

7. SFZ + Learjeff jRhodes3 soundfont

SFZ+ soundfont player

SFZ+ + Learjeff Rhodes soundfont

There are some nice free Rhodes multisample bank around the interweb. So you can pick your favorite sf2 capable VST player and load a Rhodes piano soundfont into it!
Here i choosed the SFZ+ player by RGCAudio and the jRhodes sf2 , that’s the best combo!

(november 17 2014 update !!)

8. RhodyMK1 by Wahnsyn

Linux Piano Vst Free Plugin

A Synthedit VST plugin from Plugindex German website : it has a clean sound, i think it’s based on a soundfont / wav bank. It’s very usable. Unlike the other “classic” emulations, it features a vibrato effect instead of a tremolo effect, it’s strange but that makes unusual sounds!

Piano Free Vst Plugins Downloads

9. Clavia Lab by Simple Media

Linux Piano Vst Free Plugins

Clavia Lab VST

Linux Piano Vst Free Downloads

This plugin is intended for e-piano sounds and also organ and clavinet / harpsichord sounds.