I’m auditioning for a Floyd tribute band in a few weeks. Love the music, but have never analysed Rick”s keyboard parts that closely. We’ll be playing Breathe, Time, Comfortably Numb, Another Brick, Money. Seems like a lot of good quality Hammond, Rhodes, and some strings/orch. Anyone with any other views, please help!
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I’m sure you’ll hear from @dhj, co-founder of Gig Performer 
I believe he is/was in a Floyd tribute band…
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So is @pianopaul and he probably does it better than I do!
That said, my goto plugins for my PF band are
Lounge Lizard - Rhodes
Pianoteq - acoustic piano
Blue3 - Hammond
MTron Pro - Mellotron
The Legend - Moog synth stuff
Oddity - synth stuff
Kontakt - sound effects
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I totally agree the list of David.
Arturia sells some Pink Floyd Tribute Sound which can be used by their stuff.
For Hammond sounds I am using Blue3 and Hammond from IK Multimedia.
Both have their advantage over the other.
For Shine on You crazy Diamond I am using IK Multimedia Hammond
but for In the flesh Blue3 with external distortion sounds much better, it bites.
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Maybe Solina from Arturia or Strings from GForce
For Time you need a lot of sounds.
Are there any backing tracks ?
Arturia sells the Floyd Tribute and Floyd Tribute II soundbanks for Analog Lab that cover a lot of their synth and B3 sounds. Presets have up to 8 macros defined for the most likely controls you’d want to modulate, so you don’t really need the full versions of the underlying synths.
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Yes, I bought this sounds.
Synthcloud/Synthonia https://www.synthonia.com sells the Floydian Wall for Kontakt and other PF-Sounds.
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What sounds do they include?
These really should be called preset packs. The presets use a number of different synths from the V Collection and the B3.
Floyd Tribute presets
Floyd Tribute II presets
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My go to piano is the Allan Parsons Imperial Grand. It has a dark and lovely sound and I think it’s a dead ringer for the Time/Great Gig in the Sky piano.
And we all know Allan Parsons was one of the genius behind Dark Side.
But it’s really about feel. Rick had an idiosyncratic style. His nuances are what sell the songs in my opinion.
Organ wise, he played a 102 and any good VST can emulate that sound but it’s really about what he did with his drawbar settings, really subtle things to get the timber right.
Rick also had this very oddly modded Farfiza organ and you’ll here that transistor sound on a lot of the early Floyd. It’s all over Echos too.
Speaking of Echos… he used a leslie on choral mode that he ran a piano through, I think it was a wurlitzer.
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Thanks dhj - I have alternative/equivalent plugins to the ones you mentioned (apart from Kontakt) but will definitely check them out. Your list helps steer my thinking.
Thanks pianopaul. I’d forgotten about the Arturia tribute packs. I am very much in awe of Paul Schilling’s musical programming.
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Thanks brandon. Rick reminds me a bit of Tony Banks in that neither of them chose the obvious path with sound design (e.g. ARP Pro Soloist instead of Mini Moog with Tony). He seemed like such a lovely soul.
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And just a small ‘tip’: Rick Wright sounds are more about Wurlitzer than Rhodes. Dark Side is entirely wurli. There’s a bit more of Rhodes on The Wall, but remember that a big part of The Wall keyboards weren’t played by Rick.
The Arturia soundpacks are nice. There’s a Synthmaster pack with Pink Floyd patches that are nice too.
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Hmm, we are playing the entire Dark Side at all shows this year but I have to say I never noticed that the electric pianos were all Wurlys - I was using Rhodes.
Am going to change them before the next show — thanks for the tip!
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Ok, just checked: Breathe in the Air is Rhodes, but Breathe (Reprise) is a Wurlitzer.
Time is Wurlitzer, and Money is Wurlitzer through a Wah Wah pedal.
On Animals, the intro of Sheep is Rhodes, but if I recall correctly, Dogs is Wurlitzer.
It seems that when Rick needed a sound more ‘edgier’, he prefered the Wurlitzer.
I played on a Pink Floyd cover band for a long time
Thanks - so the ones I got wrong were Breathe (Reprise) Time, Money, and Dogs.
At least I got Sheep write
Now that you’ve pointed it out, it’s quite obvious. Fortunately, it will be very easy to change them
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Regarding this topic, I found the following video:
I can say I didn’t have all ‘guessing’ right (far from it).
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Great video! I got most of them right, but it’s really illuminating to see how much the effects can disguise the characteristic nature of both instruments. It also reveals how similar they both are in the lower registers and really only becoming more distinctive the further up the keybed you go.
As well as mixing up Rhodes and Wurli, I inexplicably get some people refer to my “Hammond sound” when I’ve played an e-piano patch!
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