RMI Electra 368

The RMI Electra 368 is a 68-key electric piano/harpsichord, with an oscillator for each key and a series of filters the sound is fed through to resemble that of a piano. And also an 'organ' mode for infinite sustain of the notes.

Tony Banks was well known for using the RMI Electra piano with Genesis, from Selling England By The Pound (in 1973) onwards until after Seconds Out (1977). It replaced the Hohner Pianet N which he used for a while, as an alternative to using a grand piano onstage. He felt the RMI was very good for its time: "it offered a lot of variety for such a simple machine, and had a particular quality that I enjoyed." However, its biggest fault for Tony was the total lack of touch sensitivity: any accidental bum notes played would become very audible, no matter how subtle or light they were. Also, due to the restricting keyboard width (of 68 keys, compared to 88 of a grand piano), Tony had to lower part of the intro to "Firth Of Fifth" by an octave after an incident at a Drury Lane concert where he ran out of notes during the intro.

Effects-wise, Tony treated the sound of the RMI with a Fender Blender distortion box (built onto the front of the RMI), an MXR MX-107 Phase 100 phaser and output through a Leslie speaker. The Leslie was later substituted with a Boss Chorus, which gave a similar sound to the Leslie but was more controllable.

Eventually, around the time of ...And Then There Were Three, the Yamaha CP-70 came along with better functions & sounds than the RMI and a larger keyboard, which paved way for playing a grand piano onstage. He still liked the RMI's Organ Mode, but was made redundant by the newer Polymoog.

Tony Banks' RMI was sold via private auction to Dave Kerzner in the late 2010's.