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[rathole alert]
Dave,
Just a nit, but I notice you called the Casio preset "dogpianet", implying that they used a Pianet. I used to think it was a Pianet too (it sounds like one to me) but according to here: http://www.hallofelectricpianos.co.uk/whoplayed.html and here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Greenspoon it was actually a Wurly. If you have any references I'd be really curious.

Greg.

Ah yes I've bounced back and forth on this one over the years. Years ago when I created Pianet presets for Kurz (with Pianet samples) we had a few pretty solid keys reference books that listed it as Pianet. But I've also seen the Greenspoon quotes about it being a Wurly. I'm inclined to say that settles it.

Yet there are still a few things that give me at least a hint of a grey area. I'm pretty sure that there's no sustain pedal used on the Three Dog Night recordings. The Pianet had no sustain, the Wurly did. But of course some players used their Wurly without the sus pedal. On Mamma Told me not to Come, the pitchy warble effect sure sounds an awful lot like the Pianet's vibrato setting. Wurly didn't have one of those. Greenspoon mentioned playing the Wurly through a Leslie... yet it still sounds really like the Pianet vibrato. When creating presets to match the recordings, I tried using both Wurly and Pianet samples - I always got better results with Pianet samples. On the PX5S (that has no Pianet samples) I timbre-shifted (transposed the root sample) the Wurly many steps up to get a sound that matched.

All of these factors seem to be at odds with what Greenspoon himself had to say.

The quote I saw from him was quite recent. I've worked with several high profile guys that 30-40 years after the fact have actually gotten some facts wrong about their own recordings. The best example was hanging out with Bernie Worrell from P-Funk and gently reminding him "No dude I'm pretty sure *you* wrote this song". After a minute of memory-jogging he came around saying, "Oh yeah thanks man, I remember now! I love that song!" One hypothesis of mine is that a Pianet could have been used on the studio recordings, but on all live renditions he did in fact use the Wurly. In this scenario, he would have hundreds (or even thousands) of memories of having played the Wurly rig vs the one single memory of the Pianet in the studio. Throw in an adult dose of partying in the 70s and I know my memories of such things might get a little fuzzy.

I'm still 95% on side of thinking it was probably a Wurly. But the nerdly minutiae mentioned above does drive me a little nutty. This is why when I'm not programming keyboards for work I try to keep my head occupied with things like Weird Al, art, old books, history and bad sci-fi/horror movies. Otherwise all of my waking moments would be dominated by keyboard-geek conundrums!

Dave,
Many thanks for sharing your expertise - absolutely fascinating. I liked your playing a lot too, in those demos.

Greg.

That's my understanding too, but I can't really hear any chorus in "Dreamer", and it still sounds insanely good. ;^)

Just took another listen to the Kawai Wurly demos - yep - that really is dead on, IMHO - it has that bright metallic tone.

Greg.

Dave,
FWIW, I did a Google for "pianet joy to the world" and found this post by Ken Rich: (I don't know anything about him, but he seems to be into keyboards in a very big way, like yourself)

https://www.facebook.com/KenRichSoundServices/posts/315402998515529

He too seems to be coming round to the opinion that it's a Wurly!

Greg.

And the "previous post" Ken refers to is: https://www.facebook.com/KenRichSoundServices/posts/285471241521959

this pretty much settles it for me - that's a Wurly sounding about the same as the studio recording, IMHO. Moreover, there are sections in the studio recording that really do sound more like a Wurly than a Pianet - the tone sounds more like hammers hitting reeds than the reeds being "plucked".

I'll still download your patch, though, even if you don't rename it. ;^) (if I ever get a PX5S)

Greg.