Farfisa Wah

[Harcourt Ordonez]

Myfirst keyboard was a transistor-kind of organ, by the maker Rheem. I bought it, a 15" speaker and a sparkle red tuck-and-roll Fender head at a pawn shop in Boston MA. for $300 bucks. I kept going to different music stores looking for a stomp-box pedal that would make it sound more like the cool organ tones I was hearing on Allman Bros. records, but nothing I tried did the trick. (lol) I sometimes see those keyboards for sale on Reverb, and sometimes feel I should buy one for nostalgia's sake.

Flash forward a couple of years, and I bought a used Yamaha YC-45 dual manual transistor organ. By this time, I had become somewhat hipper to organ sounds, and I ran it thru an old Leslie speaker I had modified to accept a 1/4" input. That Yamaha sounded pretty good going thru the Leslie; almost like a Hammond. I played that rig for a couple of years in a Grateful Dead clone band I was in. That was one cool keyboard capable of a wide variety of sounds, but it is not a Hammond.

Interestingly, my current organ set-up is a Hammond XK3 played thru a Motion Sound Pro 145, and with all that Hammond and Leslie goodness at my command, my favorite sound is organ with the Leslie stopped. I heard this Ray Charles album where he plays a Hammond without a Leslie (IIRC, the recording is Genius + Soul = Jazz), and fell in love with that sound - which to me sounds yet more hipper than all the Hammond + Leslie in rock recordings I have listen to.

Vox and farfisa (and the countless Italian transistor sub labels) have been really big on some genres (Surf, 60s, Italia music, some Mediterranean ethnic styles etc) and for a good reason: they cut through a mix better than a Hammond setting

Maybe this is the best place for a shameless plug! Our now not-so-new new video at is a 40 minute adaptation of T. S. Eliot's "Prufrock" - check it out! And hopefully I'll have something new here this year. ;-)

So is this thread kind of a love for the Doors but not so much for transistor organs? Their sound was influenced by what was happening in the Bay area at the time with Grateful Dead and Country Joe and the Fish - along with the practical considerations of getting from gig to gig (something we all had to deal with). And transistor organs did lend themselves well to trippy playing by keyboard players.

Nostalgically, most musicians lean towards instruments and sounds that were used on the musical soundtrack of their lives while growing up. They automatically associate certain sounds with their favorite songs.

I bought a Vox Continental in 1966, played it for a couple months, realized it wasn't the organ for me, and got my first B3. I kept the Vox, and it got some use during the New Wave days. Recently traded it to Robbie Krieger (!) for another piece of gear.

The reason you like the transistor organ with the Doors, and nobody else, is because Ray Manzarek was an incredible player and artist. He used that Vox like no one else I've heard. The 96 Tears type of playing is just way less interesting and way less dynamic. When transistor organs aren't played with dynamics, they annoy the crap out of everybody.

I've always been more into Alan Price. Every decade or so, someone brings the transistor sound back, so kudos to Steve Nieve and Blue Rodeo (not sure if that's brother Mike Buguski or earlier Steve Wiseman).

I think Bob Wiseman created Blue Rodeo's great retro organ sound. He was with them from the beginning until 1992. 1993's brilliant "Hasn't Hit Me Yet" features a prominent organ transition with the classic Wiseman warble, but James Gray gets the performer credit. Brother Boguski joined the band in 2008 and keeps Wiseman's legacy alive.

If you feel that passionately about Hammond vs. Vox/Farfisa, you can play or record your own cover versions of those songs, replacing the sounds that bother you with the ones that you would rather hear instead. It would be an opportunity to sharpen your skills in areas such as music production, ear training, etc. Even the baddest mofos out there don't stop honing and refining skills. Hardly any of them are thinking "I've made it! Now I can spend all day doing nothing but sitting on my butt and chillin!"

This one's our latest single, and the initial recording session (in a small wooden hut in Denmark) consisted of drums, bass, guitar, and my setup with a philicorda and a Wurli, both run into a KM-60 and a Space Echo.

Recorded straight to tape onto six tracks of a Tascam 388.

The vibe wouldn't work with anything else.

i've gained a great interest in farfisa's lately. i don't know much about these vintage electronic organs at all (and i'm not a key player to begin with...), but i'm deeply in love with their sounds on stereolab records (tim gane's widely known for his farfisa love).

We are back to is the real deal worth it debate. The farfisa was pretty well always the second choice back in the day. They just didnt sound as good as the vox. I think the farfisa patch on my stage piano rivals any real farfisa i ever played or heard. If you are a collector ,, thats cool. If you just want a farfisa sound ,,, that can be had on a modern keyboard in my opinion. the farfisa ,, had the farfeezee cheezee sound ,,,thats not too hard to get with a sample.. Its not like you are trying to mimic the B3. As long as its wheezie and cheezie its good enough to mimic the farfisie ...

Well, yes and no. A sample will get you a facsimile of the sound, but you can't play it like the real thing. Even the Nord Stage, with a fairly robust Farfy simulation, doesn't model the treble boost on the knee lever.

Yup pretty much. I was workin with an original singer song writer last winter one night a week. His new CD had farfisa on it on one of the songs. My stage piano has a pretty solid farfisa patch ,,, It worked fine. I never played around with any farfisa organs cept in the music store back in the day. I never had a chance to mess with the pro model. I had a vox contential back then. It was no B3 thats for sure. The farfisa had a distinct sound for sure....

I had a vox and played that when i was young ,,, had a rhodes too. Then I hung it up for years ... now i have a RD300sx running through a couple mackie srm 450s. I dont haul those around. I have one i use as a keyboard amp if i need one. The thing that would freak most people out is how much a combo organ cost back in the day..... gear today is a bargin

I've never had a Farfisa, but do now have a fully functional early Vox Continental. I haven't heard the Nord patches but none of the other samples/models sound that close to my ears. I like the vox and since I'm not quite as old as rhat i do occasionally bring it out to gigs.

The thing about the vox that made it so good in its time was that it actually had real draw bars. You could shape the sound. I ran my vox through a bassman with two bottoms and a fender leslie. It was a very good combo organ rig for the times. those were the days when you ran big ass back lines and only vocals went out through the PA. We ran no monitors ,, and pushed our horn section via a mics out through a smaller PA. Teen bands played huge ass rooms most of the time. Yea a HS gym is a big ass room to fill. Todays gear is way better than what we did back then.. but back then every musicain is a good band knew how to mix his sound into the band mix right off the amp. Today kids just dont know those basic skills.... when they sound like censored they blame the soundman. we had great amps, and instruments and mics... not so great PA gear ,,, the mixes were very good since you didnt stay in a band long unless you learned how to blend in with the band.

thanks for all the info/inputs/links. as i said earlier, i'm quite new to these things, but i'm still very interested nonetheless. i guess i need to do some more researches on them. thanks to those who posted some useful links here. of course, i wouldn't spend much money on it at this stage. probably something simple to begin with, but at the same time, i have this crave towards the real analogue instruments rather than patches, more compact digital units (which contradicts my sig ). so that's the dilemma.

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