Farfisa Compact Fast 4

This is a combo organ. It's controls are switches which select effects and tones on a on/off basis. This is an old keyboard, way before any synth or digital boards with editinf menu's and all that shit came out. Very basic and simple operate.

Full polyphony.the action of the keys are good, but it's a little stiff when compared to other farfisa's or a hammond. The built in effects include vibrato (which is a standard) and percussion. The percusion function was designed to be a volume sustain modulation effect. It's not at all like the harmonic percussion found on hammond organs. The percussion on the fast 4 was designed to make it simulate other instruments than an organ. Like a harpsichord, clav and such. the percussion can does harmonics to the tone, but the harmonics are very synthy and bright. Very odd but cool. You'd have to hear it to see what I mean. no expansion capabilities except maybe running it into an amplifier He! He! Midi? this organ's from 1968, what do you think! But, it's pretty versatile for a sixties organ. You can get several types of organ, jazz, and bass tones from it.

The fast 4 is similar to farfisa compact organs which offer voices in multiple footages. Clarinet,flute,trumpet,oboe,strings, and piccolo voices with some in ranks of 16, 8 ,4. 16 being low, 8 is midrange and 4 is highs. The tones are not supposed to sound like their names, they are supposed to indicate a general organ tone characteristic. Stings are bright, oboe is a reedy tone, and flutes are a melow tone. Hammond organs have a flute organ tone, get it! The fast 4 works well for jazz, garage, surf, new wave,ska and rock. tHe fast 4 also features mixture tabs which give you flute tones in ranks of 5 1/3 and 2 2/3. These allow it to simulate a hammond organ tone to increase it's verstitlity. It also has a bass octave to give you either one or two ocataves of organ bass tones for accompanyment. As far as the overall tone, the fast 4 is a CHESSY SIXTIES ORGAN! That's what it is. some people may not be into it's sound, but it's a unique piece of gear.

questionable!! it all depends on how well it was taken are off over the last 30 years. chances are you'd need to have it serviced which may be costly. try not to get goughed when you but one cuz after servicing it, you might have invested more money than you anticipated. The unit I have was working good, but there were some probems due to age like bad contacts ect. I wouldn't gig wiht one unless it was mint or I had a back up.

no longer exists. Unless you have knowledge of electronic organ repair, you only chance is to take it to a repair center that can fix old transistor organs. There is quite a bit of technical information available on the web if you know where to look.

I had it for a while and sold it. Iv'e regretted it ever since. In the right situaton, this organ can sound quite cool, and it may be less expensive than a modern board if you were on a budget. As far as farfisa's go it's a classic. It has a very mod clockwork orange look to it. Its white with blue plastic trim around the edges and has gey keys with white sharps!! very mod. The sound of it is an aquired taste, you may find it to cheesy for your taste and may favor a farfisa compact's or vox contintal's sound. you would have to hear or play one to truly become aquainted with it. That's the scoop.

It is quite simple if you know a little about organ registers, vibrato, percussion, etc. The presets sound awful if you are epecting them to sound like a hammond B3 or a church organ. It is very easy to edit patches combining the tabs with some good taste. There is no manual or at least no manual could make it to these days, just intuition and some basic electrical engineering.

Lowest bass octave has reverse coloured keys like a Vox Continental organ or a harpsichord, the second octave is natural keys: dark grey, chromatics keys: white. The dark grey keys can be set as bass manual or treble manual. The bass manual has a volume knob and a soft/sharp selector. Treble manual stops are Bass 16', Bass Clarinet 16', Flute 8', Oboe 8', Trumpet 8', Strings 8', Flute 4' and Piccolo 4' (Piccolo sounds like Flute 4' mixed with a virtual 2'. There are also Mixture (5' 1/3) and Brilliant Mixture (2' 2/3). It has a percussion section with tabs for long/short decay, Bass manual on/off, Treble manual on/off and Mixture (3rd harmonic) and Brilliant Mixture (6th harmonic). The percussion is awful making the sound very loud at the beginning and then dropping it down very low. Full polyphony, the action is very light, excelent for lead play, or upper manual play. It has three tabs for vibrato selection: On/Off, Fast/Slow, Hard/Soft. There is actually a very subtle difference between Vibrato Fast and Vibrato Slow. Otherwise it is very easy to use and select. There is a jack underneath the organ which is for conecting an expansion Farfisa pedalboard. There was no MIDI in 1968, also there is no velocity sensitive keyboard, since all the expression came from the Volume Pedal. For a combo organ it lacks the drabars of other organs of that time like Vox, or some other Farfisa models, and the tabs doesn't allow to select intensity of the organ stops. There is just full on or full off. Anyway, the different tabs for the same stop (f.e. Flute 4', Oboe 4', etc.) gives the Fast 4 far more sound possibilities for creating orginal organ registrations.

The sound tabs are not expected to be taken seriously as an imitation of the correponding orchestral sound. The Flute doesn't sound like a Flute nor does the Strings sound like real ones. But anyway, these stops, which are also available in church organs, are not that realistic either on them. An organist does not expect them to be so.
It sounds very good for 1960's rock music a la the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Byrds, the Doors. Expressiveness is achieved via a volume pedal.

It is by no means a reliable organ. After all those years it has some keys which at times woulnd not sound depending on how hard they are played. I would not take to a gig without backup. I have a Kurzweil PC-88mx and an E-MU Vintage Keys set up with farfisa sounds ready to enter into action anytime the Fast 4 gives up. With some technical maintenance I think it would sound again like in its psychedelic youth.

The company still exists today but is not willing to make any customer support on these 1960's models. They are making family organs and keyboards like Casio nowadays. In my country there is no technician accepting to restore it to full action since it is a very old keyboard.

If it were stolen I would try to get a Vox Continental or a Farfisa Compact. There isn't much difference between them. I have been playing it for an year now. I own a Kurzweil PC-88mx controller, E-MU Vintage Keys module and Korg Toneworks G4 Leslie simulator. I love the Fast 4 sounds but hate it unreliability. I wish it had drawbars like a Farfisa VIP. Anyway it is very good for getting that surf rock sound of the middle 60's.