Product: Farfisa F1
Price Paid: USD 150
Submitted
10/05/2006
at
04:06pm
by
born2die
Email: tristian_corbett<at>yahoo dot co dot uk
Ease of Use
:
8
Bought this off ebay after wanting one for a few years I bought the kn2000 instead at the time. The presets are good for the age (1994). You have some editing capabilities but due to the small screen size its a right bugger. The manual all 600 pages of war and peace is translated from italian so I will leave it to your imagination to guess how bad it is.
Its a good solide 76 note arranger that belies its age well.
Features
:
10
It has 16 note polyphony so I only really miss notes when combining sounds and playing some serious classical works. The auto accompniment is rubbish the sounds and rythms are cheesy not a patch on the kn2000 but you can edit them so it is possible to get them playable. It seems to recognise what chords I can throw at it. You also get an option whereby the accompminant section recognises how hard and fast you are changing the chords and playing and changes the backing to suit.
This behemoth gets my award for the most buttons ever can be daunting at first and after living with it for 6 months now I still havent found every function or a use for every button.
You also get full midi implimentation but again its a bugger due to the small screen size.
Alongside all the above you get an 88000 event pro quality sequencer that I havent yet got round to learning.
Mine came with the optional stand and you do need it as its rock solid but if you are going to gig you will need something lighter as it takes a while to dissmantle and also weighs close to 10kg.
The inbuilt speakers can tilt towards you, the audience, be rewmoved and placed elsewhere or just left inline as per a normal keyboard.
Expressiveness/Sounds
:
8
For a 10 year old board its great the piano on poly 2 sounds fresh and is the best sound on the board. Th others are passable but not up to kn2000 quality.
You can layer two sounds on the right and two sounds on the left if you choose. Or any combination of the above. You also have a choice of reverbs and quite advanced editing options. The biggest bonus being aftertouch.
The synth sounds are rubbish though but that is'nt what this board is about though.
This is best suited to foxtrot etc more for the older generation but with the aftertouch and a good sound module can sound fresh and good but at 26kg its not that good for gigging.
Reliability
:
10
Has'nt let me down yet. The screen keeps flashing which I think is the backlight that has gone home but apart from that for what I paid it seems solid as a rock.
Customer Support
:
No Opinion
Never had to deal with them
Overall Rating
:
10
It suited my needs when I wanted to get back into playing but I seem to have switched to playing piano more so I have just bought a fatar studio 900 to go with it.
If it where stolen I would try and find another but I really miss having a step sequencer. I love the flexibiliy and range of functions but it can be a pain to operate but then again it has 76 keys so for that I can forgive it but now I have the fatar I might look for a used technics or roland of the same vintage but because farfisa are a forgoton brand they are great value.
The keyboard has a sublime feel and touch much better than some modern boards.
