Product: Farfisa Fast 5
Price Paid: 450 USED
Submitted
04/05/2008
at
06:47pm
by
Happyday
Ease of Use
:
10
Just push buttons till you like the sound comming out, there is no programing, uploading or downloading just good old transistor sound.
Features
:
10
Bass Tabs (black): Pedal Bass Manual: Soft/Sharp, Manual Bass Selector: Treble/Bass
Vibrato Tabs (blue): Slow/Fast, Light/Heavy, Off/On
Treble Voice Tabs (purple): Bass 16', Bass Clarinet 16', Flute 8', Oboe 8', Trumpet 8', Strings 8', Flute 4', Piccolo 4', Mixture, Brilliant Mixture
Percussion Tabs (orange): Manual Bass On/Off, Treble On/Off, Long/Short, Mixture On/Off, Mixture Soft/Sharp
Sustain Voice Tabs (yellow): Celesta 8', Clavichord 8', Kinura 8'
Knob: Volume
Plus mine has a volume pedal and a set of bass pedals.
Expressiveness/Sounds
:
10
Great Farfisa sound run it through a Miestro Phazer into a leslie and you can make it sound like a Vox, Hammond and best of all a Farfisa.
Reliability
:
10
There were some bad cotacts and a crack on the trace on one of the divider boards. Besides that that still working after near 40 years.
Customer Support
:
No Opinion
40 years old it's not going to happen.
Overall Rating
:
10
I have wanted a combo organ for years and this one is perfect.
Product: Farfisa Fast 5
Price Paid: US $330 used
Submitted
06/09/2002
at
06:06pm
by
Bernard Anderson
Ease of Use
:
10
This organ is very easy to use. Mixing tabs helps beef up the sound. When you turn it on, you can play instantly because it uses transistors. Be careful with headphones; turning on the "STRINGS" tab adds so much treble that it may be bad for your ears.
Features
:
7
There are 5 octaves including 1 monophonic bass octave, and a second octave that can be switched for an additional polyphonic bass octave. A knob controls the volume of the bass.
The vibrato is controlled by 3 tabs: slow/fast, light/heavy, and off/on.
The voices enable the organ to have the sharp tone that the Farfisas are famous for, or a mellow tone like the Vox Continental.
The percussion is cool, but a little strange since it triggers with every keypress.
The sustain tabs add spacey synth tones, but do not provide true sustain.
Expressiveness/Sounds
:
10
This IS a Farfisa, the organ a 60's keyboardist in a garage band would have been caught dead without!
Reliability
:
8
Mine is a little flimsy, it wobbles from side to side and the C# notes are inharmonic. Problems aside, it always sounds when I turn it on.
Customer Support
:
3
Farfisa as a company is out of business; Bontempi, who owns the rights to the Farfisa name, doesn't want anything to do with their vintage organs. However, there are still places that repair old organs.
Overall Rating
:
10
I play my Fast 5 through a vintage Gibson Discoverer tube amp, which sounds not unlike an English Vox. The sound of the organ is loud and clean.
I'm into 60's rock, especially psychedelic. I like playing jazz as well. "Incense and Peppermints" by the Strawberry Alarm Clock along with early Pink Floyd is great Farfisa stuff.
If it were lost or stolen, I'd probably have a hard time finding another organ that's as cool as it is affordable.
