SOT: Farfisa(?) Keyboard Circuitry

[Mark F]

Is anyone familiar with the circuits in these old cheesy sounding and looking keyboards? I think everyone, oldtimers anyway, is familiar with these things; the brown plastic case, spindly legs and Cheesy sound. they were ubiquitous in the 60's and 70's maybe earlier. The reason I ask is because I go to many Garage Sales and buy old stuff to salvage and these have started showing up for around $10.00. I was tempted to pick one up and crack it open but I am running out of room for stuff and I can't afford to throw $10.00 bucks out for curiosity's sake. Although, I am thinking maybe a hoarde of Germ transistors and diodes. Thanks for any replies. :wink:

[petemoore]

IF it has two phono jacks and a pot, combined with anything else you can get out of it it's probably worth 10 to find out.
 Dude had an old Farfisa, needed work and was sayin' it's not really worth it for him, just for the Farfisa tone to rebuild the thing....of course he'd be paying somebody else to figure it out for him.

[doug deeper]

i'll give you $20 for any and all combo organs bought for $10!!!
(i collect them...and they sound FANTASTIC!)

[petemoore]

There you have it...DDeeper says they're cool !!!
 Beats my second hand old story...
 They were popular and used on recordings since the 60's I guess, there's probably a market 'somewhere' for them, [in great shape]..probably worth having around if made to work.

[squidsquad]

I bid $25 & I'll pay shipping...HA!  For the love of Pete...them is cool collectables.  Of course...depends on the condition...or how handy you are at repairs.  But who wouldn't love finding a treasure like that? Think 96 Tears by ? & The Mysterians....think of the intro lick to The Monkey's version of I'm A Believer....think early Doors!

[SonicVI]

A Farfisa with a BROWN plastic case?  Did you get a model number?  The only brown Farfisas I can think of have wooden cases and are either the home console type or electric reed/chord organs. The desirable Farfisa combo organ were mostly red or gray.

[doug deeper]

some of the mini comppacts were brown...
i think there were a few brown fast 4s as well..

[SonicVI]

They did? I think I've only ever seen white and gray mini compacts and white/green/ornage FASTs.  Weird.

[mongo]

Just as analog synths, vintage guitars, and effects, combo organs from the 60's and seventies are starting to get collectible, Grab them while you can People!!!

 
I LOVE old Farfisa Organs and I agree that they sound fantastic,but most of them are starting to have problems (as most of my old analog synths)

 They show up all the time up here in France in garage sales and flea markets,cool little cheesy things.Some of them are pretty damn good instruments like the  VIP series. they look awesome on stage,when  I put a Small stone, a wha and a Memory man before the amp with my Farfie   and  people go like WHOA!!! WHAT IS THAT??



JUST yesterday I bought a Welson Gipsy  organ for 10 bucks!!!

http://www.combo-organ.com/Welson/welson.htm


they are hard to repair beacause ,in the case of Farfisas, Welsons and other Italian organs they were built (I was told this, can't confirm it for sure) with a lot of custom made chips that have  no equivalents.

Personally I think it's worth a try to get them to work, apparently, repairing this machines is becomeing a lost art and I 'll be forever grateful if someone in France knows a good and REASONABLY PRICED  tech  for this thingies up here.

 Heres some Pics of one my Farfisas, bought for 5 Euro 2 years ago:





 



 Have Fun!!!

Andy

[Peter Snow]

I have a 2-manual model VIP 255 open in my basement as we speak. This thing has strange vinyl and chrome sides and the main housing is plywood covered in grain-type Mac-Tac (stick-on plastic).

I bought it cheap a couple of years ago; the guy in the store  told me it kept making spurious farting noises.  I intended to rip it apart for the keyboards to use in various synth projects.  Wow! what a rat's nest of wires and circuit boards in there.  I finally decided to fix it instead and I am in the process of replacing the caps in the vibrato circuit as I think that is where all the problems reside.  A few points worth keeping in mind:

- The keyboards in this model at least are huge multi-contact beasts that are way, way overkill for any synth type project.
- They are HEAVY!
- Although Farfisa kindly made the firat two layers of circuit boards swivel up and out of the way for "easy" servicing, the really interesting bits are buried deep inside the guts of the machine and probably require complete disassembly to get to.
- Although the single voices on their own seem a bit uninteresting, if you flip ALL the tabs (turn everything on) you get a really rich sound.  Put that through a chorus unit and you have a positive wall of sound coming at yer!

Sorry for the ramble - Does any of this help?

Cheers,

Peter

[loscha]

almost all combo organs use oscillators fo the top octave, and each octave below that is divided by a sort of flip flop to half the frequency.
Some organs have an extra oscillator for the lowest C! You could tune them right down, and route it into the vibrato circuit to give a much more complex vibrato, or, have a tremolo going at a different speed to the vibrato (I believe a Vox Continental could do this, but, I would bet my last casio on it).

I've got a few organ schematics, but, really, the only way to solve it is to make lotsa nots of what goes where, and follow signal paths. The wire rats nests (almost always the one colored wire, too) are the biggest annoyance you can deal with in them.

In other news
"the good times are over"
http://users.tpg.com.au/reveng/bigstar.gif

[dadude]

Andy-

I think I used to have that same model. Does yours have bass pedals? A volume control?

I think I still have that volume control somewhere. I use the bass pedal case for my effects pedal board. It's like the best case on the planet for it. And what even cooler it has the old Farfisa logo on it! Yeah!!!

I got it in the 80's thinking I could do some Hammond stuff on it. Boy was I wrong. But early Pink Floyd,,, and all that crazy music you hear at Ethiopian restaurants. It’s an organ you’ll really appreciate on mind altering substances!


:lol:

[doug deeper]

heres my collection! (similar pics!)
"mini" GEM

vox "jaguar"

gibson "g201"

whippiney "whip pinto"

farfias "duo pro"


i think thats all of them!
i cant find a better pic of the gibson (with the top open) witch sucks cause its really cool looking!

[dadude]

i think that all of them!
i cant find a better pic of the gibos (with the top open) with sucks cause its really cool.

Add the original Korg CX3 to that and I think you just might!!!

:wink:

[Mark F]

Whoa! I'm sorry for any confusion! The keyboards I'm speaking of ,evidently, are not Farfisa. :oops: The photos you kind folks posted look like Majestic Pipe Organs compared to what I'm talking about! Sorry. :oops: I can't for the life of me remember the name that was on these things. I think they were made by several companies.They were VERY cheap looking & sounding, brown plastic, single keyboard, little buttons adjacent to the keyboard kinda like an accordian. When these were around there were no Top Octave Generators. Heck I'm pretty sure there wasn't even any IC's period. That's why I am thinking maybe they have a bunch of Germanium transistors and diodes. I think they were manufactured before silicon transistors. Well, thanks for the help anyway. Why Farfisa came to mind I don't know. Again I'm very sorry for the confusion. If I see another one I think I'll just buy it, yank it open and see.

[SonicVI]

Those are not even electronic, they're wind powered reed organs, the buttons play chords. Farfisa did make them, as I mentioned before. They have an electric fan inside that blows air over the reeds. That is why they sound like accordions, because they basically are.

[Mark F]

Those are not even electronic, they're wind powered reed organs, the buttons play chords. Farfisa did make them, as I mentioned before. They have an electric fan inside that blows air over the reeds. That is why they sound like accordions, because they basically are.

That's interesting Thanks for the info. That clears that up.

[Pedro Freitas]

Hello!

I got to repair an old Farfisa once. It was an old one, wooden box,
tanned vinyl covering and separate bass (grey) keys.
I think it was a Mini-Compact or something.
When I opened the thing I almost soiled myself! I had dozens
of Germanium trannies in it!!! One could start a new Fuzz Face
prodution run with that sucker
Has long as I can remember, it had a discrete oscilator for each note
and acidental, totaling 12 osc. Then it had a discrete divider for each
note and acidental so one could play over many octaves with 3 distinct
and interchageable voices.
Every tone+divider had it's own pcb, there was a pcb for a fuzz, a
pcb for a tremolo, a pcb for the pots and switches and a pcb for a bass
octave divider.
It had hundreds of feet of electrical cable patching everything.

Cause of death, most of the electros had dried up and some other
so called technician made some bypassing here and there...
Now terror settled in  :evil:

Once turned on, the oscillators would all run freely. When a key was
depressed that tone would be passed to the mixer stage and then out to
the output jack (simplifying).
There was so much crosstalk between the huge amont of wiring that
all of the oscillators could be heard at output with none of the keys
depressed!  

And remember, this was called Mini-Compact...
I cannot imagine what a Duo-Compact would be...  :twisted:

Pedro