Continental/Farfisa Sounds

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stevel
Posts: 520
Joined: 07:08, 17 May 2015

Continental/Farfisa Sounds

Post by stevel »

Can someone who's familiar with these older instruments maybe give me an idea of which sounds in the FA are like those older organs?

I think "farf" might be in the title of some patches but I'd be curious if things like "Waspy Organ" or "Cheesy Organ" or other such similar names are take-offs on these or something else.

EXPs too if you know.

Also, if anyone wants to link to "definitive" Continental/Farfisa sounds in pop tunes, that would nice as well. I know there's one with a portamento type effect in Led Zeppelin's "Dancing Days" but it's really kind of buried by all the other stuff that's going on.

TIA,
Steve
bennyseven
Posts: 699
Joined: 18:01, 19 April 2014
Location: Germany

Re: Continental/Farfisa Sounds

Post by bennyseven »

There are some farfisa and vox continental sound on the KEYS expansion (EXP 02).
http://axial.roland.com/articles/exp-02 ... ollection/

Legendary song is i.e. Doors - light my fire
https://youtu.be/CmzBXbiUwlY
Paul99
Posts: 117
Joined: 18:05, 23 June 2017

Re: Continental/Farfisa Sounds

Post by Paul99 »

Steve, the problem with the FA organ sounds is that they are much B3 alike. Even supposed to be Farfisa sounds have clearly B3 elements so it's quite difficult to name "real" patches.

But I think these patches are not B3 and much like Farfisa and Continental alike:
- 0397 Surf's Up
- 0550 Happy 60s
- 0551 96 Tears (reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7uC5m-IRns)
- 0037 Organ 1 (questionable because it could be made with a B3!)
- 0039 60's Organ
- 0126 Shimmer Organ (EXP02)
- 0128 SurfMinkysSRX (EXP02), a typical Farfisa sound
- 0130 Continental (EXP02)
- 0131 Organfest'66 (EXP02)
- 0135 CrummyOrgSRX (EXP02)
- 0136 IronFarf SRX (EXP02)
- 0137 FarfComboSRX (EXP02)
- 0138 FarFisorium (EXP02)
- 0139 Farf8'+ 2'(EXP02)
- 0140 RoXOrgan SRX (EXP02)
- 0141 DittyDoo SRX (EXP02)

On EXP02 is one sound with typical names: 0128 Telstar Organ which doesn't sound as the Telstar organ at all but just a Farfisa.

I have only tried EXP11 and that expansion has only 1 organ sounds which is a supposed B3 clone sound.

If you want to record a 60s sound song, you could use one of the mentioned sounds and mix it carefully into the music.

Hope this helps a little bit.

Paul
Skijumptoes
Posts: 681
Joined: 11:08, 21 June 2010

Re: Continental/Farfisa Sounds

Post by Skijumptoes »

In the UK, The Inspiral Carpets were massive Farfisa users.

"Saturn 5" is a great song by them with the Farfisa at the fore, absolutely adore that sound! Also 'This is how it feels" is good too as they hold the organ open giving a much sadder droning sound.
Joe P
Posts: 159
Joined: 21:44, 20 November 2014

Re: Continental/Farfisa Sounds

Post by Joe P »

Steve,

In my Doors tribute I used a layer of Organ 1 and '60's Organ. I was always trying to get Manzarek's sound from Absolutely Live and felt pretty good about it.

Regards,
Joe
stevel
Posts: 520
Joined: 07:08, 17 May 2015

Re: Continental/Farfisa Sounds

Post by stevel »

Thanks so much Paul - I kind of felt the same way - anything that wasn't supposed to be a B# still had a "B3-ness" to it.

I suspected a lot of the ones you mention below were intended to be more like non-Hammond organs.

And that Telstar patch is HORRIBLE! The one in the Synth Lead section is WAY better. I don't even know how someone could name it that unless they intended for it to be the base sound so you could add the other effects to make it sound more like the end result.
Paul99 wrote:Steve, the problem with the FA organ sounds is that they are much B3 alike. Even supposed to be Farfisa sounds have clearly B3 elements so it's quite difficult to name "real" patches.

But I think these patches are not B3 and much like Farfisa and Continental alike:
- 0397 Surf's Up
- 0550 Happy 60s
- 0551 96 Tears (reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7uC5m-IRns)
- 0037 Organ 1 (questionable because it could be made with a B3!)
- 0039 60's Organ
- 0126 Shimmer Organ (EXP02)
- 0128 SurfMinkysSRX (EXP02), a typical Farfisa sound
- 0130 Continental (EXP02)
- 0131 Organfest'66 (EXP02)
- 0135 CrummyOrgSRX (EXP02)
- 0136 IronFarf SRX (EXP02)
- 0137 FarfComboSRX (EXP02)
- 0138 FarFisorium (EXP02)
- 0139 Farf8'+ 2'(EXP02)
- 0140 RoXOrgan SRX (EXP02)
- 0141 DittyDoo SRX (EXP02)

On EXP02 is one sound with typical names: 0128 Telstar Organ which doesn't sound as the Telstar organ at all but just a Farfisa.

I have only tried EXP11 and that expansion has only 1 organ sounds which is a supposed B3 clone sound.

If you want to record a 60s sound song, you could use one of the mentioned sounds and mix it carefully into the music.

Hope this helps a little bit.

Paul
Paul99
Posts: 117
Joined: 18:05, 23 June 2017

Re: Continental/Farfisa Sounds

Post by Paul99 »

Well, since I started with a Juno 6, I am used to dealing with names which presume to emulate a certain instrument but reality always showed different. For example the sounds called "piano" on that Juno 6 which were....welll....a bit like....ahhm......something of an instrument which just had an Attack, Decay, Sustain and Release EG that a piano also would have had if a piano would have benen a synthesizer.
The same was true for later synthesizers which had patch names that presumed to be emulations of vintage equipment. And usually it comes near the real thing. I mean you can hear what it is supposed to emulate.
This Telstar called patch however is a laughing stock. It doesn't even come close to the Telstar sound! If we would have been able to rate this sound on a scale from 1 to 10 where 10 is fantastic resemblance and 1 is really bad, it would score a 1- ....
But let's be honest: the FA is a great instrument. I discover things each day that makes this instrument a really priceless machine! I mean, how can Roland make such an instrument with that amount of possibilities for that price? And with all those possibilities, it also has an onboard soundcard.
Of course the FA has some missing functions, there is a wishlist. But we do have to keep in mind the price of this beast!
Andgobb
Posts: 1
Joined: 00:00, 11 February 2022

Re: Continental/Farfisa Sounds

Post by Andgobb »

Hope it's not too late to share my patch! Try this out:
E. Organ with following drawbars setting: 005662200. Perc off, leakage 0, key click 0. Mfx Tremolo chorus with chorus depth 46 at 1.5hz and tremolo 6hz with max separation. Mfx chorus and reverb all the way up, efx chorus 70 and max reverb. I personally find this very effective when playing pink Floyd's 'Time' farfisa pad
Tiguspca
Posts: 63
Joined: 18:13, 20 December 2021

Re: Continental/Farfisa Sounds

Post by Tiguspca »

Thanks for sharing these parameters. I just created the patch and It really does the job.
GP
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