Here it is, my first keyboard.
I was working at Mountain Music – giving guitar lessons – in my hometown of Kimberley when I first saw my first synthesizer, the Farfisa Syntorchestra, and heard it in operation. I was back from school and my old band, Kootenai North, had a good guitar player so the guys suggested that I play the organ – you know, be a two-note player. There were none available at the time but I saw the new keyboard that came in the store and I made a deal to borrow it for giving lessons.
The Farfisa Syntorchestra is a combination of a full polyphonic section and a monophonic synth section. The poly section features four basic sounds:
- Trombone
- Trumpet
- Piano (great sound, better then all other pre sampling things I hear yet!)
- Viola
For this section you have the following sliders available:
- Volume
- Brilliance
- Vibrato rate (shared with the mono synth!)
And you have the switches to mute (“Cancel”) this section, turn the vibrato on/off and switch on/off the delay FX of the vibrato. That’s all for this section.
The monophonic synth features the following main sounds:
- Tuba (32″)
- Trombone (16″)
- Trumpet (8″)
- Baritone Sax (16″)
- Alto Sax (8″)
- Bass Flute (8″)
- Flute (4″)
- Piccolo (2″)
- Violin (4″)
The Portamento (sliding sound) was great and can be switched on permamently or switched on temporarily by the very huge Portamento tab in the middle below the keyboard action.
I used this as my sole keyboard for two weeks, putting it on a Black and Decker Workmate for a stand. Then I got a Brisco combo organ and put it on top of this.
I gave it back at the end of the summer but, like my other boards, I should have kept it.
