Combo Compact Organ
2
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The Farfi sa Combo Compact, along with its siblings, the Mini Compact, Compact Deluxe and Compact Duo, was one of the
defi ning sounds of the Sixties music scene. It was introduced around 1964, and was in production in one form or another,
via the Fast and Professional series, until the early 70s.
Cheap and portable (well, portable-ish: weighing in at 70Ibs it certainly couldn’t be carried by the case handle with one
hand, as suggested by photos in the original brochure!), the Compact transistorized organ is perhaps the defi nitive combo
organ, still highly sought after and commanding auction prices up to £1,000 for the Duo.
The original single manual was available in either red or grey, and came equipped with vibrato, spring reverb, a swell pedal
and a one octave bass section (bass pedals were an optional extra). It included nine Voice tabs providing a mixture of fl ute
and reed tones. But it was the Multitone All-Booster that provided the key to the distinctive sharp, kitsch Farfi sa sound, with
its high-pass pulse wave for that bright, psychadelic buzz.
However to describe the Compact purely in term of its “kitschness” is unfair to a large extent: certain voice combinations
can create tones that are, arguably, more harmonically interesting than both the Hammond tonewheel organ and the more
popular Vox Continental transistor organ. It’s arguably the most versatile of the “big three”.
Reworking JP’s popular Farfi sa Combo Compact ReFill,
Combo Compact Organ
brings the full Farfi sa sound into an easy-to-
use Rack Extension to your Reason studio, with all the registration tabs, and all the multi-tones and boost tones, plus some
new additions, such as an original Farfi sa spring reverb.
It might be small and lean, but pound-for-pound it can still unleash more fun in your Reason rack than competing devices
three times its size!
The Compact
The Farfi sa Combo Compact used in the production of the original ReFill , pictured here, dates from the mid-60’s. Sample
recordings were made in 24-bit at 96kHz, the fi nal output downsampled to 44.1kHz.
During the production lifetime, different models featured slightly different voice groups. JP’s original
Compact featured Bass 16’, Strings 16’, Flute 8’, Oboe 8’, Trumpet 8’, Strings 8’, Flute 8’, Strings 4’,
and Piccolo 4’, plus Multiboost 16’, 8’ and 4’.
This gets a little complicated, so stay alert: the dual manual Compact Duo and Deluxe added a Multiboost
2-
2
/
3
’ +2’ mixture and replaced the Piccolo 4 with a less fi ltered 2-
2
/
3
’ +2’. This is the version JP now owns;
later versions, however, then replaced the 2-
2
/
3
’ +2’ mixture with a non-mixture of 2-
2
/
3
’ alone!
If that’s confusing, then the long and short of it is simply that due to extra samples made for the original ReFill from a
different organ to provide the 2-
2
/
3
’, combined with what JP now owns, what this Rack Extension can now offer is
all
of the
above: you can have Piccolo 4’ and select either 2-
2
/
3
’ +2’ or 2-
2
/
3
’ variants for the white voice tabs. No Compact variant ever
Combo Compact Organ
recordings
g
g
g
were made
Du
C
Th
2-
2
/
later
If that’s confus
