What is / was your favourite keyboard rig past and present?

Hi James,

For the first organ I had it was a toss-up between a Gulbranson and a Farfisa. The Gulbranson had an 'Electronic Leslie' whereas the Farfisa had a mechanical one. I much preferred the sound of the Farfisa internal Leslie so ended up with the Farfisa Balmoral. The Leslie speaker in the Farfisa had a polystyrene 'drum' that spun round a fairly large fixed speaker. In the side of the drum there was a 3" 'slot' so the sound emanated from there as the drum spun. This 'threw the sound around the room' which to me was an amazing effect. And then of course moving between 'Fast Leslie' and 'Slow Leslie' it was the drum spinning between the two, which being mechanical took an age to get to the endpoint. I thought that was wonderful! I often find that a purely 'electronic' Leslie switches from one mode to the other far to quickly and the 'effect' from fast to slow, to fast is somehow lost. Maybe you can control the time span on your Korg? I have no option on my current organ, the Yamaha AR 80 (which has an Electronic Tremolo, as it's called) and the change is immediate.

The only problem I had with the Farfisa was that I couldn't play it with headphones. Well, headphones were supplied but you were warned in the blurb that the headphones were only for practising. Obvious really, as you can't get a sound created mechanically to go through the headphones. My AR 80 sounds great played through headphones, and I have a LINE OUT to record exactly how the organ sounds when I play it.

Hugh

Hello, My favorite organ was my Lowrey Symphonic Holiday but too big to cart around. Loved the Yamaha C605 we had with the organ club. Now I have the best of the lot, my Tyros4. (See my posting about My Tyros.) Regards, Den

Speaking of present times the Genos is the best keyboard from Yamaha so far. I have worked my way through a few organs and keyboards in my time but for me Genos is the best for ease of use and the sound quality is brilliant. It is not much heavier that my 970 and I have the advantage of 76 keys.

Nowadays we have organs and keyboards that are 'one stop shops' but when I started back in 1970, you had different instruments for different sounds. Here's the 1974 set-up for a BBC recording session at home (I didn't usually wear the velvet suit, that was just for the photo). Hammond T500 organ and Leslie 145 speaker. Jen Superstringer for, er, strings! Roland SH1000 and Korg 700 synths for solo sounds. Out of sight by my feet are some guitarists' pedals, like Wha-Wha. Good fun, but took an age to set up and strike down.

Wow Andy! All those keyboards! And you look quite at home sitting amongst them. Having different keyboards for different sounds seems logical. If a manufacturer improved their sounds you could just replace that one keyboard. And once set up, you knew what sounds you had available to play your piece. When I had my Farfisa organ I had a Casio Piano keyboard, which I placed at right angles to the organ keys. Got used to playing other than in a straight line.

Hugh