Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Speaking of cool vintage instruments, my keyboard player brought his new Farfisa to rehearsal last night. It's an old 60's model that he got for $100 and it took him two months to get the thing working. Sounds freaking awesome for the ska thing, and me, him and the bass player jammed out Stepping Stone for a couple of minutes while the rest of the band tried to figure out what the hell we were doing! Now we just need to convince him to get a huge Leslie speaker (and a car to lug it around in).

Sounds like old times!! Farfisa and Leslie!! Our keyboardist had just that many many years ago. Ahhh, the memories......

Last time I got close to a Leslie was about a year ago at a tiny local blues club. Audience of about 25 max. The guy had it with a big Hammond split A or B. The sound was a blast from the past, just made the hair stand on the back of my neck. I nearly got out all my ELP albums...

My keyboard player has a huge leslie(I can't believe I typed that)...up till three weeks ago we would lug his "speaker" and his "wurlitzer"...an old B-3, to gigs...but he recently bought the new digital B-3....which is a whole lot lighter and a lot more flexible...and did I mention LIGHTER.

I used to play in a band that had a keyboard player with a hammond organ, a leslie speaker, a clavinet, and a mini moog ... and a van to carry it all ... but that was the 70s ... before digital keyboards ... Now I have a little yamaha that does all of that and more and it fits in a smaller box than one of my basses ...

Ralph (keyboard player) has been moving towards older analog keys over the years. The Farfisa has a beautiful tone on it's own, does a great job impersonating a Hammond and only weighs 70lbs. That's almost the same as his Korg digital synth weighs, but sounds & looks so much cooler.
Grey & white (reversed) keys!
He also plays bass in another band I'm going to start jamming with & is looking into a MG 4003.

I collect old combos as well as my Ricks and Gretsches (and Fenders...).

I've got several Farfisas, but somehow found myself with a matched pair of Elka Panthers (a single and a double-manual). One belonged to Mark Weitz (Strawberry Alarm Clock), and has the band's logo written inside of it and the carrying cases. The sound is terrific. The digital synths of the '80s have a long way to go to match the sound of a cheezy transistor organ, asfar as I'm concerned.

I was fortunate enough to pick up a portable Leslie on Ebay a few months ago. It was cut down from the top half of a Hammond unit, and is smaller than a 1-12" combo amp and much lighter, too. It sounds great. I think I paid about $200 for it.

I just recently worked a deal to sell off my old Vox keyboards. I had accumulated a super clean Vox Super Continental (dual keyboard circa 1968) and a pair of Jaguars (single keyboards circa 1967). I've never played keyboards!

My CASIO Privia weighs 26 pounds and does it all...my '85 WERSI digital Beta 400--portable!?!?--weighs 200 pounds and does about half of that...

Hey, schlepping all that old heavy equipment brings back all the pain, er, nostalgia of our performing all those years ago!

When our backs could actually take it! And our hearts...

HAR! The WERSI is in my music room, and has never budged. I vacuum around it.

Wow! Farfisa, Hammond B3, Leslie, blew a lot of dust around hearing those words again.

I can't believe we used to eagerly hump those big *** wooden boxes around for $30 a night.

Seems like keyboard players got pounded back then having to buy, haul and play all that expensive, (at the time), equipment.

Our guy on the boards name was Paul Paul. Great player, spent the 60's & 70's way above sea level.