Description: the Combo organ also known as C2/143 , the "FAST" name stands for "Farfisa All Silicon Transistorized" simple divider top organ with great design. The fast series were simpler than predecessor, with less options, but more transportable. The Fast2 features a 4-octave keyboard, with 3 octaves dedicated to treble voices and a 1-octave fixed bass section (grey keys).
There are four treble voices at 8' octaves plus mono bass notes with own volume pot. Not many connection but headphones line out (it will excludes the built-in 10W amp with two 6x9 cones speakers ).There are four tab presets: Flute, Clarinet, Reed, Strings and a simple vibrato with 2 different frequencies "high" and "low" (you can change the ratio on the relative trimmer if you wish)
Although being half italian I never been not a fan of synthesizers from my country :) Anyway I do appreciate the combo production from FARFISA: the Fast2 orange is just my cup of tea with that orange legs and dark blu panel, gorgeous! Those combos were available for quite cheap on the last years, but they now begin to scarse, especially after the GOLFRAPP "blond" picture.
I finally had an occasion to buy one in apparentely poor state, sold as is, not tested. Although the FAST2 is less bulky than the classic pinkfloydish iconic "Compact Duo", it is still heavy with metal frames and big internal speakers, but the seller accepted to ship for a reasonable price.
Finally it arrived...
So, not in great shape: pretty dirty, damaged keys, plus a hald broken one (the missing part is not there) some kid stickers glued in a goop. The good news is that the original four legs are there! But now I don't want to turn it on without first checking the Power supply section, I think a good recap is necessary from 1968.
The first thing is to remove the front plastic orange panel with 6 screws (Philips 2-heads). The power supply in under the control panel , from there another 10 screws then you can spot our destination. HINT: I do recommend to take a lot of pictures of the internal, especially the wiring, some connection are old and get loose.
Wow! no whiskers around (not from the cat, I mean). The linear transformer seems good, then following fuse, a Graetz bridge 4 diodes and 2 power electrolytic from FACO (dated 1967). The big one is 2000uF reports two voltages on it: 40 VL stands for "Voltaggio di Lavoro" (voltage work) and 50 "Vi Voltage Istantaneo" (maximum or Surge, I suppose) . I replaced it with a 50V - 2200uF as 2000 value is today not really standard; In this section it's not really so important. Also write down the polarity on the board or check out your pictures. You will find around many non polarized capacitors like "mustards" and polystyrene film. They usually are good and reliable and do not need to be checked, if no good reason.
Going on with inspection recapping in the amplifier sections (the box in the middle of the 2 speakers). The cap 1000uF (golden one) in the amplification section BF was in pretty bad shape with leaking and corrosion around. Also while you're there, changes also the DUCATI labeled one (use 470uF for the less standard 500 one and the 100 and some 10).
STEP1 FINISHED! my precious! a good'ol bag of dried, leaking, stinky capacitors from Italy, and they all are mine. Ok after checking for some shorts around, cleaning, testing, we can try to switch it on the orange beast:
UPPER after cleaning the key contacts, alle the FA# were simply not working. On the other side, there are the 12 tone oscillators labeled with the relative notes with their tuning. The FA# is the last on right.
Each oscillator has an own board with an output going to the keyboard. The not working FA# has no output voltage (others are around +3V). Maybe it's not the dividers as I expected. Let's flip this around.
I noticed a crack on the board , maybe it has been hit which would correspond approximately with the broken key location. And fixed! the LA# is back! good tuning too.
KEY REPLACEMENT In the meantime I went around the net to found a replacement for the broken key, but bad luck. I would have to sort out a solution by myself. While no keys seems to be available nowhere, I decided to rebuild the missing part using a spare key from another keyboard (maybe a GEM CD10). So I roughly cut the section then used epoxy. Quite solid, not the best , but it's better then a sad hole.
Last task is cleaning the plastic cover. The porous surface does not help cleaning for sure, tried soap, alcohol, Finally a good mix of water and toothbrush gave good results but it's quite a long job.
it's like plastic leatherette (warm... leatherette)
And working at first shot! The fixed key is not perfect but it can be played as Sara the little kitten (my guest) has found out.
Still looking for a replacement key someday, if you know a reliable source for it, please do get in touch with the relative contact form in the upper menu
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