UNLOCKING THE SECRETS OF THE FARFISA SOUNDMAKER

video upload by Vintage Audio Institute Italia

"There seems to be some mystery surrounding the Farfisa Soundmaker - how does it sound, is it actually cool, and what does Poly & Strings in Mono actually do?

In this video I go through the presets of all three sections and then move on to the marvellous Poly & Strings in Mono - unlocking your Poly & Strings in Mono is crucial to really getting the best out of your Soundmaker though.

I added some text to further explain its unique architecture - but here's a short info sheet:

Then Soundmaker has three independent sections - each with its own with volume and cut-off filter.

1. Polyphonic section with 3 Piano presets, 1 brass preset with its own fixed vibrato setting.

2. The additional Polyphonic section is the strings section : 2 footages of strings with attack, decay controls on top of volume and cut-off sliders. The strings sound surprisingly good - top tier 1970s string machine.

3. Monophonic preset section with additional Free mode which let you modulate the preset sounds with filter and ADSR and lastly - the Oscillator bank (LFO) with LFO controls, wave forms and vibrato controls.

Engaging the Poly & Strings in Mono internally routes both Polyphonic sections into the filter and oscillator bank of the monophonic section - letting you modulate them freely and really unlocking the uniqueness of this instrument.

The best way to experience the Poly & Strings in Mono is to create a dedicated Monophonic audio output - which the Soundmaker unfortunately doesn't have.

We carved out a Mono only output by cutting the Polyphonic signal to the Phones output in the back.
This is quite easy, you flip open the machine and simply cut the wire from the Poly section inside (it's easily reversible) - please have an experience technician do this for you if you're hesitant.

The second trick to enhance the performance of Poly & Strings in Mono is easier : turn off the mono section preset with its dedicated on/off button (it will still pass audio but no preset will be engaged). Since the mono preset sound is much louder in volume than the signal arriving via Poly & Strings in Mono, turning it off will make you hear the effect better."