Fender Contempo Organ

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The Fender Contempo Organ is a type of combo organ made by Fender.

With the influx of inexpensive portable combo organs available to a new age and income bracket of keyboardists in the early-mid 1960s produced by such manufacturers as Vox, Gibson, Farfisa, Ace Tone, and many others, Fender Musical Instruments chose to take a shot at the Combo Organ market, unfortunately, Fender came a little too late into the game to take a significant piece of the market. The manufacturing dates are unknown, but the Contempo's were manufactured at least as early as 1967 and sold as late as 1971.

Even though, like most Combo Organs, they were aimed at a lower income bracket, Fender's high standards of design and manufacture were apparent, making the Contempo one of the sturdier Combo Organs of the time, with its heavy wooden, tolex covered road case and heavy ABS top, quite similar to that of the Fender Rhodes in production at that time, incidentally, Pratt Reed manufactured many of the components for both the Contempo and the Rhodes pianos at the time. It was also, debatably, one of the most visually striking organs of the time, with its bright red top, adorned with the chrome Fender script logo, reverse coloured bass octave keys, black and white stop tabs and its chrome stand and pedal.

Sonically speaking, the instrument lay somewhere between the thick weedy buzz of a Farfisa Combo Compact, and the breathy piercing flutey tones of the Vox Continental. The Contempo set itself apart with the inclusion of the 5-1\3' stop tab (often not included on combo organs, though an essential footage of jazz organ), the rarely seen tremolo effect and the unique triple axis volume pedal, which controlled both volume on the up and down motion, and tone on the left to right motion. This pedal was actually adapted from the triple axis tone\volume pedals sold with Fender Pedal Steel guitars at the time.

Unfortunately due to the relative unsuccess of the Contempo, it is difficult to provide many examples of the Contempo's usage. One of the most famous users is actually Keith Jarrett when he played in Miles Davis group. *Keith Jarrett w. Miles Davis

The organ can for instance be heard played together with Rhodes piano on the Miles Davis record Live-Evil and by itself on some live recordings with the Miles Davis group, when Chick Corea took over the Rhodes and Jarrett only played the Contempo. Another recording is Ruta and Daitya with Jarrett and Jack DeJohnette

[edit] controls

Bass Voices: Diaphone 16', Boost 16' f/ff/fff, String Bass 8', Boost 8' f/ff/fff, Horn 4', Boost 4' f/ff/fff
Normal/Solo Switch: Switches the bass section between Bass and Solo voices
Treble Voices: Cello 16, Diaphone 16, Boost 16 f/ff/fff, Diaphone 8, String 8, Clarinet 8', Boost 8' f/ff/fff, Quint 5-1/3', Boost 5-1/3' f/ff/fff, String 4', Principal 4', Boost 4' f/ff/fff,
Effects: Solo Timbre, Vibrato Slow/Fast, Vibrato On, Solo Tremolo