Gibson 201 suitcase organ

[BillWelcome Home Studios]

anybody able to fill me in on these?

[mate stubb]

I used to play one. Ask away.

[mate stubb]

http://www.combo-organ.com/Gibson/G101a.jpg

[ITGITC]

A man and a hooker walk into a hotel room.

 

She turns to him and says, "Well, whatdayagot"?

 

And he says, "Right here... I brought my suitcase organ."

 

Oooof... Sounds a litte John Wayne Bobbitt to me.

 

 

[BillWelcome Home Studios]

Well, it -looks- very Farfisa-ish. I wouldn't mind a little Farfisa -sound- in my music room. Someone is trying to sell or trade one locally, and I might make the trade, but what would be the value on the open market today? Waste of time and money? Or neat, in a Wurlitzer electric piano or Vox Continental way?

[GDP]

Well, it -looks- very Farfisa-ish. I wouldn't mind a little Farfisa -sound- in my music room. Someone is trying to sell or trade one locally, and I might make the trade, but what would be the value on the open market today? Waste of time and money? Or neat, in a Wurlitzer electric piano or Vox Continental way?

 

The Doors used the Gibson G101 version after the Vox Continentals proved to be unreliable with breaking keys. Manzarek played Light My Fire on the Ed Sullivan show using the Gibson.......Many feel the Gibson had the best "transistor" sound of all the cheese units of the 60's. Ray M certainly did as he used it extensively as it became their "sound".

 

There you have it....I would take it in a minute if it worked.

[mate stubb]

Gibson 101s are actually more sought after than Farfisas. If it works and is reasonably priced you should score it for sure.

 

They are valuable because they are rarer than Farfisas, and because of the cachet bestowed upon them by Ray Manzarek of The Doors, who switched to one after his Vox Continentals kept breaking down.

 

So starting with the 3rd Doors album, you hear the Gibson unless it's obviously a Hammond. "Touch Me", for instance.

 

I would describe it as a somewhat more deluxe and refined version of the Farfisa. It doesn't have that hellish signature Farfisa treble boost. It does have some sustain stops, a nicer basic tone than the Farfisa, and some other stuff that I forget.

 

Also was marketed under the Kalamazoo name.

 

Sound samples and more details at combo organ heaven:

 

http://combo-organ.com/Gibson/index.htm

 

[GDP]

Plus, you can post it as your favorite purchase of 2009 in the other thread......Hurry!

 

There is a picture of Benmont Tench's stage rig floating around the forum, it would be interesting to see if this is the organ he uses also!

[Bill H.]

Well, it -looks- very Farfisa-ish. I wouldn't mind a little Farfisa -sound- in my music room. Someone is trying to sell or trade one locally, and I might make the trade, but what would be the value on the open market today? Waste of time and money? Or neat, in a Wurlitzer electric piano or Vox Continental way?

 

I'd put it more in the "waste of time and money" than "neat" category.

 

I've never seen nor played one, but looking it over this morning it has two short keyboards, and only two octaves of foot stops in the tabs. To get the really classic combo sounds you need at least three. This is not a beefed up 101 at all.

 

That's looking it from a player's perspective. From a collector's perspective, what really drives the market for combo organs is - who used them, what recordings were they used on, and especially are they in videos of famous bands or players from the time period.

 

This organ isn't in any of the above. And probably for good reason. Players at the time passed on it.

 

If you still like it it might be worth a few hundred dollars. But it's a far cry from what a Vox Continental would fetch. If a single manual Vox makes any noise at all they're worth a good $1500, and if they are in good shape it's name your price in today's market - three grand and up.

[mate stubb]

I just noticed that the title of the thread was "201" not "101" as I somehow transposed it to.

 

So, a dual manual version - even more rare.

 

Let's see if combo organ heaven has a pic. Yup:

 

http://combo-organ.com/Gibson/G201-3.jpg

 

Hmmm. Not nearly as cool. I retract my earlier enthusiasm. This is basically a rebadged Lowrey.

[Mark Schmieder]

It was officially called the Kalamazoo, correct?

 

Dave Polich has a nice writeup on this in his Vintage Keys sound bank for the Motif XS series. I think he only got ahold of the 101 for his photo shoot though.

 

I would tend to agree it was the best of the transistor organs, but have long wondered why it is so rare, and even why it is rarely modeled or sampled.

 

I try to emulate it using NuSofting's physically modeled ComboSister Virtual Instrument, which I highly recommend even though it has a weird interface that makes it hard to navigate for your own custom presets or factory presets, and it isn't very well matched to quickly emulating visual settings from most transistor organ models so it takes some fiddling and just using your ears.

 

I'm also a big fan of Elka's combo organs.

[jarrell]

One thing I noticed was the bass section actually has 13 keys - it includes an octave for C. For the first several years of my gigging life, I played LH bass on a Farfisa Combo Compact, where all bass lines had to be reconfigured to fit within an a octave. Here at least I could have used an octave with C!

[yorgatron]

3 questions;

 

1.price?

 

2.completeness (does it have the bench and the amplifier?)

 

3.do you genuinely love the sound?

[BillWelcome Home Studios]

I looked closer at the ad, and the leg is broken. some of the keys don't work, and the bass pedals are missing. And he wants what i think is way too much money.

 

I'm really thinking about a baby grand or parlor piano, and this was a distraction, though a cool one.