Inside Look at a Fender Contempo

One of my hobbies is playing music with friends. We write and record our own songs and experiment with sound. I am actually a bass player and do not have a lot of experience with keyboards, but this Fender Contempo is very fun to play.

One of my bandmates has this late 1960’s Fender Contempo Organ. This amazing piece of late 1960’s technology still works very well and produces a very vintage 1960’s sound that just cannot easily be replicated properly by computer software. The Contempo can easily be transported, although it is not a lightweight piece of technology. The Contempo does include a very sturdy wooden case with handle.

I could not locate a lot of information on this instrument via a quick web search, but I did however learn from Wikipedia that the Fender Contempo organ is considered a “combo organ” meaning that these instruments were intended to be used for touring combo jazz and pop groups such as the Doors, The Animals, etc. Combo organs were very popular in the early 1960’s to mid 1970’s. These instruments are actually the predecessors to the modern synthesizer.

The old Fender had not been operational in quite some time, so we had to remove the cover and reattach a loose wire inside. The Contempo includes a nice chrome stand that folds out into a very sturdy base for the organ to rest upon. It did take two of us to move the organ into place once it was assembled. The organ does require an external amplifier to play sound. We used my Fender BX100 bass amp to play a few tunes to test the organ. The retro sound is very groovy. This organ definitely has that California psychedelic/pop flavor to it for sure.

I cannot seem to locate too much more information via the web on this organ, but as I discover more information, I will present it here.