The rebirth
of cool
Warbling and resonant, the Vox organ was one of the only ways to get hot new sounds onstage before synthesizers went mainstream.
Thanks to our TAE® technology, you can enjoy the Continental 300 in all its transistor organ glory, then take it places the original couldn’t go.
Going far beyond the capabilities of any sample set, Vox Continental V models the circuit behavior and every other nuance of the Continental 300, a rare and desirable dual-manual organ. We added an extended mode with more drawbars, and even let you get inside the machine to tweak its electronic quirks.
Wayback Machine
Whether retro is the main ingredient in your music or just a dash of spice you add, Vox Continental V pours on exactly as much flavor as you want.
True Organic Power
Why settle for generic organ patches for your projects? Use the same iconic sound of the instrument the original artists used!
A Full Organ Rig
VOX Continental V goes beyond faithful emulation. Expanded controls, a preset library, and even a built-in FX rig meets every production need.
Always Ready
Drop Continental V directly into your tracks with no hassle and minimal CPU impact. It’s like having Ray Manzarek on speed dial.
From England
to Italy
Vox is famous for guitar amps that defined the sound of the British Invasion. Tom Jennings saw the potential for keyboards that rocked just as hard.
Jennings had built home and church organs until the 1950s. His first portable keyboard was the Univox, a monophonic preset “synth” that mounted on a piano and gave the player extra instrument sounds. Jennings, designers Derek Underdown and Les Hills, and the Thomas organ company then teamed up with Italian manufacturer EKO to design the Continental whose sound we know from The Doors’ “Light My Fire,” The Animal’s “House of the Rising Sun,” “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” by Iron Butterfly, and so many more classics.
Discover the history of Vox Continental
The first Continental appeared in 1962, and subsequent models would include the Jaguar, Corinthian, Baroque, the dual-manual Super Continental, and the 300, the most full-featured and the basis for our Vox Continental V.
Like most combo organs, the Continental saved on analog circuitry by using just 12 analog oscillators - one for each note. These generated the top octave, then “divide-down” circuits parsed each notes’ frequency into lower octaves. B-3 organs, by contrast, used a spinning tone wheel for every frequency and were thus heavier and more expensive. Musicians carried their Vox organs to the gig with relative ease and appreciated not relying on whatever beat-up piano awaited them at the next venue.
Starting in the late ’70s, the Continental enjoyed a second popularity boost in ska, new wave, and the British “two tone” scene at the hands of such artists as Madness and Elvis Costello. It snuck into a spot normally occupied by a B-3 on “Don’t Do Me Like That” by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and alt-rockers from the ’90s onward gravitated towards its cool-factor.
Vox organs are collectors’ items today, with fully restored units fetching a premium on the secondary market. With Vox Continental V, everything the original could do — and a lot that it couldn’t — is at your command and always reliable.
Vox
In the Box
We duplicated all the original controls and behaviors of the fabled Continental 300 for the faithful transistor organ experience.
Then we added guitar amp and rotary speaker modeling and vintage pedal FX. It’s the most perfectly authentic Vox experience you can have short of owning the real thing.
_1
_2
_3
_4
_5
_6
01. Hit Some Bars
Drawbars duplicate the single pipes, Roman-numeral blend tones, and waveform balancers of the original, and can be quickly MIDI-learned to your controller.
02. Command the Sound
Access both manuals and the bass pedals from a single MIDI controller or many with these quick setup tabs.
03. Kick Some Bass
A one-octave bass pedal board features its own drawbars and adjustable decay for being your own bass player.
04. Speak Brightly
Add that signature “ping” to the upper manual with adjustable harmonic percussion.
05. Pedal Down
Vox owners processed their instruments through pedals and so can you, with Flanger, Phase, Chorus, Analog Delay, Overdrive, and Wah.
06. Amped Up
If you had a Continental, you had an amp. Try our lovingly modeled cabinet options, or put a spin on it with an incredibly realistic Leslie simulator.
Beyond
Continental
Extended mode packs more of everything players loved about the Continental. Then, the Advanced Panel lifts the lid for customization - no soldering required!
After being ousted from his own company in 1967, Tom Jennings kept designing combo organs with more features. With one click, Continental V becomes the Vox that might have been.
Extended mode offers eight drawbars per manual and an additional sawtooth waveform for tonal control on par with a B-3.
Fine-tune the rate and depth of tremolo and vibrato. Your sound will never be static or boring!
State-of-the-art convolution technology reproduces the classic spring and plate reverbs often used with the Vox organ.
Tuning screws for each note’s generator dial in just the right amount of detuning for a completely authentic sound.
Select the Continental engine or the even rarer Jennings J70. Bring in hum and key contact randomness to simulate a Vox of any vintage!
Hear it
in action
From psychedelic rock to ska to new wave, listen to the musical range of Vox Continental V in these audio demos from members of its loyal and talented user community.
Three Tones
Bach Sinfonia No. 3
Job 26:9
Theo Niessink
Bite Me
Theo Niessink
Max Overdrive
Theo Niessink
Continental Hipster
Erik Norlander
Lawyers Dream
Rotator and Wah Bass
Erik Norlander
King's Day
Theo Niessink
Artistscorner
PressClippings
Music Radar
On Vox Continental V
“Arturia's emulation captures every nuance of the original instrument.”
Electronic Musician
On Vox Continental V
“Arturia goes above and beyond what you’d expect of the sound and behaviour of this classic transistor-based combo organ”
Keyboard Magazine
On Vox Continental V
“Vox Continental V is the next best thing to a vintage Vox organ. It has all the sound of the original with none of the maintenance.”
Sound On Sound
On Vox Continental V
“All in all, I think that that’s a pretty significant ‘thumbs up’.”
Sonic State
On Vox Continental V
“At VOX, we are happy that Arturia is bringing back to life the VOX Continental, one of the great instruments of the Sixties. Arturia's software instruments are known for their sound quality and attention to detail -- which is exactly what the VOX Continental deserves.”
Music Radar
On Vox Continental V
“Arturia’s emulation captures every nuance of the original instrument.”
Included in
V collection
Legendary Keyboards Reinvented
This instrument is also part of the V Collection -your complete dream line-up of the legendary synths, organs, pianos and more that made keyboard history. They’re modeled with the most advanced technologies for authentic realism, and enhanced with new creative options. Whether you use it as DAW plugins in the studio or standalone at gigs, V Collection puts the greatest keys of all time at your fingertips for instant inspiration.
Learn More
The features
you need
Integrated in-app tutorials guide you through every aspect of the instrument, from individual parameters to tips from our sound designers, so you can focus on the creative stuff. It shouldn't be this easy, but it is!
Arturia Software Center lets you download, organize, and update all of your Arturia software titles in one place, as well as manage all of your licenses across multiple devices. Keep it simple.
Our virtual instruments and plugins are designed to fit right into your setup without hassle. Whatever your style, you can explore sound while enjoying full compatibility with major DAWS, on both Windows and MacOS.
Instantly find the sound that’s in your head with intelligent & streamlined preset browsing. Search with keywords, explore by instrument type, musical style, and more - you can even save your favorites to quickly recall later.
Whether you want the full visual immersion of our classic instrument emulations, or to save precious screen real estate, the interfaces for all of your Arturia virtual instruments can be resized to a scale that suits you.
Instruments come seamlessly mapped for the Arturia KeyLab range - but they’ll place nice with other MIDI controllers too. Instant sound tweaking macros, easy DAW integration, and standalone operation.
TAE® Powered
The exclusive analog modeling technology that makes our emulations indistinguishable from the originals.
By accurately mimicking the characteristics of analog oscillators, filters, and soft clipping, we can provide astonishing component-accurate detail and authentic analog charm in equal measure.
Learn more
Gallery
Main Features
Dual manual VOX 300 emulation
Jennings J70 voice engine mode
Classic red/orange VOX skin or UK VOX/Jennings grey skin
Upper manual, lower manual and bass pedal sections
Complete MIDI mapping
Multiple output effects processors
Supports MIDI splits or independent channels per manual
Tight integration with Arturia Keylab MIDI Controller keyboards
VST, VST3, AU, AAX and standalone versions.
EXPANDED mode:
- Adds a full compliment of drawbars for each harmonic
- Adds a new waveform drawbar on each section
- Vibrato, tremolo, reverb, overdrive and more effects
- Leslie™ and guitar amp simulator outputs
- Expanded percussion section with short and long decay times
OPEN mode:
- Allows for individual tuning of each pitch like a real VOX
- Increase or decrease the key contact timing (simulates older key contacts)
- Switch between the VOX 300 circuit emulation and the updated Jennings J70 engine.
- Increase or decrease the background noise bleed that older VOX/Jennings have.
Platform specifications
Windows
- Win 10+ (64bit)
- 4 GB RAM
- 4 cores CPU, 3.4 GHz (4.0 GHz Turbo-boost)
- 3GB free hard disk space
- OpenGL 2.0 compatible GPU
- ARM processors not supported on Windows
Required configuration
- Works in Standalone, VST, AAX, Audio Unit, NKS (64-bit DAWs only).
Apple
- Mac OS 11+
- 4 GB RAM
- 4 cores CPU, 3.4 GHz (4.0 GHz Turbo-boost) or M1 CPU
- 3GB free hard disk space
- OpenGL 2.0 compatible GPU
Work with ASC
- An elegant and simple solution to help you install, activate, and update your Arturia software instruments.
All manufacturer and product names mentioned on this page are trademarks of their respective owners, which are in no way associated or affiliated with Arturia. The trademarks of other manufacturers are used solely to identify the products of those manufacturers whose features and sound were studied during the development. All names of equipment, inventors, and manufacturers have been included for illustrative and educational purposes only, and do not suggest any affiliation or endorsement by any equipment inventor or manufacturer.
All manufacturer and product names mentioned on this page are trademarks of their respective owners, which are in no way associated or affiliated with Arturia. The trademarks of other manufacturers are used solely to identify the products of those manufacturers whose features and sound were studied during the development. All names of equipment, inventors, and manufacturers have been included for illustrative and educational purposes only, and do not suggest any affiliation or endorsement by any equipment inventor or manufacturer.