Fairlight CMI
Encyclopedia
The Fairlight CMI is a digital sampling
synthesizer
. It was designed in 1979 by the founders of Fairlight
, Peter Vogel
and Kim Ryrie, and based on a dual-6800
microprocessor
computer designed by Tony Furse in Sydney, Australia. It rose to prominence in the early 1980s and competed in the market with the Synclavier
from New England Digital
.
in real time. Unfortunately, this was beyond the available processing power of the day, and the results were disappointing. In an attempt to make something of it, Vogel and Ryrie decided to see what it would do with a naturally recorded sound wave as a starting point. To their surprise the effect was remarkable, and the digital sampler was born. In casting about for a name, Ryrie and Vogel settled upon Fairlight, the name of a hydrofoil (named in turn after Fairlight, New South Wales
) that sped each day past Ryrie's grandmother's large house in Point Piper, New South Wales
, underneath which Ryrie had a workroom.
By 1979, the Fairlight CMI Series I was being demonstrated in Australia, the UK and the US. In the US, the latter country covered by Bruce Springsteen
's concert sound engineer Bruce Jackson
, once Ryrie's neighbour in Point Piper.
At this time the sound quality was not quite up to professional standards, having only 24 kHz sampling, and it was not until the Series II of 1982 that this was rectified. In 1983 MIDI was added with the Series IIx, and in 1985 support for full CD
quality sampling (16 bit
/44.1 kHz) was available with the Series III.
One of the Fairlight's most significant features was the so-called "Page R" software, a real time graphical pattern sequencer, introduced on CMI Series II. This feature was often a key part of the buying decision of artists, and widely copied on other software synths since.
The Fairlight ran its own operating system
known as QDOS (a modified version of the Motorola MDOS operating system) and had a menu-driven GUI
. The basic system used a number of Motorola 6800
processor
s, with separate cards dealing with specific parts of the system, such as the display drive and the keyboard interface. The main device for interacting with the machine apart from the keyboard was a light pen
, which could be used to select options presented on a monochrome green-screen.
The Series III model dropped the light pen interface (the light pen cable apparently was one of the most fragile hardware elements in the system) in favour of a graphics tablet
interface which was built in to the keyboard. This model was built around Motorola 68000
and Motorola 6809
processors, running Microware
's OS-9
Level II operating system (6809 version).
The Fairlight CMI was very well built, assembled by hand with expensive components and consequently it was highly priced (around £20,000 for a Series I). Although later models, adjusting for inflation, were getting comparatively less expensive as the relevant technology was getting cheaper, competitors with similar performance and lower prices started to multiply. For some years the CMI was sought after by those who could afford one, but competition made life increasingly difficult for the company. Fairlight managed to survive until the mid-1980s, relying more and more heavily on its revered name and its products' cult status for sales.
Fairlight went bankrupt a few years later owing to the expense of building the instruments – A$
20,000 in components per unit. As a last-ditch attempt to salvage some revenue, the final run of machines were marketed as word processors. Peter Vogel said in 2005, "We were reliant on sales to pay the wages and it was a horrendously expensive business ... Our sales were good right up to the last minute, but we just could not finance the expansion and the R&D."
Vogel subsequently set up Fairlight ESP (Electric Sound and Picture), a company which sold the Fairlight MFX range of post-production audiovisual workstations. These were initially based on the CMI III, although later versions were entirely independent developments.
In August 2009, Peter Vogel launched a new company, also called Fairlight Instruments, with the objective of developing a 'retro' CMI-30A (30th Anniversary). This system is supposed to have the look and feel of the 1979 CMI but will use the latest 'Crystal Core media engine' developed by Fairlight.au.
In 2011, Fairlight also released a CMI app
for the Apple iPad. The app includes the complete CMI sound library, as well as an accurate translation of the CMI's renowned Page R sequencer.
The first buyers of the new system were Peter Gabriel
, Richard James Burgess
of Landscape
(who demonstrated it to many British musicians and on BBC TV's Tomorrow's World
), Iva Davies of Icehouse
, Thomas Dolby
, Kate Bush
, In the US, Jackson demonstrated the Series I sampler for a year before selling units to Herbie Hancock
and Stevie Wonder
in 1980 for US$27,500 each. Meat-packing heir Geordie Hormel
bought two for use at The Village Recorder
in Los Angeles. Other early adopters included Todd Rundgren
, Nick Rhodes
of Duran Duran
, producer Rhett Lawrence
and Ned Liben of EBN-OZN. The first commercially released album to incorporate it was Kate Bush
's Never for Ever
(1980), programmed by Richard James Burgess and John L. Walters
. Wonder took his Fairlight out on tour in 1980 in support of the album Stevie Wonder's Journey Through "The Secret Life of Plants" to replace the Computer Music Melodian sampler he had used on the recording. Jean Michel Jarre
used a Fairlight on Magnetic Fields
(1981) and also made extensive use of it on his The Concerts in China
(1982) and Zoolook
(1984) albums. The 1982 movie Liquid Sky
featured a soundtrack entirely performed on the Fairlight CMI.
Peter Gabriel's "Shock the Monkey
" and its parent album Peter Gabriel
(1982) also featured the CMI. EBN-OZN
's "AEIOU Sometimes Y" was the first American single recorded entirely on a Fairlight in 1981, released in 1983 by Elektra Records
and Arista Records in London. Feeling Cavalier, EBN-OZN's 1984 album was recorded entirely via Fairlight and the first American album to have that distinction (an earlier album entitled Erdenklang — Computerakustische Klangsinfonie by Austrian musicians Hubert Bognermayr und Harald Zuschrader, mostly based on the Fairlight, was released in 1982).
Producer Tony Mansfield
used the instrument heavily on the B-52's album "Bouncing Off The Satellites
". Whilst the band initially disliked the Fairlight, it ended up becoming useful. Guitarist Ricky Wilson tragically died during the making of the album, and so the Fairlight was used to make up for the lack of guitar parts on the album.
Jan Hammer
used the CMI to compose the original soundtrack of the 1980s TV drama Miami Vice
.
The British new wave band The Art of Noise
(AON) and producer Trevor Horn
used the instrument extensively. In the mid-90's, AON
member JJ Jeczalik would release a sample CD titled The Art of Sampling, which featured all of the unique CMI samples they had used throughout their career.
modified their Synclavier
digital synth to perform sampling, while E-mu introduced a less costly sampling keyboard, the Emulator
, in 1981.
In the United States, a new sampler company called Ensoniq
introduced the Ensoniq Mirage
in 1985, at a price that made sampling affordable to the average musician for the first time. Though the Mirage was essentially a poor man's sampler with significantly inferior hardware specs, at less than $2000 it was nevertheless sufficiently powered (8-bit microprocessor) to signal the beginning of the end of the CMI. In addition to these low-cost dedicated systems, very cheap add-in cards for popular home computers started to appear at this time, for example the Apple II
-based Greengate DS3 sampler card.
In America, Joan Gand of Gand Music and Sound in Northfield, Illinois was the top salesperson for Fairlight. The Gand organization sold CMIs to Prince
, James "J.Y." Young of Styx
, John Lowry of Petra
, Derek St. Holmes of the Ted Nugent
band, Al Jourgensen
of Ministry
, as well as many private studio owners and rock personalities. Spokesperson Jan Hammer
appeared at several Gand-sponsored Musictech pro audio events, as well as Keith Emerson
, Stanley Jordan
, Allan Holdsworth
, Todd Rundgren, Jeff Baxter
, Terry Fryer, Pat Leonard (Michael Jackson), engineers Roger Nichols (Steely Dan), Bob Clearmountain
(David Bowie), Al Schmidt (Frank Sinatra, Diana Krall) and Cubby Colby (Phil Collins), to perform the "Miami Vice Theme
". A lawsuit was won by the Gands against Fairlight in California, for unpaid sales commission on the last Series IIx to be sold. It was never settled as Fairlight went bankrupt within days of the judgment and is still outstanding.
Perhaps in response to the pervasiveness of the Fairlight during the early 1980s, the credits of Phil Collins' No Jacket Required
stated "There is no Fairlight on this Record."
| style="text-align:right;"| $20,000
base price ||colspan="2"|
| ?
|
| ?
|
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
! CMI Series I
| 1979
| style="text-align:right;"| ~£18,000 ||colspan="2"|
| 8
|
|
|
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
! CMI Series II
| 1980
| style="text-align:right;"| ~£25,000 ||colspan="2"|
| 8
|
|
|
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
! CMI Series IIx
| 1983
| style="text-align:right;"| ~£27,000 ||colspan="2"|
| 8
|
|
|
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
! CMI Series III
| 1985
| style="text-align:right;"| £50,000 ||colspan="2"|
| 16
|
|
|
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
! CMI Series 30A
| 2009/
2011
| style="text-align:right;"| ~£20,000 ||colspan="2"|
| ?
| ?
| ?
|
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
! Fairlight Pro App
| 2011
| style="text-align:right;"| £29.99 ||colspan="2"|
| ?
|
|
|
|}
Sampler (musical instrument)
A sampler is an electronic musical instrument similar in some respects to a synthesizer but, instead of generating sounds, it uses recordings of sounds that are loaded or recorded into it by the user and then played back by means of a keyboard, sequencer or other triggering device to perform or...
synthesizer
Synthesizer
A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...
. It was designed in 1979 by the founders of Fairlight
Fairlight
Fairlight is a digital audio company based in Sydney, Australia. In 1979 they created the Fairlight CMI, the first digital audio sampler, quickly used by artists such as Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush, and Jean Michel Jarre. They are now a manufacturer of media solutions tools such as digital audio...
, Peter Vogel
Peter Vogel (computer designer)
Peter Vogel is an Australian inventor and technologist. He was born in Sydney on 30 August 1954 and now lives in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney with his wife Lorraine and Jasmine, the youngest of his four daughters, in a which he spent 4 years building himself.-History:In his youth Peter was...
and Kim Ryrie, and based on a dual-6800
Motorola 6800
The 6800 was an 8-bit microprocessor designed and first manufactured by Motorola in 1974. The MC6800 microprocessor was part of the M6800 Microcomputer System that also included serial and parallel interface ICs, RAM, ROM and other support chips...
microprocessor
Microprocessor
A microprocessor incorporates the functions of a computer's central processing unit on a single integrated circuit, or at most a few integrated circuits. It is a multipurpose, programmable device that accepts digital data as input, processes it according to instructions stored in its memory, and...
computer designed by Tony Furse in Sydney, Australia. It rose to prominence in the early 1980s and competed in the market with the Synclavier
Synclavier
The Synclavier System was an early digital synthesizer, polyphonic digital sampling system, and music workstation, manufactured by New England Digital Corporation, Norwich, VT. The original design and development of the Synclavier prototype occurred at Dartmouth College with the collaboration of...
from New England Digital
New England Digital
New England Digital Corp. , founded originally in Norwich, Vermont and eventually relocated to White River Junction, Vermont, was best known for its signature product, the Synclavier Synthesizer System, which evolved into the Synclavier Digital Audio System or "Tapeless Studio." The company sold...
.
History
The Fairlight CMI was a development of an earlier synthesizer called the Qasar M8, an attempt to create sound by modeling all of the parameters of a waveformWaveform
Waveform means the shape and form of a signal such as a wave moving in a physical medium or an abstract representation.In many cases the medium in which the wave is being propagated does not permit a direct visual image of the form. In these cases, the term 'waveform' refers to the shape of a graph...
in real time. Unfortunately, this was beyond the available processing power of the day, and the results were disappointing. In an attempt to make something of it, Vogel and Ryrie decided to see what it would do with a naturally recorded sound wave as a starting point. To their surprise the effect was remarkable, and the digital sampler was born. In casting about for a name, Ryrie and Vogel settled upon Fairlight, the name of a hydrofoil (named in turn after Fairlight, New South Wales
Fairlight, New South Wales
Fairlight is a suburb of northern Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Fairlight is located 13 kilometres north-east of the Sydney central business district in the local government area of Manly Council and is part of the Northern Beaches region....
) that sped each day past Ryrie's grandmother's large house in Point Piper, New South Wales
Point Piper, New South Wales
Point Piper is a small, harbourside eastern suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is located six kilometres east of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area known as the Municipality of Woollahra....
, underneath which Ryrie had a workroom.
By 1979, the Fairlight CMI Series I was being demonstrated in Australia, the UK and the US. In the US, the latter country covered by Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen , nicknamed "The Boss," is an American singer-songwriter who records and tours with the E Street Band...
's concert sound engineer Bruce Jackson
Bruce Jackson (audio engineer)
Bruce Jackson was an Australian audio engineer who co-founded JANDS, an Australian audio, lighting and staging company. He joined American touring audio engineer Roy Clair and mixed concert stage monitors for Elvis Presley in the 1970s. With Clair Brothers, a concert sound company, Jackson...
, once Ryrie's neighbour in Point Piper.
At this time the sound quality was not quite up to professional standards, having only 24 kHz sampling, and it was not until the Series II of 1982 that this was rectified. In 1983 MIDI was added with the Series IIx, and in 1985 support for full CD
Compact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
quality sampling (16 bit
Bit
A bit is the basic unit of information in computing and telecommunications; it is the amount of information stored by a digital device or other physical system that exists in one of two possible distinct states...
/44.1 kHz) was available with the Series III.
One of the Fairlight's most significant features was the so-called "Page R" software, a real time graphical pattern sequencer, introduced on CMI Series II. This feature was often a key part of the buying decision of artists, and widely copied on other software synths since.
The Fairlight ran its own operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
known as QDOS (a modified version of the Motorola MDOS operating system) and had a menu-driven GUI
Graphical user interface
In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...
. The basic system used a number of Motorola 6800
Motorola 6800
The 6800 was an 8-bit microprocessor designed and first manufactured by Motorola in 1974. The MC6800 microprocessor was part of the M6800 Microcomputer System that also included serial and parallel interface ICs, RAM, ROM and other support chips...
processor
Central processing unit
The central processing unit is the portion of a computer system that carries out the instructions of a computer program, to perform the basic arithmetical, logical, and input/output operations of the system. The CPU plays a role somewhat analogous to the brain in the computer. The term has been in...
s, with separate cards dealing with specific parts of the system, such as the display drive and the keyboard interface. The main device for interacting with the machine apart from the keyboard was a light pen
Light pen
A light pen is a computer input device in the form of a light-sensitive wand used in conjunction with a computer's CRT TV set or monitor. It allows the user to point to displayed objects, or draw on the screen, in a similar way to a touch screen but with greater positional accuracy...
, which could be used to select options presented on a monochrome green-screen.
The Series III model dropped the light pen interface (the light pen cable apparently was one of the most fragile hardware elements in the system) in favour of a graphics tablet
Graphics tablet
A graphics tablet is a computer input device that enables a user to hand-draw images and graphics, similar to the way a person draws images with a pencil and paper. These tablets may also be used to capture data or handwritten signatures...
interface which was built in to the keyboard. This model was built around Motorola 68000
Motorola 68000
The Motorola 68000 is a 16/32-bit CISC microprocessor core designed and marketed by Freescale Semiconductor...
and Motorola 6809
Motorola 6809
The Motorola 6809 is an 8-bit microprocessor CPU from Motorola, designed by Terry Ritter and Joel Boney and introduced 1978...
processors, running Microware
Microware
Microware is a US corporation that produced the OS-9 real-time operating system.Microware Systems Corporation existed as a separate entity from 1977 until September 2001, when it was bought by RadiSys Corp., and became a division of that company...
's OS-9
OS-9
OS-9 is a family of real-time, process-based, multitasking, multi-user, Unix-like operating systems, developed in the 1980s, originally by Microware Systems Corporation for the Motorola 6809 microprocessor. It is currently owned by RadiSys Corporation....
Level II operating system (6809 version).
The Fairlight CMI was very well built, assembled by hand with expensive components and consequently it was highly priced (around £20,000 for a Series I). Although later models, adjusting for inflation, were getting comparatively less expensive as the relevant technology was getting cheaper, competitors with similar performance and lower prices started to multiply. For some years the CMI was sought after by those who could afford one, but competition made life increasingly difficult for the company. Fairlight managed to survive until the mid-1980s, relying more and more heavily on its revered name and its products' cult status for sales.
Fairlight went bankrupt a few years later owing to the expense of building the instruments – A$
Australian dollar
The Australian dollar is the currency of the Commonwealth of Australia, including Christmas Island, Cocos Islands, and Norfolk Island, as well as the independent Pacific Island states of Kiribati, Nauru and Tuvalu...
20,000 in components per unit. As a last-ditch attempt to salvage some revenue, the final run of machines were marketed as word processors. Peter Vogel said in 2005, "We were reliant on sales to pay the wages and it was a horrendously expensive business ... Our sales were good right up to the last minute, but we just could not finance the expansion and the R&D."
Vogel subsequently set up Fairlight ESP (Electric Sound and Picture), a company which sold the Fairlight MFX range of post-production audiovisual workstations. These were initially based on the CMI III, although later versions were entirely independent developments.
In August 2009, Peter Vogel launched a new company, also called Fairlight Instruments, with the objective of developing a 'retro' CMI-30A (30th Anniversary). This system is supposed to have the look and feel of the 1979 CMI but will use the latest 'Crystal Core media engine' developed by Fairlight.au.
In 2011, Fairlight also released a CMI app
Application software
Application software, also known as an application or an "app", is computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks. Examples include enterprise software, accounting software, office suites, graphics software and media players. Many application programs deal principally with...
for the Apple iPad. The app includes the complete CMI sound library, as well as an accurate translation of the CMI's renowned Page R sequencer.
Adoption
Peter Gabriel
Peter Brian Gabriel is an English singer, musician, and songwriter who rose to fame as the lead vocalist and flautist of the progressive rock group Genesis. After leaving Genesis, Gabriel went on to a successful solo career...
, Richard James Burgess
Richard James Burgess
Richard James Burgess is a studio drummer, music-computer programmer, recording artist, record producer, composer, author, manager, marketer and inventor. He was the producer for Spandau Ballet's first two albums.-Education:...
of Landscape
Landscape (band)
Landscape is a British band, best known for the 1981 hits, "Einstein A Go-Go" and "Norman Bates". Formed in 1974, they toured constantly during the mid- to late-1970s, playing rock, punk and jazz venues and releasing two instrumental EPs on their own Event Horizon label...
(who demonstrated it to many British musicians and on BBC TV's Tomorrow's World
Tomorrow's World
Tomorrow's World was a long-running BBC television series, showcasing new developments in the world of science and technology. First aired on 7 July 1965 on BBC1, it ran for 38 years until it was cancelled at the beginning of 2003.- Content :...
), Iva Davies of Icehouse
Icehouse (band)
Icehouse is an Australian rock band, formed as Flowers in 1977 in Sydney. Initially known in Australia for their pub rock style, they later achieved mainstream success playing new wave and synthpop style music and attained Top Ten singles chart success in both Europe and the U.S...
, Thomas Dolby
Thomas Dolby
Thomas Dolby is an English musician and producer. Best known for his 1982 hit "She Blinded Me with Science", and 1984 single "Hyperactive!", he has also worked extensively in production and as a session musician.-Early life:Dolby was born in London, England, contrary to information in early 1980s...
, Kate Bush
Kate Bush
Kate Bush is an English singer-songwriter, musician and record producer. Her eclectic musical style and idiosyncratic vocal style have made her one of the United Kingdom's most successful solo female performers of the past 30 years.In 1978, at the age of 19, Bush topped the UK Singles Chart...
, In the US, Jackson demonstrated the Series I sampler for a year before selling units to Herbie Hancock
Herbie Hancock
Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock is an American pianist, bandleader and composer. As part of Miles Davis's "second great quintet," Hancock helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the "post-bop" sound...
and Stevie Wonder
Stevie Wonder
Stevland Hardaway Morris , better known by his stage name Stevie Wonder, is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer and activist...
in 1980 for US$27,500 each. Meat-packing heir Geordie Hormel
Geordie Hormel
George "Geordie" Hormel was the son of Jay Catherwood Hormel and grandson of George A. Hormel. He was a musician and recording studio proprietor....
bought two for use at The Village Recorder
The Village (studio)
The Village is a famous recording studio in Los Angeles, California.Since the 1960s, The Village has been the home to recordings by artists such as Aerosmith, The Allman Brothers, The Beach Boys, Mariah Carey, Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, Eric Clapton, Alice Cooper, Elvis Costello, The Doors, Bob...
in Los Angeles. Other early adopters included Todd Rundgren
Todd Rundgren
Todd Harry Rundgren is an American multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and record producer. Hailed in the early stage of his career as a new pop-wunderkind, supported by the certified gold solo double LP Something/Anything? in 1972, Todd Rundgren's career has produced a diverse range of recordings...
, Nick Rhodes
Nick Rhodes
Nick Rhodes is an English musician, is best known as the keyboardist of the pop rock band Duran Duran...
of Duran Duran
Duran Duran
Duran Duran are an English band, formed in Birmingham in 1978. They were one of the most successful bands of the 1980s and a leading band in the MTV-driven "Second British Invasion" of the United States...
, producer Rhett Lawrence
Rhett Lawrence
Rhett Lawrence is a record producer and songwriter. He is originally famous for producing the Grammy Award–winning, Billboard #1 Hot 100 and #1 R&B single "Vision of Love" for Mariah Carey. He produced and co-wrote the Kelly Clarkson pop rock hit "Miss Independent” which was #1 for 6 weeks at Top...
and Ned Liben of EBN-OZN. The first commercially released album to incorporate it was Kate Bush
Kate Bush
Kate Bush is an English singer-songwriter, musician and record producer. Her eclectic musical style and idiosyncratic vocal style have made her one of the United Kingdom's most successful solo female performers of the past 30 years.In 1978, at the age of 19, Bush topped the UK Singles Chart...
's Never for Ever
Never for Ever
- Personnel :* Ian Bairnson: Guitar, Bass vocals* Brian Bath: Acoustic & Electric Guitar, Background Vocals* Andrew Bryant: Vocals, Background Vocals* Kevin Burke: Violin...
(1980), programmed by Richard James Burgess and John L. Walters
John L. Walters
John L. Walters is a British editor, critic and composer. He was a founding member of the band Landscape, best known for the 1981 hit ‘Einstein A Go-Go’ which reached no. 5 in the UK charts...
. Wonder took his Fairlight out on tour in 1980 in support of the album Stevie Wonder's Journey Through "The Secret Life of Plants" to replace the Computer Music Melodian sampler he had used on the recording. Jean Michel Jarre
Jean Michel Jarre
Jean Michel André Jarre is a French composer, performer and music producer. He is a pioneer in the electronic, ambient and New Age genres, and known as an organiser of outdoor spectacles of his music featuring lights, laser displays, and fireworks.Jarre was raised in Lyon by his mother and...
used a Fairlight on Magnetic Fields
Magnetic Fields (album)
Magnetic Fields is the third mainstream album by Jean Michel Jarre , released on Disques Dreyfus in 1981...
(1981) and also made extensive use of it on his The Concerts in China
The Concerts in China
The Concerts in China is a live album by Jean Michel Jarre, recorded in 1981 and released in 1982 on Disques Dreyfus...
(1982) and Zoolook
Zoolook
Zoolook is the fourth overall mainstream studio album by Jean Michel Jarre, and released on Disques Dreyfus in 1984. It makes extensive use of digital recording techniques and sampling. It is considered by many fans as one of Jarre's most experimental albums to date...
(1984) albums. The 1982 movie Liquid Sky
Liquid Sky
Liquid Sky is an independent American film. It debuted at the Montreal Film festival in August 1982 and was well received at several film festivals thereafter. It was produced with a budget of $500,000. It became the most successful independent film of 1983 grossing $1.7 million dollars in the...
featured a soundtrack entirely performed on the Fairlight CMI.
Peter Gabriel's "Shock the Monkey
Shock the Monkey
"Shock the Monkey" is a 1982 song by Peter Gabriel. It was released as a single and peaked at number 29 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart and number 1 on the Billboard Top Tracks chart. The song was Gabriel's first Top 40 hit in the US. In the UK, the song charted at number 58. It was included on...
" and its parent album Peter Gabriel
Peter Gabriel (IV Security)
Peter Gabriel is the fourth album released by the British progressive rock musician Peter Gabriel. This album was originally released as Gabriel’s fourth eponymous album, but was released in the United States as Security, Gabriel's first album with Geffen Records in the US and Canada.-History:This...
(1982) also featured the CMI. EBN-OZN
Ebn Ozn
Ēbn-Ōzn was a 1980s music duo composed of Ned "EBN" Liben and Robert "OZN" Rosen . The duo is best known for the 1983 hit single, "AEIOU, Sometimes Y."-Career:...
's "AEIOU Sometimes Y" was the first American single recorded entirely on a Fairlight in 1981, released in 1983 by Elektra Records
Elektra Records
Elektra Records is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group. In 2004, it was consolidated into WMG's Atlantic Records Group. After five years of dormancy, the label was revived by Atlantic in 2009....
and Arista Records in London. Feeling Cavalier, EBN-OZN's 1984 album was recorded entirely via Fairlight and the first American album to have that distinction (an earlier album entitled Erdenklang — Computerakustische Klangsinfonie by Austrian musicians Hubert Bognermayr und Harald Zuschrader, mostly based on the Fairlight, was released in 1982).
Producer Tony Mansfield
Tony Mansfield
Tony Mansfield, born May 28, 1943, Salford, England, is an English songwriter, musician and record producer. Mansfield was the main songwriter/producer for New Musik, a synthpop band that performed from 1979 to 1982.-References:...
used the instrument heavily on the B-52's album "Bouncing Off The Satellites
Bouncing off the Satellites
- Personnel :Band* Fred Schneider – lead vocals* Keith Strickland – bass, guitar, harmonica, percussion, keyboards, sitar, vocals, backing vocals* Cindy Wilson – lead vocals* Kate Pierson – lead vocals* Ricky Wilson – lead guitar, bass, backing vocals...
". Whilst the band initially disliked the Fairlight, it ended up becoming useful. Guitarist Ricky Wilson tragically died during the making of the album, and so the Fairlight was used to make up for the lack of guitar parts on the album.
Jan Hammer
Jan Hammer
Jan Hammer is a composer, pianist and keyboardist. He first gained his most visible audience while playing keyboards with the Mahavishnu Orchestra in the early 1970s, as well as his film scores for television and film including "Miami Vice Theme" and "Crockett's Theme", from the popular 1980s...
used the CMI to compose the original soundtrack of the 1980s TV drama Miami Vice
Miami Vice
Miami Vice is an American television series produced by Michael Mann for NBC. The series starred Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas as two Metro-Dade Police Department detectives working undercover in Miami. It ran for five seasons on NBC from 1984–1989...
.
The British new wave band The Art of Noise
The Art of Noise
Art of Noise was an avant-garde synthpop group formed in 1983 by engineer/producer Gary Langan, programmer J. J. Jeczalik, along with arranger Anne Dudley, producer Trevor Horn and music journalist Paul Morley. The group's mostly instrumental compositions were novel melodic sound collages based on...
(AON) and producer Trevor Horn
Trevor Horn
Trevor Charles Horn CBE is an English pop music record producer, songwriter, musician and singer. He was born in Houghton-le-Spring in north-east England....
used the instrument extensively. In the mid-90's, AON
The Art of Noise
Art of Noise was an avant-garde synthpop group formed in 1983 by engineer/producer Gary Langan, programmer J. J. Jeczalik, along with arranger Anne Dudley, producer Trevor Horn and music journalist Paul Morley. The group's mostly instrumental compositions were novel melodic sound collages based on...
member JJ Jeczalik would release a sample CD titled The Art of Sampling, which featured all of the unique CMI samples they had used throughout their career.
Influence
The success of the Fairlight CMI caused other firms to introduce sampling. New England DigitalNew England Digital
New England Digital Corp. , founded originally in Norwich, Vermont and eventually relocated to White River Junction, Vermont, was best known for its signature product, the Synclavier Synthesizer System, which evolved into the Synclavier Digital Audio System or "Tapeless Studio." The company sold...
modified their Synclavier
Synclavier
The Synclavier System was an early digital synthesizer, polyphonic digital sampling system, and music workstation, manufactured by New England Digital Corporation, Norwich, VT. The original design and development of the Synclavier prototype occurred at Dartmouth College with the collaboration of...
digital synth to perform sampling, while E-mu introduced a less costly sampling keyboard, the Emulator
E-mu Emulator
The Emulator is the name given to a series of disk-based digital sampling keyboards manufactured by E-mu Systems from 1982 until 1990. Though not the first commercial sampler, the Emulator was among the first to find wide use among ordinary musicians, due to its relatively low price and its size,...
, in 1981.
In the United States, a new sampler company called Ensoniq
Ensoniq
Ensoniq Corp. was an American electronics manufacturer, best known throughout the mid 1980s and 1990s for its musical instruments, principally samplers and synthesizers.- Company history :...
introduced the Ensoniq Mirage
Ensoniq Mirage
The Ensoniq Corporation's Mirage was an 8-bit sampler introduced in 1984. Priced below $2000 with features previously only found on more expensive samplers like the Fairlight CMI, it became a best seller....
in 1985, at a price that made sampling affordable to the average musician for the first time. Though the Mirage was essentially a poor man's sampler with significantly inferior hardware specs, at less than $2000 it was nevertheless sufficiently powered (8-bit microprocessor) to signal the beginning of the end of the CMI. In addition to these low-cost dedicated systems, very cheap add-in cards for popular home computers started to appear at this time, for example the Apple II
Apple II
The Apple II is an 8-bit home computer, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products, designed primarily by Steve Wozniak, manufactured by Apple Computer and introduced in 1977...
-based Greengate DS3 sampler card.
In America, Joan Gand of Gand Music and Sound in Northfield, Illinois was the top salesperson for Fairlight. The Gand organization sold CMIs to Prince
Prince (musician)
Prince Rogers Nelson , often known simply as Prince, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Prince has produced ten platinum albums and thirty Top 40 singles during his career. Prince founded his own recording studio and label; writing, self-producing and playing most, or all, of...
, James "J.Y." Young of Styx
Styx (band)
Styx is an American rock band that became famous for its albums from the late 1970s and early 1980s. The Chicago band is known for melding the style of prog-rock with the power of hard rock guitar, strong ballads, and elements of American musical theater....
, John Lowry of Petra
Petra (band)
Petra is a music group regarded as a pioneer of the Christian rock and contemporary Christian music genres. Formed in 1972, the band took its name from the Greek word for "rock"...
, Derek St. Holmes of the Ted Nugent
Ted Nugent
Theodore Anthony "Ted" Nugent is an American guitarist, musician, singer, author, reserve police officer, and activist. From Detroit, Michigan, he originally gained fame as the lead guitarist of The Amboy Dukes, before embarking on a lengthy solo career...
band, Al Jourgensen
Al Jourgensen
Alain David Jourgensen , is a Cuban-American musician best known as the founder and frontman of the industrial metal band Ministry. He is sometimes credited as Alain Jourgensen, Alien Jourgensen, Hypo Luxa , Dog, Alien Dog Star and Buck Satan...
of Ministry
Ministry (band)
Ministry is an American industrial metal band founded by lead singer Al Jourgensen in 1981. Originally a synthpop outfit, Ministry changed its style to industrial metal in the late 1980s. Ministry found mainstream success in the early 1990s with its most successful album Psalm 69: The Way to...
, as well as many private studio owners and rock personalities. Spokesperson Jan Hammer
Jan Hammer
Jan Hammer is a composer, pianist and keyboardist. He first gained his most visible audience while playing keyboards with the Mahavishnu Orchestra in the early 1970s, as well as his film scores for television and film including "Miami Vice Theme" and "Crockett's Theme", from the popular 1980s...
appeared at several Gand-sponsored Musictech pro audio events, as well as Keith Emerson
Keith Emerson
Keith Noel Emerson is an English keyboard player and composer. Formerly a member of the Keith Emerson Trio, John Brown's Bodies, The T-Bones, V.I.P.s, P.P. Arnold's backing band, and The Nice , he was a founder of Emerson, Lake & Palmer , one of the early supergroups, in 1970...
, Stanley Jordan
Stanley Jordan
Stanley Jordan is an American jazz/jazz fusion guitarist and pianist, best known for his development of the tapping technique for the guitar....
, Allan Holdsworth
Allan Holdsworth
Allan Holdsworth is an English guitarist and composer. He has released twelve studio albums as a solo artist and played many different styles of music over a period of four decades, but first drew attention for his work in jazz fusion...
, Todd Rundgren, Jeff Baxter
Jeff Baxter
Jeff "Skunk" Baxter is an American guitarist, known for his stints in the rock bands Steely Dan and The Doobie Brothers during the 1970s...
, Terry Fryer, Pat Leonard (Michael Jackson), engineers Roger Nichols (Steely Dan), Bob Clearmountain
Bob Clearmountain
Bob Clearmountain is an award-winning American music engineer, mixer and producer. He has worked with many prominent names in music including Bruce Springsteen , The Rolling Stones , Bryan Adams , Robbie Williams Bob Clearmountain is an award-winning American music engineer, mixer and producer. He...
(David Bowie), Al Schmidt (Frank Sinatra, Diana Krall) and Cubby Colby (Phil Collins), to perform the "Miami Vice Theme
Miami Vice Theme
The musical piece Miami Vice Theme was created and performed by Jan Hammer as the theme to the television series Miami Vice. It was first presented as part of the television broadcast of the show in September 1984 and released as a single in 1985, peaking at the number one spot on the Billboard Hot...
". A lawsuit was won by the Gands against Fairlight in California, for unpaid sales commission on the last Series IIx to be sold. It was never settled as Fairlight went bankrupt within days of the judgment and is still outstanding.
Perhaps in response to the pervasiveness of the Fairlight during the early 1980s, the credits of Phil Collins' No Jacket Required
No Jacket Required
The album is named after an incident at The Pump Room restaurant in Chicago, Illinois. Collins , was denied admittance because he did not meet the restaurant's dress code of "jacket required" for dinner, while Plant was allowed in. Collins was wearing a jacket, and argued about it. The Maître d'...
stated "There is no Fairlight on this Record."
Features timeline
~1977| style="text-align:right;"| $20,000
base price ||colspan="2"|
- Dynamic harmonic control
- Waveform editing
- No sampler
| ?
|
- Dynamic harmonic control
(128 harmonics additiveAdditive synthesisAdditive synthesis is a technique of sound synthesis that creates musical timbre by explicitly adding sinusoidal overtones together.The timbre of an instrument is composed of multiple harmonic or inharmonic partials , of different frequencies and amplitudes, that change over time...
) - Waveform editing
| ?
|
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
! CMI Series I
| 1979
| style="text-align:right;"| ~£18,000 ||colspan="2"|
- SamplerSampler (musical instrument)A sampler is an electronic musical instrument similar in some respects to a synthesizer but, instead of generating sounds, it uses recordings of sounds that are loaded or recorded into it by the user and then played back by means of a keyboard, sequencer or other triggering device to perform or...
(8 bit, 8 voice, monoral) - Lightpen
| 8
|
- Sampling: 8bit @ 16kHz
- Dynamic harmonic control
- Waveform editing/drawing
|
- Basic keyboard sequencer
- Musical Composition Language (MCL)
|
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
! CMI Series II
| 1980
| style="text-align:right;"| ~£25,000 ||colspan="2"|
- "Page R" (Rev.10–)
| 8
|
- Sampling: 8bit @ 2.1–30.2kHz
- Dynamic harmonic control
(32 harmonics additiveAdditive synthesisAdditive synthesis is a technique of sound synthesis that creates musical timbre by explicitly adding sinusoidal overtones together.The timbre of an instrument is composed of multiple harmonic or inharmonic partials , of different frequencies and amplitudes, that change over time...
) - Waveform generating/drawing
|
- "Page R" Realtime Composer
- Basic keyboard sequencer
- MCL
|
- CV/Gate interface (optional)
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
! CMI Series IIx
| 1983
| style="text-align:right;"| ~£27,000 ||colspan="2"|
- MIDI and SMPTE interface
- FFT (Rev.12–)
| 8
|
- Sampling: 8bit @ 2.1–30.2kHz
- FFT (additive resynthesis)
- Waveform editing/drawing
|
- "Page R" Realtime Composer
- Basic keyboard sequencer
- MCL
|
- MIDI and SMPTE interface
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
! CMI Series III
| 1985
| style="text-align:right;"| £50,000 ||colspan="2"|
- 16 voices (expandable), 16bit sampling
- CAPS sequencer, maximum 80 tracks
- Graphics tabletGraphics tabletA graphics tablet is a computer input device that enables a user to hand-draw images and graphics, similar to the way a person draws images with a pencil and paper. These tablets may also be used to capture data or handwritten signatures...
(instead of lightpen)
| 16
|
- Sampling: 16bit @ 100kHz(mono) or 50kHz(stereo)
- FFT (additive resynthesis)
- Waveform editing/drawing
|
- CAPS (Composer, Arranger, Performer Sequencer), 80 tracks
- MCL
|
- MIDI and SMPTE interface
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
! CMI Series 30A
| 2009/
2011
| style="text-align:right;"| ~£20,000 ||colspan="2"|
- Reissued using Crystal Core Sound Engine
- Sampling rate: 44.1, 48, 96, 192 kHz
| ?
| ?
| ?
|
- Analog: 2in / 12+2out
- Digital: SPDIF, 64ch BNC MADIMADIMultichannel Audio Digital Interface, MADI or AES10 is an industry-standard electronic communications protocol that defines the data format and electrical characteristics of an interface carrying multiple channels of digital audio. The Audio Engineering Society standard for MADI was originally...
, Wordclock - Timecode: MIDI, LTCLinear timecodeLinear Timecode is an encoding of SMPTE timecode data in an audio signal, as defined in SMPTE 12M specification. The audio signal is commonly recorded on a VTR track or other storage media. The bits are encoded using the biphase mark code, also known as "FM": a zero bit has a single transition...
- MIDI, USB
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
! Fairlight Pro App
| 2011
| style="text-align:right;"| £29.99 ||colspan="2"|
- Running on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch (iOS 4.0 or later)
- Sampling (ver.1.1–)
| ?
|
- Sample player with:
- entire IIx library (564 voices)
- selected III sounds (over 100)
- User sampling (ver.1.1–)
|
- "Page R" Realtime Comporser
- "Page D" Display waveform in 3D graphics
|
- MIDI input via external interface
- Import/export CMI data files
|}
Quasar I, II, and (last) M8 (1975–1977)
- Made by Fairlight and Creative Strategies
- Price: $20,000 base price
- CPUs: Dual Motorola 6800Motorola 6800The 6800 was an 8-bit microprocessor designed and first manufactured by Motorola in 1974. The MC6800 microprocessor was part of the M6800 Microcomputer System that also included serial and parallel interface ICs, RAM, ROM and other support chips...
- Storage: Hole paper tape reader
- Memory: 4 kB per voice
- Voices: 8 voices (no sampling, just numeric additive synthesisAdditive synthesisAdditive synthesis is a technique of sound synthesis that creates musical timbre by explicitly adding sinusoidal overtones together.The timbre of an instrument is composed of multiple harmonic or inharmonic partials , of different frequencies and amplitudes, that change over time...
with 128 harmonics) - Synthesis: Additive synthesisAdditive synthesisAdditive synthesis is a technique of sound synthesis that creates musical timbre by explicitly adding sinusoidal overtones together.The timbre of an instrument is composed of multiple harmonic or inharmonic partials , of different frequencies and amplitudes, that change over time...
; dynamic harmonic control, waveform editing
CMI Series I (1979)
- Musical sampler was introduced.
- Price: ~£18,000
- CPUs: Dual Motorola 6800Motorola 6800The 6800 was an 8-bit microprocessor designed and first manufactured by Motorola in 1974. The MC6800 microprocessor was part of the M6800 Microcomputer System that also included serial and parallel interface ICs, RAM, ROM and other support chips...
- Storage: Two 8" floppy drives
- Memory: 16 kB per voice, System: 64 kB, Video: 16 kB (512x256 pixels)
- Voices: 8 voices of polyphonyPolyphony (instrument)Polyphony Instruments that are not capable of polyphony are monophonic.-Synthesizer:Most of early synthesizers were monophonic musical instruments which can play only one note at a time, and are often called monosynth as opposed to polysynth...
- Synthesis: waveform drawing via lightpen; dynamic harmonic control, waveform editing
- Sampling: 8 bits at 16 kHz (mono)
- Sequencer: Basic keyboard sequencer, Musical Composition Language (MCL),
- Keyboard: 73 note unweighted velocity sensitive + slave keyboard
CMI Series II (1980)
- Price: ~£25,000
- CPUs: Dual Motorola 6800Motorola 6800The 6800 was an 8-bit microprocessor designed and first manufactured by Motorola in 1974. The MC6800 microprocessor was part of the M6800 Microcomputer System that also included serial and parallel interface ICs, RAM, ROM and other support chips...
- Storage: Two 8" floppy drives
- Memory: 16 kB per voice, System: 64 kB, Video: 16 kB (512x256 pixels)
- Voices: 8 voices of polyphonyPolyphony (instrument)Polyphony Instruments that are not capable of polyphony are monophonic.-Synthesizer:Most of early synthesizers were monophonic musical instruments which can play only one note at a time, and are often called monosynth as opposed to polysynth...
- Synthesis: dynamic harmonic control (Page 4); waveform generating (Page 5); waveform drawing via lightpen (Page 6)
- Sampling: 8 bits at 2100 Hz to 30.2 kHz (mono) (Page 8)
- Sequencer: Basic keyboard sequencer (Page 9), Musical Composition Language (MCL, Page C), Realtime Composer (Page R)
- Keyboard: 73 note unweighted velocity sensitive + slave keyboard
- I/O: No MIDI, optional CV/Gate interface (Page A)
CMI Series IIx (1983)
- Price: ~£27,000
- CPUs: Dual Motorola 6809Motorola 6809The Motorola 6809 is an 8-bit microprocessor CPU from Motorola, designed by Terry Ritter and Joel Boney and introduced 1978...
- Storage: Two 8" floppy drives
- Memory: 16 kB per voice, System: 256 kB, Video: 16 kB (512x256 pixels)
- Voices: 8 voices of polyphonyPolyphony (instrument)Polyphony Instruments that are not capable of polyphony are monophonic.-Synthesizer:Most of early synthesizers were monophonic musical instruments which can play only one note at a time, and are often called monosynth as opposed to polysynth...
- Synthesis: waveform drawing via lightpen; dynamic harmonic control, waveform editing
- Sampling: 8 bits at 2100 Hz to 30.2 kHz (mono) (Page 8)
- Sequencer: Page R, Basic keyboard sequencer, Musical Composition Language (MCL)
- Keyboard: 73 note unweighted velocity sensitive + slave keyboard
- I/O: MIDI, SMPTESMPTE time codeSMPTE timecode is a set of cooperating standards to label individual frames of video or film with a time code defined by the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers in the SMPTE 12M specification...
CMI Series III (1985)
- Price: £50,000
- CPUs: Dual Motorola 6809Motorola 6809The Motorola 6809 is an 8-bit microprocessor CPU from Motorola, designed by Terry Ritter and Joel Boney and introduced 1978...
CPUs, and one 6809 CPU for each voice card, one Motorola 68000Motorola 68000The Motorola 68000 is a 16/32-bit CISC microprocessor core designed and marketed by Freescale Semiconductor...
(to 68020) for waveform processor card - Storage: Hard drive and Tape DC600 Streamer (ESDI, SCSI), one 8" floppy drive
- Memory: 14 MB, expandable to 32 MB and maximum 64 MB on last hard revision (RAM RAM disk), System: 356 kB
- Voices: 16 voices of polyphonyPolyphony (instrument)Polyphony Instruments that are not capable of polyphony are monophonic.-Synthesizer:Most of early synthesizers were monophonic musical instruments which can play only one note at a time, and are often called monosynth as opposed to polysynth...
(expandable) - Synthesis: waveform drawing via graphics tablet; FFT; waveform editing
- Sampling: 16 bits at 100 kHz (mono) or 50 kHz (stereo)
- Sequencer: CAPS (Composer, Arranger, Performer Sequencer), 80 track polyphonic, Musical Composition Language (MCL),
- Keyboard: 73 note unweighted velocity sensitive (MIDI compatible)
- I/O: MIDI, SMPTESMPTE time codeSMPTE timecode is a set of cooperating standards to label individual frames of video or film with a time code defined by the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers in the SMPTE 12M specification...
CMI Series 30A (30th Anniversary) (announced in 2009, released in 2011)
- ~$20,000
- Retro look and feel of the original CMI
- Sound architecture based on the new Crystal Core
-
- CMI-30A Hardware Specifications
-
- System Components:
- Mainframe — free-standing and adaptable to rack mount, includes 500GB SATA hard drive, DVD R/W drive, USB ports.
(Welded aluminium enclosure. Width:58 cm, Depth:50 cm, Height:30 cm, Weight:32 kg) - Monitor — 17" 1280 x 1024 pixels
(Width:51 cm, Depth:28 cm, Height:38 cm, Weight:12 kg) - Lightpen — Precision machined stainless steel pointer with left/right click button
- QWERTY keyboard — 85 clicky keys, USB output
- Music keyboard — Fatar 76 key TP40GH, with weighted keys and hammer action for a real piano feel,
velocity and aftertouch, pitch wheel, mod wheel, 3 assignable rotary controls, 2 assignable switches, assignable multitouch colour screen
(Width:130 cm, Depth:44 cm, Height:9.5 cm, Weight:25 kg)
- Audio Outputs:
- 12 channels analogue, balanced TRS
- 2 channels analogue monitor mix, balanced TRS (front panel access)
(Dynamic range > 100 dB (unweighted); THD < 0.002% @ 1 kHz, −1dBFS; Frequency response +0.05 / −0.15 dB, 20 Hz – 20 kHz) - Digital output: 64 channel BNC MADI
- Audio Inputs:
- 2 balanced mic/line inputs XLR, phantom powerPhantom powerPhantom power, in the context of professional audio equipment, is a method for transmitting DC electric power through microphone cables to operate microphones that contain active electronic circuitry....
48V option
(Sample rate: 44.1, 48, 96, 192 kHz; THD < 0.002% @ 1 kHz, −1dBFS; Frequency response +0.05 / −0.15 dB, 20 Hz – 20 kHz) - SPDIF
- Other I/O:
- USB, Pedal x 3
- MIDI and MIDI Timecode input and output via 5 pin DIN
- LTC (Linear Time CodeLinear timecodeLinear Timecode is an encoding of SMPTE timecode data in an audio signal, as defined in SMPTE 12M specification. The audio signal is commonly recorded on a VTR track or other storage media. The bits are encoded using the biphase mark code, also known as "FM": a zero bit has a single transition...
) input and output - Word clockWord clockA word clock or wordclock is a clock signal used to synchronise other devices, such as digital audio tape machines and compact disc players, which interconnect via digital audio. S/PDIF, AES/EBU, ADAT, and TDIF are some of the formats that use a word clock...
(for synchronisation to external sources)
- Power:
- 100–240V AC — Mainframe & Keyboard: 9W, Monitor: 50W
Fairlight Pro App for iPhone, iPod Touch & iPad, iOS 4.0 or later. (2011)
- £29.99
- Entire original Fairlight CMI IIX Sound Library containing 564 voices.
- 100+ selected CMI III sounds - play the CMI voices from an external MIDI input or the on-screen keyboard.
- Display voices graphically using ‘Page D’, and change your viewpoint by tilting the iPhone/iPad.
- Authentic Fairlight CMI user interface.
- 8 track composition using ‘Page R’ pattern-based sequencer.
- Ability to create instrument sets that store settings for all 8 channels, including the voices, pitch shifts, volumes, release times etc.
- Import/export voices, compositions, MIDI and instruments.
Sound clips
Note: These sound clips require an Ogg Vorbis player. Click here for a list of downloadable players.- A sequenced, multi-sound song played on the Fairlight CMI. Composer: Greg Holmes
- You're the Voice — the unmistakable "clack-clack" sound etc. is a chief sound of the Fairlight CMI, as used in this John Farnham song.
- A Touch of Paradise — This John Farnham song makes extensive use of the Fairlight CMI for background atmosphere as well as lead parts
- Fairlight IIL demonstration by Kendall Wrightson at Syco Systems, from a BBCBBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
MicroLive documentary.
Artists having used the Fairlight CMI
A Fairlight CMI can be seen in the Devo
Devo
Devo is an American band formed in 1973 consisting of members from Kent and Akron, Ohio. The classic line-up of the band includes two sets of brothers, the Mothersbaughs and the Casales . The band had a #14 Billboard chart hit in 1980 with the single "Whip It", and has maintained a cult...
film We Are Devo and in Jan Hammer
Jan Hammer
Jan Hammer is a composer, pianist and keyboardist. He first gained his most visible audience while playing keyboards with the Mahavishnu Orchestra in the early 1970s, as well as his film scores for television and film including "Miami Vice Theme" and "Crockett's Theme", from the popular 1980s...
's music video for the Miami Vice
Miami Vice
Miami Vice is an American television series produced by Michael Mann for NBC. The series starred Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas as two Metro-Dade Police Department detectives working undercover in Miami. It ran for five seasons on NBC from 1984–1989...
theme song. It also makes an appearance being operated by Nick Rhodes
Nick Rhodes
Nick Rhodes is an English musician, is best known as the keyboardist of the pop rock band Duran Duran...
in Duran Duran
Duran Duran
Duran Duran are an English band, formed in Birmingham in 1978. They were one of the most successful bands of the 1980s and a leading band in the MTV-driven "Second British Invasion" of the United States...
's video "The Reflex
The Reflex
"The Reflex" is the eleventh single by Duran Duran, released worldwide on 16 April 1984.The song was heavily remixed for single release and was the third and last to be taken from their third album Seven and the Ragged Tiger.-Song history:...
". Al Di Meola
Al Di Meola
Al Di Meola is an acclaimed American jazz fusion and Latin guitarist, composer, and record producer of Italian origin. With a musical career that has spanned more than three decades, he has become respected as one of the most influential guitarists in jazz to date...
's Sequencer video has many shots of the Fairlight CMI and its software. You can see Fairlight CMI (series II presumably) in the music video "Etude" by Mike Oldfield (track from the album The Killing Fields
The Killing Fields (album)
The Killing Fields is the 10th record album by Mike Oldfield, released in 1984. It was the soundtrack album for the film of the same name and it is the only full score written by Oldfield...
, can be seen on the Elements DVD
Elements - The Best of Mike Oldfield (video)
Elements - The Best of Mike Oldfield is a video collection by Mike Oldfield released in October 1993. It was released by Virgin Records on VHS and Laser disc...
). It can also be seen in the Queen
Queen (band)
Queen are a British rock band formed in London in 1971, originally consisting of Freddie Mercury , Brian May , John Deacon , and Roger Taylor...
documentary "Magic Years" and on the back cover of Mecano
Mecano
Mecano was a Spanish pop band whose debut coincided with La Movida Madrileña , a sociocultural movement that occurred in Madrid, Spain during the 1980s...
's live album.
Herbie Hancock made an appearance on Sesame Street
Sesame Street
Sesame Street has undergone significant changes in its history. According to writer Michael Davis, by the mid-1970s the show had become "an American institution". The cast and crew expanded during this time, including the hiring of women in the crew and additional minorities in the cast. The...
in the early 1980s demonstrating the Fairlight.
David Hirschfelder made extensive use of the Fairlight CMI while recording with John Farnham
John Farnham
John Peter Farnham, AO, formerly billed as Johnny Farnham , is an English-born Australian pop singer. He was a teen pop idol from 1964 to 1979, and has since forged a career as an adult contemporary singer. His career has mostly been as a solo artist although he briefly replaced Glenn Shorrock as...
for the 1986 album Whispering Jack
Whispering Jack
Whispering Jack is the twelfth studio album by Australian adult contemporary pop singer John Farnham. It was produced by Ross Fraser, and released on 20 October 1986, which peaked at #1 on the Australian Kent Music Report Album Charts...
.
You can see Timothy Leary using a CMI in the Devo video collection "We're All Devo".
External links
- Fairlight Main Site
- Fairlight App for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad
- Fairlight Instruments
- Fairlight Users Group
- FairlightUS Main Site
- Fairlight Photos
- Service and Repair Centre for CMI I, CMI II and CMI II–X
- Candor Chasma : Information about Fairlight CMI and other vintage keyboards
- Fairlight CMI History, photos and technical information
- More history, technical info and links
- Greg Holmes' Fairlight CMI page
- Fairlight Week on Music Thing
- New Fairlight Instruments company launched in August 2009 to produce retro CMI-30A
- Fairlight User's Groups on Yahoo
- Clive Smith, early pre-eminent Fairlight specialist
- Norm Leete's Sound on Sound article
- Technical infos: CMI hardware + software
- Erdenklang music label
- Is the CMI going to make a comeback in 2009?
- Herbie Hancock plays a CMI on Sesame Street