Fairlight CMI
This beautiful white stallion is a top breed of vintage synthesizers. The first Fairlights began showing up around 1979, and introduced the world to sampling (some of you might say the Mellotron and Chamberlin did that years earlier, but both those instruments only played back pre-recorded sounds whereas the Fairlight allowed the user to sample his own sounds). The Series II and Series IIx showed up shortly after and took the Fairlight to new heights. Since the CMI was such cutting edge technolgy, Fairlight had to build their own computer hardware to achieve the capabilities the designers where inventing for the instrument. Therefore the Fairlight CMI consisted not only of a keyboard instrument, but of an external display monitor, QWERTY keyboard, and CPU/disk drive. Of course this technology didn't come cheap, as Fairlights rivaled Ferraris in price (no kidding).
The final Fairlight CMI was the Series III (shown above) which was released around 1986. By the late '80's affordable samplers, affordable software sequencers with and affordable synth workstations took their toll on the Fairlight CMI, which could no longer justify it's enormous cost. However, the Fairlight was truely a pathfinder, clearing the way for today's computer and sample based setups.
Average Advertised Price:
Oh gosh, I don't know. The original prices where upwards of $40,000 and often much higher. I have seen one or two advertised lately for around $3,000 to 4,000, but not sure of the model (I think Series II).
Jetboy's Humble Opinion Of Worth:
Your guess is as good as mine.
Jetboy's Review: I dream for that Fairlight cream. - Sorry, couldn't resist. The mystic of the CMI may have faded, and had it's relevance subdued by today's technology, but I still find myself drooling when I see images of it's heavenly Zen-like essence. From what I hear, the Series III is upgradeable to a MFX workstation (Fairlight's hard disk recording platform), so there's still some spunk left in this machine, as long as there's still some spunk left in your wallet.
jRox at roxaby@bellsouth.net states: "If you've ever played one, then you've had to program this beast....and all I can say is that it's like programming an Akai X-7000 when you've used an S-3000CD...Uncompadible and unorthodoxed...but it's worth the headlines you make owning one I guess."
David Morley at DLMorley@aol.com makes us sick if he actually owns one of these: "The Fairlight is amongst the easiest and fastest way to make great tracks. Unique and despite what soemone said, Extremely easy to use. On-line Help for all the key commands. Page R is so intuitive it's silly! The Sound is lovely and unique. Akai should take a few leaves out of the CMI book if they want user friendliness."
L.Furst at furstl@feld.cvut.cz is the furst to submit such a fine review: "It's a legend. Used by J.M.Jarre and also by the Pet Shop Boys, they performed live at Palladium with an Emulator and Fairlight CMI III (take a look at the monitor)... LP Actually by the PSB was done on Fairlight and also the LP Results by Liza Minnelli"
Klaus Poulsen at klausp@forensic.ku.dk tells us how once, twice, (series) three times is the "Lady": "I got a CMI Fairlight Series III at my private home studio. The sound, and the way you work with "her" is just amazing. Last week I recorded a wellknown danish singer's new song, and I used the CMI for the string-arrangement. He nearly dropped dead. The sound is so warm and still real. I'm glad, other people still love the old lady."
J. Donohue at jamesdonohue@hotmail.com sells us on his following slogans: "I performed marketing consulting for Fairlight Instruments in New York during the late 80's and the top of the line at the time with the direct to hard disk recording, waveform editing (non-destructive) and lots of other bells and whistles sold for $2M. Peter Gabriel still uses his for his own recording and has recorded several other artists in his studio using this wonderful machine. "
Simon Peters at speters@senet.com.au is the Simon that says: This is dreamy creamy and data streamy,I nearly hoared myself in selling to the highest bidder,in the end; I just couldnt come at the thought. The CMI IIX is truly organic and orgasmic,The rollsroyce of the past millenium, I will never sell. Being a keyboard junkie, and having owned many many synths she is the only one which gets me off time and time again. Peter vogel and Kym Ryrie will go down in history, for pioneering ad/da conversion.The CMI`s value will soar.
roger bolton at roger@avebury.fsnet.co.uk is a bloody arrogant little basterd, but I still want to be his best friend. He tells us: fairlights eh? i have two series iii - sorry about that - and they are both in constant use in scores for braodcast tv. what makes them different - well its not just sentimental - they sound better than any other sampler - why? simple - each audio output has a dedicated processor and channel card - this is totally unlike any other sampler so far developed - all others 'multi-plex' or effectively 'time share' their dynamic voice allocation. no other library of samples sits better in a mix - but i might be biased as i used to work for fairlight and peter gabriel a number of times. fairlights live - the philosophy behind them has much more integrity than other manufacturers. end of my sermon - let the debate begin - fairlight was the genesis after all!!!
Images from Synthsite.