The Fairlight CMI: Mother of All Samplers

Today we are going to be taking a look at one of the coolest vintage keyboards/synths/samplers of all time - The Fairlight CMI. The Fairlight is a weird & cool instrument, and the history of the Fairlight CMI is cool too! Follow along with me as we take a look at how this weirdly awesome (and now archaic) musical instrument was born. The Fairlight CMI has been used by countless musicians including Kate Bush on her famous hit "Running Up That Hill", Duran Duran, Peter Gabriel, the Smiths, among many others, and has become an iconic piece of vintage musical equipment history and foundational to the recording of so many great rock, prog and pop records. Let's check this thing out!
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[@geevee7823]

Many people compare the Fairlight to the Synclavier, but they forget that the Fairlight gave you 8-voices of sampling, whereas the Synclavier gave you a single voice of sampling, albeit at a much higher fidelity than the Fairlight. From the mid 80's Synclavier systems had the ability to sample more voices, but at a premium price. By that stage the Series III had been released, with mind blowing specs.

[@VickersDoorter]

I actually purchased Alan Parson's Fairlight IIx around 1986-87. Amazingly, the huge floppy disks that came with it had original backing tracks for Art of Noise's Close to the Edit and Frankie's Two Tribes as well as Parson's Mammagamma, which was a superlative piece of programming, as the the main guitar sample echoes were acutally programmed notes that faded away. Amazing piece of kit. Sold it when I purchased the Series III from Syco Systems in 1988.

[@МарияСкатькова-р3г]

hi from Russia) i am a sound engineer on tv shows make sound post production. Now i am 37 old) i remember all 90's and some of 80's. i started with own music when was 7 years old) playing accordeon and drums) i remember that music influence from the west to our East musicians. And used to adsorb all that modern sound. But now my husband is making professional videos and sometimes he uses my sound design skiils) he used to work onPremiere pro by Adobe. But now he change his mind and bought davinci resolve, where now is new big sound module by Fairlight. Today we have been watching youtube for fairlight story and found your video. This is veri nice compiled story and you so nice too;) you make a solid road in my mind from That times to Now) and we start to undestand how great Fairlight company is! thanks to you! Subscribed on your chanell and please make more nice content!

[@artprojectsnz]

I’ve used one a lot and they are utterly incredible sounding - slow by todays standard but excellent sonically and Page R still grooves like nothing else…..my buddy has 2 or 3 and another in parts!

[@ShawnBarnesbass]

Movie composer Brad Fiedel created the music for 'Terminator 2' on a third series Fairlight (two of them actually).

[@BockwinkleB]

Yeah, those sounds are so 80s. A real peice of musical history. ETA Terminator 2 was 91, but still brought an 80s vibe.

[@fuzzcityrecords432]

Cool I got to go back and listen to that now

[@Olovlig]

Cool!

[@jergervasi3331]

His machines were recently listed on Reverb for sale!

[@simonkormendy849]

The French electronic music composer, Jean Michelle Jarre (Oxygene and Equinoxe), used a Fairlight CMI on his album, Zoolook, he travelled around the world making recordings of people speaking languages from various different countries, and used the recordings on the tracks featured on the album, some of the vocal recordings were processed through various electronic devices, such as a Vocoder, to produce new sounds.

[@FLH3official]

He travelled around the world, etc... this is the story , but he used a lot of factory samples in his, BTW excellent, album Zoolook. A lot. But se non è vero e bene trovato, so no problem for me as long as the music is good.

[@TheMaggylu]

Hey! Big, BIG Thanks from Germany, for this precise Documentary! I‘m going to get 70 next year, and all my Life i was into those black ‚n white Keys. Having experienced nearly every Machine‘s Premiere you present, i get tears in my eyes, seeing a young girl with such honest PASSION! Thanks again… for what you GIVE to the people! And; „Player unknown“ at the beginning… is founder of swiss electronic wizards „YELLO“ Boris Blank. He was (allways!) one of the first to explore new Machines. Keep on that great work!! With a friendly kiss to your cheek… Reinhard

[@djdonbentley2141]

Peter Gabriel , such a Renaissance man . Talk about a man who helped shape how modern music was being made at the time . True pioneer .

[@TheZenguitarguy]

Having worked both the Synclav and the Fairlight during the early 80's and beyond I can say there was no comparison between the 2. Fairlight was hard to use and clunky. I never liked doing sessions on Fairlight, but Synclav, although challenging to learn, was a marvel of engineering and design. Thanks for making these videos.

[@acidtechno]

Far out ❤

[@jurgisvalancauskas4006]

fairlight was "poor man's Synclavier"

[@plane_guy6051]

​@@jurgisvalancauskas4006 -- LOL -- That's like comparing a Ferrari to a MacLaren and calling one of them a "poor man's" super car. The only difference is that now both Fairlight and Synclavier are obsolete and have been replaced by what are now essentially VST spaceships of all different flavors.

[@MikeHageman]

Nice overview video. Thanks! I had a series III/16 which was formerly owned by Kate Bush. Loved it. Had to sell it unfortunately. Still have the original OS floppies and manual as a memory to my strange decision to sell it. Once I will buy one again. Magic machine! Never equalled or surpassed.

[@ronrobins3513]

Yep... I find this instrument endlessly fascinating too

[@fuzzcityrecords432]

Its cool right?

[@MonteMusicChannel]

Don't forget the great Hans Zimmer, created "Rain Man" on the CMI Fairlight in Berry Levinson's Office ! Art of Noise "Moments in Love" used it as well (the famous "SARARR" Preset). So many great artists....list is long...

[@neilbradley]

I've got a CMI III. It came with a hoard of samples - some from Boris Blank (Yello), Genesis, Pet Shop Boys, Peter Gabriel, and a bunch of others. Fun fact - Alan Parsons sold his CMI to OMD.

[@cygnusalpha5575]

Have you recorded any pieces to check out with it?

[@neilbradley]

@@cygnusalpha5575 Not yet, studio is being rewired and I expect I'll have it all set up by the end of the month... then definitely!

[@vco8450]

Genesis? thats interesting. are they sampled from his gear?

[@neilbradley]

@@vco8450 Probably copied from Tony Banks' original gear. The Fairlight community is really small, and it's very common for them to be sent in for repairs, samples copied, then sent back out. Other times the Fairlights were sold by their original owners with the samples intact. And I know a few Fairlight owners who have shared samples with others'. Whether or not that was with the original authors' permission is unknown, but obviously it'd be serious copyright violation to use those samples in other recordings without their blessing.

[@painauchocolate2395]

@@neilbradley hey mate how’s that studio coming on? I would be so so interested to pay a visit if it’s open to the public? I live in the uk?

[@martingeorgeselwood]

Both the CMI and Series III are far more than the sum of their parts. Absolutely groundbreaking when released and they transformed the way we all make music today. For anyone saying the Arturia CMI V sounds the same I can conclusively say it doesn't (I own both a IIx and Series III as well as the Arturia plugin). I like and use the Arturia plugin for what it does but it isn't the same thing.

[@subs4794]

You're right they don't sound the same, the newer stuff sounds better.

[@lundsweden]

These were dream instruments for ordinary musicsns back in the 80s. But the Akai came out with the much more affordable S900 in 1986. I think that was the beginning if the end for Fairlight. Akai then came out with the S950 and S1000 and MPC60 in 1988- grand slam!

[@Synthnerd11]

Nice vid on a classic instrument, well presented. Sorry to nitpick, but the Ryrie pronounces the first syllable of his surname to rhyme with "eye". Jean Michel Jarre has already been mentioned, he was also one of the earliest users of the Fairlight. His "Magnetic Fields" albums uses a Series I, and "Zoolook" makes stunning use of the Series II. Also, Mike Oldfield was quite the Fairlight power user. "Five Miles Out", "Crises", "Discovery", and his soundtrack to "The Killing Fields" make extensive use of the Series II. He actually had two of them, one for the studio and one for live shows. The demo heard from 0:40 - 1:05 was composed by Michael Carlos and was the theme to a little-known Australian sci-fi series from 1979 called "Timelapse". I actually remember it quite well. it didn't stand up too badly to the UK and US offerings at the time. The theme tune was what really caught my ear though. When I saw the current affairs stories on the Fairlight a few months later, my jaw dropped. kzbin.info/www/bejne/n4DPgXamiNKbiK8

[@paulschlusser1085]

A good nitpick! I had the privilege of working with Michael Carlos (and many others) at Fairlight as the CMI software manager. Tony Furse who created the M8 CPU on which the CMI was based is often overlooked in the story of Fairlight sadly, but I think it's important to give Michael Carlos kudos for being the most significant figure behind "Page R" - arguably an equally important Fairlight CMI innovation. My working relationship with Michael was one of the defining moments in my career (I still emulated much of his programming style 30 years later). He was musician who taught himself 6800 assembly language software programming to create click tracks for his composition work. An extremely talented software engineer and user interface designer.

[@Synthnerd11]

@@paulschlusser1085 Wow. There are some enviable associates right there! I've often wished Carlos fared better with his popularity, I thought his work wasn't appreciated as much as it ought to be. Like I mentioned, I loved the theme to Timelapse, and his music for The Long Weekend was brilliantly unsettling.

[@ryanward6386]

Love the sounds the Fairlight makes, but let's not forget the influence of the Mellotron on samplers. Though not a synthesizer or a sampler per se, it did use tape recordings of real sounds played on loops that could be controlled from the keyboard.

[@CrisBlyth]

This is a great video, really fun! There’s a few errors, but nothing major. Also, Jean Michele Jarre and Hans Zimmer were also big Fairlight users. There are not that many working Fairlight Cmi’s out there, but you might get lucky.. I did :) Also, I’m building one .. :)

[@CrisBlyth]

@@FailedMuso hehe, well I am nice :) and these seem like genuinely interested young people, so I support that too :)

[@Kohntarkosz]

The problem being, you're talking about something that uses obsolete technology, and components that aren't made anymore, so if something goes wonky, you'll never be able to replace it. Someoen was telling me the university he went to had a Fairlight, but they ditched in the early 90's, after teh company went out of business and the one they had started having problems.

[@CrisBlyth]

@@Kohntarkosz there are quite a few people that restore and keep Fairlight machines going

[@SynthTweakscom]

Kohntarkosz, I have Peter Wielks test rig (custom CMI III) here at the moment and am also doing restoration work on these. As has been mentioned, keeping these running isn't really an issue when many of the parts are still available and those that aren't can be replaced with modern equivalents and upgrades whilst still keeping the sound and functionality of the original unit.

[@humanchannel7825]

@@CrisBlyth what’s the point. There are so many better synths now. You could literally recreate whatever sounds you want

[@noneofyourbusiness4616]

I've never heard of the Atari ST being considered a competitor to the Fairlight. The ST had good MIDI capabilities, yes, but was used more as a sequencer (i.e., the stuff Fairlight's "Page R" did). The real competition that gave Fairlight a run for the money were the Ensoniq Mirage and the E-Mu Emulator, both musical keyboards that offered sampling capabilities at a much cheaper price.

[@ian_b]

Arguably, the Atari provided the sequencing "brains" of a 1980s sampler setup, with outboard hardware samplers, so effectively the ST was doing the "Page R" part of the setup?

[@lasskinn474]

@@ian_b I think so. atari st/e can play samples though without much fuss. of course amiga came out around that time too but amiga sampler/mod software wasn't popular in pro circles and came later than the actual computer. I think the bigger thing rather than a specific computer is that instead of buying an appliance-computer like the cmi you would instead buy a cheap(comparably) computer and hook it up to modules and have wider variety in what you could do with it for far lower price. with midi becoming more popular there was no need to have one expensive computer with everything baked into it. or even to have the computer if you didn't want it, just keyboard and the sampler.

[@TMiMusicGroup]

Not the mirage that would be the original ensoniq EPS with it's beefy 12 bit sound. Sample a 808 with that! It also had 800k floppies and SCSI...if it sound familiar the EPS 16 and ASR X all are based on it.

[@veriteri32]

Thank you for creating this informative video and keeping history and creativity alive! Although I grew up hearing these bands and sounds, I am looking more closely into what I missed in the past. This is endlessly fascinating!

[@Mannizilla]

Mike Oldfield had two Fairlights. First one in 1979, second one later (CMI III).

[@rubio93]

I used to use one in the early to mid 90s in a recording studio where I played sessions. It was called QED media in Toronto and it was a Series 1. They had some really amazing stuff in that studio but that Fairlight series 1 was my favorite. I still have some sounds from it I re-sampled into my Kurzweil K2000 and later converted to AIFF.

[@riseofthethorax]

Something to note, the early fairlights did not have CPU's in the sample playback.. The boards merely played data through the Digital to Analog converter. The concept of a sampler predated the Fairlight. Scientists had equipment to sample readings and store them. Even the Moog synthesizers had a mode called sample and hold..

[@kingslaphappy1533]

Nice job! I was at Namm in NYC at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in 1980 and there it was..in all its glory…the first sampler I had ever witnessed, the first Fairlight CMI… and it was truly glorious! The light pen was killer and the green monochrome screen looked super cool if not a tad spooky. In 1985, i purchased an Emulator 2 and I recall that the Kurzweil ( and the Emu 2) were the primary competition to the next gen CMI and much more affordable. They were both practical alternatives in both cost and performance. The CMI was finding it harder to compete against these new players with cheaper, capable sampler keyboards. At the time you either had the big bucks for a CMI or a Synclavier…or joined the mere mortals and got the Emu or Kurzweil. (The Emulator 2 still cost 13k (canadian) and at the time, that was still a lot of money then..and now). The latter 2 were more practical for live performances as well.

[@kirkdavenport7185]

In the 80's and early 90's I was working with a composer and sound design/effects editor in his studio, and we used both a 2X ad a series 3. Amazing things for the time, but quickly became passe' due to extreme over-use in every way. I can also vouch for the musicians' hostility toward it. During our studio work on the made for tv movie "CHALLENGE OF A LIFETIME" starring Penny Marshall, we had a date that put us in the corner juxtaposed to an 80 piece orchestra, and the usual compliment of rhythm, electrified and percussion sessionists. During one of the breaks between cues (it was a VERY long day) a few old fellows (VERY senior session players) from the Strings section of the orchestra, came to see what we were all about. The hostility was immediate. One fellow sneered, with extreme disdain, "SO.....dis iss da futcha off music, ehh?" and then disregarded it with an emphatic "BAHH!" which his fellow artists added to. Needless to say, THE MASTERS WERE RIGHT. This was yet another tool, and instrumental in influencing much about music, but it clearly was NOT a replacement for any human player or live, physical instrument. I remain, however, all these decades later, grateful for the experience of working with this instrument. I was a Sound Design and Effects editor, and worked on several movies and television shows and series back then. This instrument actually paved the way for future-think in eiditing sound, as it was priceless for sequencing sound cues and being extremely simple to use. Today, its descendents are led by PROTOOLS, which basically adopted its intuitive, graphical dislpay format and sequencing/sampling/editing concepts. :)

[@davidstavrosonassis3649]

I remember this happening, I was 17 years old. Truly a fantastic moment to live in and experience. The Internet was nothing but a dream. I have used the late version of the Fairlight back in 1884. Art of Noise and Kate Bush pushed this technology to the maximum. SUCH a beautiful story and reality ❤

[@riseofthethorax]

The first digital effects processor came out in 1974, it used ADC/DAC with shift registers. A shift register is used to shift byte data which was a cheap way to multiply or divide a number by a power of 2. Instead of shift the bytes coming in, these shift registers were used to cycle bit data laterally to the DAC, like a LED sign.. feeding the most significant bit of one shift register into the least significant bit of another register.. With this method a fairly simple address bus could be used to cycle all the shift registers, and adjust the amount of delay via a 8-bit bus that could be moved along the data path. To add a processor would make it too costly and overkill.

[@riseofthethorax]

Most homecomputers in the early 80s had lightpens. How they worked is by correlating the time the CRT elecytron beam passed over the photon sensor on the lightpen , to identify where the electron beam was at that precise time. The C64 had paint programs that made use of these lightpens, I had one that could be used with the HES Paint software. There were also touch pads not unlike the watcoms for painting on early computers called KoalaPads. The lightpens and koalapads predated the mouse controllers which became popular with the release of the Macintoh in 1984

[@Olovlig]

Very informative. Thank you!

[@chuckomgyahoo]

just saw a interview with Maynard Kenan James stating they used the Fairlight CMI recently in the studio.Interview is on Rick Beato channel

[@antunkatona]

An informative and excellent story of Fairlight CMI. Thank you!

[@FransvandenBergeMuziekschuur]

Hi from the Netherlands. On the Syntaur channel you can find the build of a CMI Fairlight sampler based on old parts. There is also a new version of the CMI Fairlight available as a vst-i . Available from a company called Arturia.

[@bloodmapedit]

@0:46 looks like Boris Blank of Yello in the picture.

[@Kohntarkosz]

That's what I was thinking. I didn't know his name, but I thought "That looks like one of the guys from Yello"

[@frankenjstein4186]

It is.

[@Shred_The_Weapon]

The Fairlight CMI also counts as the mother of all workstations. It was the original music composition computer. The software from the Mark II edition, Page R, should be given a medal for the first ever digital audio workstation program. One of the instances when I have wished that I had Apple Logic instead of Cubase was when I learned there was a virtual Fairlight engine available as a VST plug-in but that it was only compatible with Apple devices. I wonder if that has changed since it originally hit the instrument market.

[@FransvandenBergeMuziekschuur]

Here is part 1 of the (re)build of a CMI Fairlight. kzbin.info/www/bejne/r3PMo3iZlLNlj5o This 16 part video series is quite interesting as old employees of Fairlight help on the background. Making this quite a unique project.

[@mrbowtieguy]

Hey Doris, you should do a video on the synclavier . I was watching a video on frank zappa using one in his utility muffin research kitchen. Keep up the good work. The Guitologist turned me on to you guys.

[@fuzzcityrecords432]

Great suggestion!

[@Panflutemaverick]

I realize this is three years old. However, I want to point out that I read somewhere that John Lawry of the Joe English Band, and later Petra, was one of the first American musicians to purchase the second version of the Fairlight. Interesting enough, he was one of the only members of a gospel musical group to own one.

[@brendanfarthing]

I lived just up the road from where the Fairlight was made back in the day. Cool times.

[@synthland4526]

Do a video abou the ppg wave system

[@aprisonerscinemastephenmur6932]

Haven’t researched the fairlight in a while. Nice to see a new video

[@Cosmicprog2012]

Brilliant idea - a gorgeous girl to present "alien" synths!

[@riseofthethorax]

Vogel released an emulator on the iPad for $50, I bought it with all the samples for the I,II and III. Also you can get a emulator of the synclavier and Mellotron on the iPad. The Mellotron was the first analog sampler , it had a cassette tape spool and playback head for every key on its keyboard. This is how the accompnyment for songs by the moody blues and beatles were created. The Fairlights used a board with a DAC on it fir say 80K memory, one for each voice, with a maximum of 8. A decade after the Fairlights release every home computer had sample playback. The Page R composer was subpar compared to those available for the C64 and Apples.. But it was only needed to playback samples. The Fairlights did not have shared memory, if it had, then it would have been possible to playback up to 8 seconds of sound. The CMI series 1 was 8-bit, 2 12-bit and 3 16-bit. . This was the same sort of difference as the emulators 1 through 3.. I think by 1986, Casio had a sampler .. The amiga computer could do 8-bit sample playback for four voices, but all the media chips in the Amiga shared the same memory which could be expanded to a megabyte.. There was also a Ensoniq Mirage, around the sam time as the fairlight which could do 8 voices of 8-bit sample playback.. And it was cheaper and more accessible to consumers.. As was the Emulators.. Even the commdoore64's had a voice synthesizer that could be used to store and playback samples.. I think the AtariSt could only playback 3 voices of sample playback. Where it shined was in patch librarians and sequencing.. There were also DSP's which were generalized chips for working with digital and analog signals, these could be programmed to emulate sampler/synthesizers.. The NeXT cubes sold in the late 80s to early 90s, could emulate a 56kbaud modem using is internal DSP . Old videogames on the C64 like Ghostbusters could playback a enough sound to say ghostbusters. The first pinball machine to use sample playback was called GorGar. and the video game Gorf and Ccrazy Climber also had sample playback..

[@frankenjstein4186]

Ah, the unknown user at 0:54 is Boris Blank from Yello, who used the Fairlight in the best way in my opinion.

[@paulschlusser1085]

Actually Michael Carlos - who scored a TV series called Timelapse on the Australian Broadcasting Commission TV channel. It's a recording of that TV show theme tune.

[@nicholasrichardson102]

the first sampler I shared a room with was an acquaintance's CMIIX, I was in awe

[@Steve.Dennis]

Yeah I would like one too. Would be worth a small fortune! Nicely put together story!

[@raymondtroyanovich7108]

I realize this is an over simplification, but the basic idea is like a digital Mellotron

[@libertypills5580]

Thats what I was thinking.

[@fuzzcityrecords432]

Exactly!

[@neilbradley]

If the Mellotron had a sequencer, filters, envelopes, and waveform editor, yes!

[@PutItAway101]

With the important difference that a Fairlight works a reasonable percentage of the time.

[@lanmichaelmix2818]

it's more like an MPC but with a keyboard.MPC is an dedicated device that has it own DAW.

[@ajs41]

You can hear it on Mike Oldfield's 1982 album Five Miles Out.

[@user-qp9so2zo1z]

Pretty cool. Now I'm using my nord to sample every other note or so for each instrument. We've come a long way but this was the start

[@retrotronics1845]

The Summer 1985 Amiga 1000 computer could load natively Fairlight samples and play up to 4 of them at the same time.

[@Duke_Silver]

I never used one, but Arturia had released a VST plugin that emulates Fairlight called CMI V, and it`s one of my favorites. Are you planning a series about old, forgotten synths? If so- please do the ANS next :) Cheers.

[@fuzzcityrecords432]

That ANS rules! Might have to do a video on that one

[@mrake1000]

I also have the Arturia VST version, very intresting. The real one is to expensive for most people.

[@thomaskolb8785]

I was offered to buy a broken Fairlight II some time ago. Tempting as it was to actually own one, I had to turn it down as the cost was still pretty substantial and I would have absolutely no way to restore it to working order.

[@elcasho]

I've used a version 1 and 2. Epic machines.

[@lunastrat]

I had a series two for about 5 months on loan. I loved it. Absolutely hated giving it back. Decades later, still wish I had it.

[@mikeh2520]

The Fairlight's Page R sequencer was pretty cool and I loved watching it's screen as it played. To this day every time I hear Depeche Mode's "Never Let Me Down" I imagine Page R stepping through the measures. We had one at a Recording studio in Tennessee mid 80's and two guys who also worked there were very protective of it. When I had time late at night after my sessions were done I'd go into the small studio and play around with the Fairlight. My floppy discs always mysteriously vanished before I could get back to continue my experiments. I've heard all of the stock sounds in there and could pick them out on any record. One summer the cicada bugs went mad swarming all around Nashville. One of the guys opened the window in his control room and lowered a microphone down by the cable into the bushes below and sampled the cidada into the Fairlight. He would manipulate the sounds to work as high hat sounds in his productions which I thought was really funny.

[@oldfatbastad6053]

doubtful that a fairlight was used for sequencing on MFTM although Puk Studios did have one. BC was sequenced on the bbc/umi, mftm was probably the umi or a pc with software.

[@MJanovicable]

The score to Liquid Sky was done on a Fairlight.

[@masaharumorimoto4761]

4 hours ago I woke up and put Hysteria by Def Leppard on and now here I am... Thanks for this amazing info, I had no idea this thing existed and well, now I know!

[@riseofthethorax]

The oldest addictive synthesizer goes back to the early part of the 20th century.. Hammond orgns were additive synthesis, they used drawbars to combine harmonics. So in theory sample playback could have been implmented decades before the fairlight, the fairlight just made it efficient..

[@Conenion]

Sampling isn't additive synthesis. Sampling is recording a sound then playing it back with different keys. Fairlight could do both (see Wikipedia). See additive resynthesis.

[@Niko-ds6wi]

Finally I found a girl who loves electronic instruments as much as I do. Subscription, definitely, although I understand English only 50 percent. Michael Cretu used a similar device in his studio, especially for the Enigma project. Hello from Russia, in my collection there are more than 70 different synthesizers, sequencer workstations, groove boxes

[@malekmo64]

Much like the British inventor of Mellotron which sampled real instruments on continuous operating tape mechanism. Biggest hit to utilise the Mellotron Nights In White Satin The Moody Blues. The Harmonium before the Mellotron was the idea behind the Mellotron. Sampling has been around for centuries in the form that major Symphonic Composers got their major works from the Folk Musicians of their day!!!

[@rozzgrey801]

The Mellotron was developed from a Chamberlin tape keyboard that was stolen from the US inventor Harry Chamberlin who invented it in the 1940's.

[@tenlittleindians]

I wanted one of these so bad! They were the price of a fancy house when they came out. The first thing even close to a musician's budget was low bit rate and had a limited number of voices. I waited until Casio came out with their FZ-1. It still cost me thousands of dollars and it's limited to 8 voices. I still got it! The world shifted to keyboards called DAW (Digital Audio Workstations) and samplers fell by the wayside. The Fairlight's are worth a fortune to collector's today. If your looking for an affordable sampler you might have better luck tracking down a Casio FZ-1. If you find one with the expansion card great! The downside of playing live with them is loading different sounds from the slow floppies. I always had another keyboard to play on while loading sounds into my sampler.

[@gctechs]

What is "keyboards called DAW"?

[@rjkral]

Loved my EPS from Ensoniq. They created a way to keep playing WHILST you loaded a new sound or two! It really was marvelous even though it never gained much fame. Ensoniq went all out when you look at it's unique features. But it did lack in overall sound quality and memory compared to say Akai at the same time.

[@tenlittleindians]

@@rjkral A friend of mine had one of those. They were at least affordable at the time and my friend used his for samples and as a keyboard controller to trigger a little box Roland had out back then for a more realistic piano sound. He upgraded to a controller with a more realistic piano feel and put his EPS in storage. At one point he offered it to me for $300 bucks but I already had my Casino sampler by then and although it was a bargain I couldn't justify buying another sampler for what little I might use it.

[@JoeB16v]

Remember when they brought the Fairlight iii demo to QPAC in Brisbane. It was about 1988-ish. Certainly the instrument had evolved quite a bit from the previous iterations , but here in Oz, it was more expensive than a ferrari if I recall. Sounds that came from samples were incredible and the instrument was quite useable, the double keyboard certainly desireable. Would it stand the test of time? actually I think it has.

[@Mancheguache]

It's amazing - I'm a musical nobody (and don't care) but I've just downloaded a free 'Vital' synthesiser to my free DAW to add a kick drum to a series of glitched guitar chords routed through a Ruminant Max4live device and panned a Pendulate bass riff in a wide stereo. I've about five trillion variables and can create almost any sound imaginable from a 99 euro midi keyboard. All I need is a band to go with it lol

[@BeckyLStoutWriter]

Ya know, the guy I write songs with has his own recording studio, which he bought about four years ago. But the place has been there since the 70's. I'm gonna have to ask him if he has one of these gems hidden away somewhere in there. If so, we may have to put it to good use. I mean, if it's good enough for my Queen, Kate Bush, it's good enough for me! 😊

[@brainslayer666]

the first user in was in england? definitly peter gabriel and nobody else. i wonder that he wasnt mentioned in the list. gabriel also released the first song which was made with a CMI

[@JoshuaPhilgarlic]

There's a Fairlight app for iOS from Peter Vogel himself called "Peter Vogel CMI" 🤩! Also available as "Pro" version with additional CMI III sounds and a fully functioning Page R sequencer.

[@satelitejameson]

I've recently discover your channel and I'm very glad with it, it's very interesting! Congratulations and thanks for your videos! And one more comment is: what's that good background song start sounding at 1:50?

[@WilliamAshleyOnline]

Its actually funny some of the DS sounds fruitlyloops first had was the same sounds sort of like the orchestra hit and others syn sounds. You can pretty much get full banks of the CMI sounds online now if you look for them.

[@Famas115]

Did you know on Def Leppard's Pyromania all the drums were from samples on the Fairlight? All Rick Allen did was play Cymbals.

[@rocknrollcola]

I remember John Paul Jones using this on Led Zeppelin's last tour in 1980 and Geoff Downes from Yes and Asia using it as well.

[@libertypills5580]

Was it also used on In Through the Out Door?

[@rocknrollcola]

@@libertypills5580 No it wasn't. John Paul Jones used a Yamaha Organ/Synthesizer hybrid on the album and at the 1979 shows.

[@Kohntarkosz]

Geoff Downes, on the first couple Asia tours, had not only a Fairlight, but also a Novatron (basically a rebranded Mellotron), and a whole emporium's worth of synths and other keyboards, including two Hammond organs, two Minimoogs, a Fender Rhodes, a Prophet-10, a Yamaha CP-70, and two different keytars. The rig was so big, they had a build a riser, running the full length of the stage, behind the band's backline, with staircases on either side, to accommodate it.

[@rocknrollcola]

@@Kohntarkosz Yeah I am aware of that.

[@Synthnerd11]

@@rocknrollcola Yamaha GX-1 - incredible synth, amazingly marketed under the Electone moniker, but it was a gigantic (and very powerful) analogue synth.

[@cannadineboxill-harris2983]

Hi There this is Mr C. T. Boxill-Harris, I was wondering if they need to do the exact same version of Everybody's Got To Learn Sometime, why don’t they just Replace the Synthesiser String Sound to an Musette Accordion sound, and also Replace the Xylophone Sound to an 4 Times More Deeper Chime Bell or Even a 5 Times More Deeper Still Drum Sound, Because it is Still my Very Very Very Very Very Very Very Very Very Very Very Very Very Very Very Favourite Song Ever Since I was about 11 Years of Age Thank You 😉👍😉👏👏😉👍😉👏👏😉👍😉👏👏😉👍😉👏👏😉👍😉👏👏😉👍😉👏👏😉👍😉👏👏😉👍😉👏👏😉👍😉👏👏😉👍😉👏👏😉👍😉👏👏😉👍😉👏👏😉👍😉👏👏😉👍😉👏👏😉👍😉👏👏😉👍😉👏👏😉👍😉👏👏😉👍😉👏👏😉👍😉👏👏😉👍😉👏👏😉👍😉👏👏😉👍😉👏👏😉👍😉👏👏😉👍😉👏👏😉👍😉👏👏😉👍😉👏👏😉👍😉👏👏😉👍😉👏👏😉👍😉👏👏😉👍😉👏👏😅👍😉👍😉👏😅👍😉👍😉👏👏😉👍😉👏😅👍😉👍😉👏👏

[@Jellybeantiger]

If I saw one in real life,I would have to bow.

[@sabrinagibson3197]

It seems that no one is mentioning the Fairlight VSTs, which I think are great for those who know the significance of this instrument but don't have a king's ransom to own the hardware version. The best will cost you 100 clams (yet you can run it in demo mode and sample it...haw haw haw). Sitting listening to Kate and Peter, dreaming, as it were, about owning one of these, what a delight to know, in a way, you CAN now. You can sit at your keyboard controller and walk in Kate's pumps, which we all secretly wanted to do. Some will say it's just like the real thing, others will say no, you know how that goes; however, it's YOUR chance, Miss Top Ramen, to play something like what your heroes used.

[@William_sJazzLoft]

The Series ll was the breakout model. It maybe the model that Thomas Dolby used in the studio when he helped out super hop group, Whodini on their debut album.

[@stafomosakez]

Thank you!

[@febed01]

Hi, totally new to your channel, looking for videos about the Fairlight (just received my Polyend Tracker and got the CMI samples in wav format). I'll definitely watch more from you :) When I was a kid, having no idea of what it was, just the name "Fairlight" written on a Mike Oldfield record made me dream, seeing this as a kind of whimsical instrument from a magic forest ^^ Also, found recently that here in France we had Daniel Balavoine, in 1985, using the CMI too, there's a short documentary about his writing process on YT where he explains, in French, how he was using the Fairlight to create the mood of "Tous les cris, les SOS", and that, even if it can reproduce many instruments, shouldn't be used to replace actual musicians (and in this song most of the percussions are made from various noise samples but the actual drummer is still here, playing the chorus to make it even more impactful)

[@coreystuart]

If you ever get the honor of visiting Moog Music in Charlotte, they have a Fairlight CMI on display in the building. Why? I have no clue....but it was like looking at candy.

[@paulschlusser1085]

Bob was a huge fan of the Fairlight. He's even recorded endorsing it on one of the early CMI demo tapes.

[@erikverkoyen8689]

0:46 Isn't that Boris Blank of Yello?

[@Rhythmattica]

Oh Yeah. (I remember his racked Series III went up for sale a few years ago... Signed... If only I had the cash.. I needed a Goldrush but was tied up.)

[@tankthelord1178]

Nice one. Cool.

[@djayers]

Nice one, thanks! I never actually saw one, but came close, an Australian industrial noise band we got to know, SPK had one for a while but sold it before they moved to the UK. They reported it as being clunky and unreliable (and they were very tech-savvy). Not long after my brother (Nocturnal Emissions) got a Greengate sampler, built around an Apple II, which was a fraction of the price. That had similar flaws, but we did use it live.

[@rjkral]

Fairlight released a new version a few years back. But still expensive at starting at 25k. I recall talking with them in Australia in the early 80s. And seeing their ads in music magazines. 100k for 8 voices! Still, amazing breakthrough for the birth of sampling which really did change electronic music forever!! I got to mess around with one a little in 86. By then though most of us had eyes on Emu and Ensoniq for much cheaper versions and gateways into sampling. This was a really great look into the Fairlight, well done on this video!!

[@riseofthethorax]

its possible that even before the fiarlights, analog synthesizers could be used for sample playback.. ITs just that fairlight popularized and make the concept accessible. CPUs were much too inefficient to be used for controlling and playing back samples.. It was far easier just to use something like a ripplecounter or sequence through the RAM chips and send sample data to the Digital to Analog converter.

[@МарияСкатькова-р3г]

and another little story) i have the same mic as you) it is AKG d190e)) but its story is amazing. in 1998 my uncle was a great doctor making surgery in Moscow heart clinic. Some day hospital management bought vhs camera and this mic for surgery operation video recording. And in 1998 first great sound card for home computers was anounced. It was sound blaster live. It was

[@yannlechercheur9956]

The picture you're showing at the end is an Atari 130XE, not an Atari ST... although of course they share similar design features...

[@МарияСкатькова-р3г]

it was sound blaster live) first sound card with own dsp and hardware sampler. And mother bought it to me! inwas so happy but i still had no microphone to connect with soundblaster. And than my uncle decided to make a present, gave my that mic)) i remember the Day when i connect that mike to my new super duper studiocard)) turn long long reverb on its dsp, that system was playing in realtime! it was so amazing for .... so that i diceded to become a sound engineer¶¶¶ and in 2000 i went to college for that)) now i still have this mike in my case)

[@ephraimwarrior6766]

they got a vst 0f this!!! its the cmi v im thinking about getting it.

[@aqeeljohn2948]

Hello your videos are awesome, I do have a question and I hope you can help me with it. Synclavier and Fairlight seeme to have been competitors, would you know if one was influenced by the other. Also, do you mind sharing your references . Thank you

[@larryfreda5208]

Off topic question. You recorded one of the most beautiful songs “ Losing the light in your eyes”. Doris is that you om the piano ? I love that song.

[@fuzzcityrecords432]

Yes that was me, I'm so glad you liked it! Thank you for the kind words

[@The-Weekend-Warrior]

Drop by Syntaur's channel. One of the guys there is currently making a series where he builds a Fairlight CMI out of parts he gets here and there... amazing thing indeed :D

[@ScoopDogg]

Check out the full working Fairlight Emulator here and yes it has the famous ORCH2.vcd Sample and all the others : adamstrange.itch.io/qasarbeach

[@danihans5199]

Kate Bush...😎

[@riseofthethorax]

To read about these early computers, pick up a copy of BYTE magazine off the Internet Archive..

[@patrikknoerr9777]

5:55 "Well that's almost perfect isn't it" ... drops the stick after triggering a noisy gritty 8 bit sample with more noise artefacts than a cold shower.

[@Mark_Williams300]

Ah... Tomorrow's World! Classic British telly :D

[@EmydelOrtiz]

I like this computer

[@ezquimal]

More expensive are the sybclavier. And Atari with Cubase appear in 1989 you can see in the demos of Roxette. But before of that you can find the BBC mpu that use Vince Clarke to play live that was more cheap

[@esroberto1]

Fascinating stuff! Just two nitpicks, tho -- 1, it's pronounced "Yon" Hammer; and 2, no one watching this video doesn't know who Thomas Dolby is. 🙂

[@rogerboltoncomposer]

All Kim Ryrie is 'Ri Ree'!

[@kyanokuijpers2339]

She's Dutch and in Dutch they pronounce "Jan" exactly the way she did. Could be an accent thing, but since you don't sound Polish I doubt you'd pronounce it perfectly. And the name Thomas Dolby didn't sound familiar to me at all, since he was a one hit wonder. You sound like a real pain in the butt.

[@Helios601]

Prince also used a Fairlight CMI keyboard, costing about $70k. He recorded Others here with us, Tibet & Evolsidog (God is love)

[@Helios601]

Others here with us kzbin.info/www/bejne/pnm0Y42Lj9yBoM0

[@Helios601]

Evolsidog, both versions from part of song. kzbin.info/www/bejne/jYKaq2qYoLB7jrs

[@neuromonkey]

This is great, thanks! (Kim Ryrie's name is pronounced, "Rye-ree")

[@riseofthethorax]

I don't believe the fairlight cmi series 1 had the ability to modify the samples in realtime, such as to really perform as a synthesizer.. The EMU Emulators did have synthesizer components to augment their samplers. The output of the fairlight couldn't have been used without studio effects. If you watch Peter Gabriels demonstrations of his fairlight, you will notice he used some post effects to augment the sample playback..

[@lotus30com]

I have an IIx in my attic. Where are you located, Doris? You're welcome to check it out.