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Contents 1 MINOR EDIT 2 PRICE OF SERIES 1 3 Songs 4 Other 4.1 First Commercial Single to Use A Fairlight CMI? 4.2 Price 4.3 Song "My Own Time" by ASIA 4.4 ASIA on tour in early 80's 4.5 Hardware 4.6 Importance of "Frankie Goes to Hollywood" for the fame of Fairlight CMI 4.7 Herbie Hancock Demonstrates Fairlight on Sesame Street 4.8 Afrika Bambaataa

[edit] MINOR EDIT

I improved in my opinion some passages in language, also moved a bit about the CMI in Devo as it fits more with the other mention of artists at the beginning,

Thanks

[edit] PRICE OF SERIES 1

I had a small reearch on the internet and the series I Fairlight when introduced in 1978 cost around $40,000 and not 1 million as exagerated here. For God, adjusted for inflation a million dollars of 1978 would be today $5m!

Until double checked I will delete that entry.

[edit] Songs

I'm looking for songs that used the Fairlight, I make playlists, it would be nice to have a playtlist of all the songs or a selection that used the fairlight, like good demos.. I already have a few on my site at http://www.bl3nder.com/music/rhapsody . In return the playlists could be placed anywhere, on wikipedia, at vintage synth.. The idea is to give some context for music in terms of synthesizers (in particular), though I plan to do these for other instruments as well.

contact me at riseofthethorax at earthlink dot net . It would be good to also place a list here..

The Fairlight inspired a subgenre of album. Would it be appropriate to put the genre here??--Tednor 05:03, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Other

A few thoughts on the article:

• As I understand it, while the Fairlight II had somewhat better sound than the Fairlight I, it wasn't until the series III that the Fairlight had really good sound.

• You know, I don't think the Mirage ended the reign of the Fairlight. The 16-bit series III came out soon after the Mirage. It was understood, in the 1980s, that you were better off with a 16-bit Series III instead of the Mirage, Emulator, or one of the many affordable 12-bit samplers. Listen to the sound track of "Wall Street" to get an idea of the limitations of those 12-bit samplers. It was the Akai S1000 and Emulator III that came out around 1989 that killed the Fairlight and Synclavs.

Samboy 15:29, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] First Commercial Single to Use A Fairlight CMI?

and the first commercially released song to use it was Gabriel's Shock the Monkey in September 1982

I'm not sure if that's true. The Fairlight CMI was used previously on Peter Gabriel III (credited on the album as Computer Musical Instrument: Peter Vogel) and several singles were released (at least in the UK) but I don't know if the instrument was used on these particular tracks - "Games Without Frontiers" - February 1980 , "No Self Control" - May 1980 and "Biko" - August 1980. "I Don't Remember" was also released but some time later and after "Shock The Monkey". Perhaps someone who knows more about PG can verify it Ian Dunster 10:32, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Price

The Holmes Fairlight page says the CMI "typically had a price of US$25,000 or more, while the Fairlight Series III (which could be customized with many options) started at around US$40,000 and often exceeded US$100,000" - but the $1M price for a fully spec'ed CMI is a tenfold increase on that. What kind of options would give that price? Cammy 19:50, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Song "My Own Time" by ASIA

The song titled "My Own Time" used a horn instrumental at the end of the song. Geoffrey Downes has stated that the sound was from a Fairlight CMI from a preset called "flglbone" (Flugelbone).

[edit] ASIA on tour in early 80's

In the early 80's, Geoffrey Downes would use 4-5 CMI's live on stage (only one CMI monitor would be visible on stage). Two playing at once to have the polyphony needed for chords, and the others would be loaded up with other sounds. He credits part of his "wall of sound" effect he used back then to the Fairlight CMI.

[edit] Hardware

"The Series III model ..was built around Motorola 68000 processors, running Microware's OS-9 Level II operating system (6809 version)". In opposite

"http://www.ghservices.com/gregh/fairligh/images.htm" : "Series I and Series II use Motorola 6800 processors, with the Series II having better voice cards. The Series IIx uses 6809 processors, while the Series III has 68000 processors". If so, series III cannot run OS-9 ( 6809 version ), but OS-9 ( 68K version ). hemmerling 17:03, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Importance of "Frankie Goes to Hollywood" for the fame of Fairlight CMI

I remember that one of the "avertising rumours" told by the radio DJs between the songs in the 1980th was, that one of the smash hits of Frankie Goes to Hollywood, "Welcome to the Pleasuredome" if I remember right, was the FIRST which was totally produced "on" a computer. hemmerling 17:10, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Herbie Hancock Demonstrates Fairlight on Sesame Street

Very cool snippet someone put up on youtube

http://youtube.com/watch?v=gn1LW3wyRrc —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.71.201.149 (talk) 06:45, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Afrika Bambaataa

I've heard that Afrika Bambaataa used the Fairlight fairly regularly, and was one of the first to do so. Surley this would be of note if its true? Does anyone know anything about that?--LeakeyJee (talk) 12:42, 6 June 2008 (UTC)