eric Posted July 31 Share Posted July 31 I checked and couldn't find a post like this. I was listening to some '80s albums and remembered when I first learned about the Fairlight as a high school student with an insatiable interest in keyboards...this was early '80s. It was the Roland Jupiter 8 that hooked me, and then the Fairlight. This thing was iconic and basically unobtainable to the common keyboard player. I remember drooling over pictures of it in Keyboard Magazine and seeking out songs that featured it - early Duran Duran, Peter Gabriel, Tears for Fears, Kate Bush, Thompson Twins, Thomas Dolby, Paul Young, Art of Noise, and many others. To me the most epic and recognizable sounds included the breathy flute sound used in Shout by TFF, plus the orchestra hits that were all over a lot of things at the time. I had a soundtrack for a musical called Starlight Express with the Fairlight orchestra hit as well. I never laid hands on a Fairlight until a NAMM Show in the late '00s or thereabout. I think it was a booth for a Fairlight app release - I don't specifically remember, though I am sure I have some photos of this somewhere. It was the Fairlight, along with Emulator and Synclavier that made sampling a thing...at a time when these instruments were boutique and expensive, intended for studios and famous musicians that could afford them. Eventually sampling trickled down into more affordable instruments, such as the Ensoniq Mirage and Akai S612 (to name a few early affordable samplers). I just have this glorious nostalgia for when I would wish I could have a Fairlight. Every now and then, a "barn find" Fairlight will show up on social media and it makes me curious to know how many were made, how many are still in service, and things like that. I've lived vicariously through many of the Fairlight samples that are available in the Nord Sample Library. If you have a similar penchant for the Fairlight, I'd love to hear your memories and any sounds/songs you recollect that featured Fairlight samples. Thanks! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Threadslayer Posted July 31 Share Posted July 31 I remember being knocked out by the concept of drawing your own waveforms, envelopes etc. with the light pen. Mind-blowing at the time. 1 Quote Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. -Mark Twain Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.F.N. Posted July 31 Share Posted July 31 Can be had for peanuts today.. Pro Version https://apps.apple.com/us/app/peter-vogel-cmi-pro/id427747876 Peanut Version https://apps.apple.com/us/app/peter-vogel-cmi/id420212505 1 Quote "You live every day. You only die once." Where is Major Tom? - - - - - PC3, HX3 w. B4D, 61SLMkII, SL73, Prologue 16, KingKORG, Opsix, MPC Key 37, DM12D, Argon8m, EX5R, Toraiz AS-1, IK Uno, Toraiz SP-16, Erica LXR-02, QY-700, SQ64, Beatstep Pro Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StickMan393 Posted July 31 Share Posted July 31 Cris Blyth is very entertaining but it's a long series, so pace yourself 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.F.N. Posted July 31 Share Posted July 31 That guy is nuts, but it's a lovely story!! 1 Quote "You live every day. You only die once." Where is Major Tom? - - - - - PC3, HX3 w. B4D, 61SLMkII, SL73, Prologue 16, KingKORG, Opsix, MPC Key 37, DM12D, Argon8m, EX5R, Toraiz AS-1, IK Uno, Toraiz SP-16, Erica LXR-02, QY-700, SQ64, Beatstep Pro Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProfD Posted July 31 Share Posted July 31 43 minutes ago, eric said: ...remembered when I first learned about the Fairlight as a high school student with an insatiable interest in keyboards...this was early '80s. I remember drooling over pictures of it in Keyboard Magazine... Same here. Ended up taking a similar trip down nostalgia lane and watched this video several months ago: KB technology seemed to change every other month back in those days.😁 Either that or looking back and realizing how quickly time flies.😎 2 Quote PD "The greatest thing you'll ever learn, is just to love and be loved in return."--E. Ahbez "Nature Boy" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zxcvbnm098 Posted July 31 Share Posted July 31 I'd love to know sales numbers for both the Fairlight and Synclavier. Unobtanium to another level indeed! A Jupiter 8 was out of reach for me, but these? The cost of a house!? Like Eric, I poured over Keyboard magazine and read with interest stories about these monsters. Even though I was in SoCal and going to all the big MI stores in LA, I also never laid eyes on one. To me, Trevor Horn is the one I think of immediately for sounds of that era.... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D. Gauss Posted July 31 Share Posted July 31 Back in the 80's, I engineered a lot of dance/hip hop records with one of the NYC area "go to Fairlight guys" hired for sessions. IIRC, he had over $100k invested in his rig (hard drives & RAM were expensive!). It was totally gigantor and carted around in two fridge sized racks. The guy was a bit of a perfectionist. I recorded a solo single for him that was entirely in the Fairlight, yet we spent a marathon 36 straight hours mixing it. Crazy times. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nursers Posted July 31 Share Posted July 31 I had the pleasure of writing an article for Keyboard mag back in 2006 on Peter Vogel and the Fairlight: https://web.archive.org/web/20081005155316/http://www.keyboardmag.com/article/fairlights-peter-vogel/Jul-06/21754 1 1 Quote The Keyboard Chronicles Podcast Check out your fellow forumites in an Apple Music playlist Check out your fellow forumites in a Spotify playlist My Music: Stainless Fields Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Emm Posted July 31 Share Posted July 31 7 hours ago, zxcvbnm098 said: To me, Trevor Horn is the one I think of immediately for sounds of that era.... https://www.musicradar.com/news/i-was-the-first-idiot-to-get-one-id-lie-awake-at-night-dreaming-up-shit-for-it-to-do-trevor-horns-rig-that-made-the-80s Trevor was my main Fairlight hero, although Kate Bush, Jan Hammer and Peter Gabriel started sharing the title. After the tale of its creation, this is one of the better overviews of the impact it had. However, that hideous fluorescent green screen is what the Internet looks like in Hell. 1 Quote "Well, the 60s were fun, but now I'm payin' for it." ~ Stan Lee, "Ant-Man and the Wasp" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
analogika Posted August 1 Share Posted August 1 Jean Michel Jarre. „Magnetic Fields“ innersleeve. 1 Quote "The Angels of Libra are in the European vanguard of the [retro soul] movement" (Bill Buckley, Soul and Jazz and Funk) The Drawbars | off jazz organ trio Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ABECK Posted August 1 Share Posted August 1 23 hours ago, StickMan393 said: Cris Blyth is very entertaining but it's a long series, so pace yourself I have been following this series with great interest. It is great to watch his thought process and trial and error approach. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moonglow Posted August 1 Share Posted August 1 On 7/31/2024 at 10:51 AM, J.F.N. said: Can be had for peanuts today.. Pro Version https://apps.apple.com/us/app/peter-vogel-cmi-pro/id427747876 Peanut Version https://apps.apple.com/us/app/peter-vogel-cmi/id420212505 +1 A while back one of my bands did “Owner of a Lonely Heart” and I was unable to find anything satisfactory for those huge horn hits with my existing gear. This app nailed them (and other Fairlight samples). Loaded it into my iPad, hooked it up to my keys using a Korg plugKEY, and I was cooking with gas. Highly recommended! Interesting story behind those horn hits, if you ever want to go down that rabbit hole… 3 Quote "We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing." - George Bernard Shaw Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.F.N. Posted August 1 Share Posted August 1 18 minutes ago, Moonglow said: +1 A while back one of my bands did “Owner of a Lonely Heart” and I was unable to find anything satisfactory for those huge horn hits with my existing gear. This app nailed them (and other Fairlight samples). Loaded it into my iPad, hooked it up to my keys using a Korg plugKEY, and I was cooking with gas. Highly recommended! Interesting story behind those horn hits, if you ever want to go down that rabbit hole… It's pretty cool actually, I grabbed this a while ago and have spent many hours exploring the sounds and the sequencer, definitely an inspiring software! Quote "You live every day. You only die once." Where is Major Tom? - - - - - PC3, HX3 w. B4D, 61SLMkII, SL73, Prologue 16, KingKORG, Opsix, MPC Key 37, DM12D, Argon8m, EX5R, Toraiz AS-1, IK Uno, Toraiz SP-16, Erica LXR-02, QY-700, SQ64, Beatstep Pro Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProfD Posted August 1 Share Posted August 1 Those cutting edge KBs of the 1980s are the hardware equivalent of a butter knife or paper scissors nowadays.🤣 Long before apps came along, affordable samplers and ROMplers especially with sample import capability could reproduce the sounds of Fairlight, Synclavier and other unobtainium KBs of yesteryear.😎 Quote PD "The greatest thing you'll ever learn, is just to love and be loved in return."--E. Ahbez "Nature Boy" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StickMan393 Posted August 1 Share Posted August 1 Just to be pedantic, the voice cards in the Fairlight operate in a way (variable sample rate?) that lends a different character to the sample playback, and can not be duplicated in today's Apps or yesterday's hardware samplers. In my opinion. Whether that really matters is subjective 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
analogika Posted August 1 Share Posted August 1 39 minutes ago, StickMan393 said: Just to be pedantic, the voice cards in the Fairlight operate in a way (variable sample rate?) that lends a different character to the sample playback, and can not be duplicated in today's Apps or yesterday's hardware samplers. In my opinion. Whether that really matters is subjective I seem to recall individual voices being playable at up to 100 kHz sample rates. Quote "The Angels of Libra are in the European vanguard of the [retro soul] movement" (Bill Buckley, Soul and Jazz and Funk) The Drawbars | off jazz organ trio Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elsongs Posted August 1 Share Posted August 1 On 7/31/2024 at 8:33 AM, eric said: I just have this glorious nostalgia for when I would wish I could have a Fairlight. Every now and then, a "barn find" Fairlight will show up on social media and it makes me curious to know how many were made, how many are still in service, and things like that. I've lived vicariously through many of the Fairlight samples that are available in the Nord Sample Library. If you have a similar penchant for the Fairlight, I'd love to hear your memories and any sounds/songs you recollect that featured Fairlight samples. Thanks! Eric - We have the exact same experience. I used to think the Fairlight was all magical until I realized it actually sounded like crap unless you mixed it with the best outboard effects on a high-end mixing desk. Of course, if you could afford a Fairlight back in the day, then you already had the best outboard effects and the best high-end mixing desk to run it though. But in reality, an iPhone has more computing power than a Fairlight did...heck, even a 1990s desktop PC running Windows 95 did. Thing was, it was still light years better than anything else at the time (Except for the Synclavier, which is a whole different debate)... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CHarrell Posted August 1 Share Posted August 1 When I was just getting into electronic instruments 10 years ago, I had the most massive longing for a Fairlight, spurred on by performances like this: I tried downloading as many freeware soundfonts I could, but none of them captured what I heard listening to these albums! I guess I hadn't learnt about processing yet...either that, or the soundfonts were trash. Looking up the prices when it released, no wonder the DX7 was the go-to synth for "realistic" sounds at the time! I'm tempted to check out these apps people have posted in the thread though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Alfredson Posted August 2 Share Posted August 2 It could be argued that his experimentation with the Fairlight saved Peter Gabriel's career. He was struggling musically and financially after his departure from Genesis. While I am a huge fan of all of his output, his first two solo records are rather unfocused hodge-podges, with no clear direction artistically. His third album from 1980 (colloquially referred to as "Melt" since his first three albums are eponymous) is where he hit his stride, deftly combining new-wave and post-punk with art-rock. The Fairlight was a huge inspiration in this regard. There's a documentary from the time showing him sampling all manner of things with child-like enthusiasm and then experimenting with the results in creatively original ways. It is also one of the very first records to feature the Fairlight which no doubt helped set it apart sonically at the time. By the fourth album, 1982's Security, all bets were off and the Fairlight is everywhere on that record. Both albums are way ahead of their time. And rather than just use the Fairlight as a glorified drum machine and sequencer, as so many were doing, Gabriel's organic approach of combining heavily processed sampled natural sounds with synthesizers, electronic and acoustic drums, and fascinating polyrhythmic loops is still fresh. 4 1 Quote Keep it greazy! B3tles - Soul Jazz THEO - Prog Rock Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ABECK Posted August 2 Share Posted August 2 1 hour ago, Jim Alfredson said: It could be argued that his experimentation with the Fairlight saved Peter Gabriel's career. Wasn't Peter also responsible for helping to setup a sales operation for the Fairlight? So, I guess it was a symbiotic relationship. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProfD Posted August 2 Share Posted August 2 3 hours ago, Jim Alfredson said: The Fairlight was a huge inspiration in this regard. There's a documentary from the time showing him sampling all manner of things with child-like enthusiasm and then experimenting with the results in creatively original ways. It is also one of the very first records to feature the Fairlight which no doubt helped set it apart sonically at the time. Gabriel's organic approach of combining heavily processed sampled natural sounds with synthesizers, electronic and acoustic drums, and fascinating polyrhythmic loops is still fresh. A musician exploring an instrument beyond its real or perceived limitations and coming up with something new. That's how an instrument becomes iconic.😎 Quote PD "The greatest thing you'll ever learn, is just to love and be loved in return."--E. Ahbez "Nature Boy" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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