Fairlight CMI IV ?

No, it's not an early April Fools. No, I'm not going off on one of my crazy "what if..." moments. This was posted on the Fairlight Yahoo Group today by the esteemed co-creator of the Fairlight CMI, Peter Vogel...

There have been discussions from time to time about replicating the CMI using a software emulation. These efforts will have limited success because the "Fairlight sound" relies on the peculiarities of the hardware used in the original design.

In the days when I was the designing CMI hardware, my greatest challenge was to minimise the distortions and artifacts that were inherent aspects of the hardware available at that time. In effect, we struggled to make the Fairlight sound less "Fairlight". So the intimate details of what makes a Fairlight sound like a Fairlight are indelibly etched in my brain.

When Fairlight brought out the Crystal Core Engine last year, my imagination ran wild. Here was a tiny board with enormous capabilities that could be configured to faithfully reproduce the CMI hardware in its FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array). Every bit of the 1980's CMI hardware, the essence of its sound, could be reconstructed faithfully in digital hardware form.

To fully appreciate the astounding potential of the CC-1, download the brochure here:

CC-1 Brochure

I also recently discovered that ALL the IP relating to the original Fairlight CMI including all of the hardware and filter designs, sample libraries etc are still retained by Fairlight.au in Sydney.

So I have been wondering if it would be worthwhile to develop a faithful reproduction of the CMI on the "Virtual Hardware" of the CC-1?

This would perform identically to the original CMI series II or III, but run on a PC fitted with the Crystal Core card. The MIDI input would come directly into the CC-1 so there would be no problem of latency introduced by the PC.

At this stage I'd like to "feel out" the market to assess the level of interest in this project and whether the significant investment in R&D will be worthwhile.

The Fairlight Series IV (CC-1, I/O box and software) might be sold for approximately $US5,000.00.

So my question is, what do you think of this idea? How would a Fairlight CMI at this sort of price be received by the market? Who would the buyers be and how would I tap into them?

What do you think?

Peter Vogel

Pretty awesome stuff, I think you'll agree. You'd expect me to be running around like a headless chicken, maybe ?

Well, whilst the very fact that the very man responsible for bringing us the legendary Fairlight CMI is seriously talking about resurrecting it is indeed an amazing thing, I am concerned on a number of levels. Firstly, this proposed CMI is based on the proprietary CC-1 technology. I fully understand that this maybe the only true way of accurately recreating the earlier incarnations of the CMI, but it's restrictive inasmuch as it's another piece of hardware to install in our already bloated machines and then there is the other reason....

The Fairlight Series IV (CC-1, I/O box and software) might be sold for
approximately $US5,000.00.

$5K ?? Again, I appreciate the cost of the vital component but, in this current economic climate, the CMI IV would, once again, only be viable for the wealthy elite and far out of reach of the more common type of musician today. Back in the early 80's, there weren't the kind of musicians that we have today. Those of us empowered by the relentless advance of technology and it's falling cost. There is enough snobbery and elitism in the world of CMI's I, II, IIx and III without adding more by pricing the CMI IV out of reach of the very people who would buy it in droves if it were a 3 figure sum instead. Every time I have played devils advocate and raised the subject of recreating the CMI in software somehow, my main driver has been to discover if it would be possible to make the classic Fairlight sounds, functions and qualities available to the masses at a fraction of the cost of buying & maintaining a second hand CMI.

I fully applaud Peter's idea, and hope that it does come off, but I would implore him to consider the market place today and consider that those of us who desperately want this to happen simply don't have $5K to spend on a CMI IV. Most of us don't have $5K to pay our mortgages or feed our kids in these very hard times.

I'm sure the debates will now rage across the web, and hopefully these will bear fruitful ideas, suggestions and ways forward so that as many people can benefit from Peter's insight, expertise and vision as possible.

Please use the comments section to express your views and I will endeavour to convey these back to Peter via the Yahoo Group :o)