Filter on ALL, SYNTH, DRUM, SAMPLER or MISC |
Total list currently 2405 items in 330 Brands |
Fairlight CMI | Fairlight I |
Description | Fairlight Instruments Pty Ltd was established by Peter Vogel and Kim Ryrie in 1975. They produced one of the World's first Digital Audio Workstation Samplers. The Fairlight CMI (Computer Musical Instrument. In 1979 they created the Fairlight CMI, one of the earliest music workstation Digital Audio Samplers. The first edition was called Series I had voice cards that were only 24 kHz sampling rate with 8 bit sound cards and largely considered too noisy by some. In 1982 improvements were made for the Series II with much better sound quality and better software. Both series I and II feature a light pen for drawing new waveforms of the sample on the instrument's monitor. The attached pen to the CMI's monitor worked a lot like a computer mouse. The user could use their own samples or the then growing library of sounds. Anything could be sampled and made into a sound or effect with endless possibilities of sound creation. Although the creators didn't like the idea of sampling, they were synth guys and more into making an ultimate synth with control of all of it's aspects. With sampling they were limited to controlling the envelope and the sound's vibrato. Vogel and Ryrie originally intended to ship the Fairlight CMI with it's own sound library but the sampling feature was so popular that many made their own samples. |
Brand | Fairlight CMI |
Model | Fairlight I |
Device | Sampler |
Type | Keys |
Engine Type | Digital |
Engine | Sample |
Voices (max) | 8 |
Engine Detailed | Fast Fourier Transforming, Waveform Editing, Graphics Tablet Waveform Drawing |
Sampler | 8-bit at 16 kHz (mono) |
Memory | 16 KB per voice, System: 64 KB |
Recording | Basic keyboard sequencer, Musical Composition Language (MCL) |
Keys | 73 |
Key type | Keys (Option 2x) |
Velocity | Y |
Aftertouch | No |
Extra info | Two 8-inch floppy drives |
Produced: | 1979 - 1982 |
Legend: | Obvious | Y: Yes, N: No, N/A: Not Applicable | |
VCO | Voltage Controlled Oscillator | DCO | Digital Controlled Oscillator |
LFO | Low Frequency Oscillator | Sub | Sub Oscillator |
VCF | Voltage Controlled Filter | VCA | Voltage Controlled Amplifier |
Velocity | As with a piano, the harder you hit a key, the louder the sound, unlike most organs which always produce the same loudness no matter how hard you hit a key. | Aftertouch | Pressing a key after you activated it. Channel Aftertouch, no matter which key, it will send a Channel message. Poly Aftertouch, sends the pressure per key instead of the whole channel. |
Values for OSC, LFO, Filter, Envelope are per voice unless stated otherwise. |