Fairlight-CMI

I'm a huge fan of all things additive.
Software and hardware, anything goes!
My main tools for additive are, a Synclavier 9600 with
32voices of FM, Kyma and Csound.
I have also used a ,CMI IIx, K5000, and the very rare
,TECHNOS Axcelizer, on several occasions. All great
noise makers. All very different user interaction and
sound.

The key features of the IIx is it's hardware
limitations and filter. It's almost like a reduction
down to the audio essentials of what cuts through in a
mix. Gorgeous, LoFi, but with great gusto!

If you're really out to make a close reatro
approximation of a IIx additive synthesis, here's my
shop list. All very expensive hardware btw. You could
get away with a casio or mirage, but none of them does
real additive synthesis. 

#1 - CMI IIx (obviously, duh..)

#2 - NED synclavier II (with sample to disc option),
plus an analog filter.
This a very valid synth, even today. Great stereo FM
and great additive. It's not quite as gritty as the
IIx, but still plenty of interesting LoFi hardware
noise. Since it was mainly built as a FM synth, it's
actually easier to use than the additive portion of
the IIX. You still need an external filter though,
(the Synclavier has no builtin filters)
It's worth pointing out that the NED FM is a
completely different set of hardware than the sampling
portion. It's like two separate synths altogether.
They even have their own separate outputs.
You load up a sample in ram, then let the computer
analyze the sound and play it back from the FM cards.
Once the sound is under FM, you have access to all the
regular FM parameters. Kraftwerks "Electric Cafe" is a
good example of the NED sample to additive FM feature.


3# -  Csound software. Not the obvious choice here, i
know... Yes it's not totally easy to get used used to,
but neigher is the CMI additive =) However Csound is
free, and you can actually build an additive realtime
synthesizer with hardware simulations and everything
with the existing opcodes. This is really the sort of
thing Csound is good at! Granted you don't get he cool
lightpen. 
You can set samplerate, bit depth, etc manually. You
can even downsample only the sample portion of the
instrument, and let the software filters run full res.

Csound has a very "computeresque" clean sound quality
when un manipulated. However together with a few
software simulations and an old DA converter hanging
of your computer, you're getting real close.

A quick and dirty starter, is to just render your
additive samples with Csound and then record them into
your mirage!


Good Luck!
Cheers!
Tobias






--- "M.J.B." <yazzofever@yahoo.com> wrote:

> For you very privlidged Fairlight CMI II owners,
> I entreat you to answer a question of mine. 
> Awhile back the question came back what early
> sampler sounds the closest to the fairlight and
> the conclusion was the ensoniq mirage.  i bought
> one and it was kind of similar to my ears. 
> though it didn't seem to quite have the same
> powerful VCA, and envelopes.
> 
> I think I love the Fairlight most not for the
> samples but rather for it's additive synthesis
> engine, those beautiful Harmonic additive(FM
> sounding) sounds run through SSM 2044 VCF's is so
> gorgous.
> 
> Anyway, does the additive synthesis section of
> the fairlight sound close to anything else you
> have tried?  From my ears the casio cz series
> does the best to emulate fairlight sounds
> especially using a little EQ and running the
> sound through the analog chorus section on my
> casio cz5000. it warms up the sound *kind of*
> like a VCF.  
> 
> Yamaha FM is not "musical enough", and of course
> I wouldn't have access to a synclavier.
> 
> Anything else out there.
> 
> Micah
> 
> y[]a[]z[]z[]o[]f[]e[]v[]e[]r[]
> 
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