Fairlight-CMI

Hi and welcome to the group.

I'll try to answer some of your questions...

1) AFAIK this was recorded direct using a Fairlight employee, called Sarah Cohen

2) Earlier Fairlights didn't have any special pitch shifting function, although I believe the MFX2 had a time stretch card option. The sound I hear on the example you supplied just sounds like a voice played at a low pitch, with added Chorus or something.

3) Quite possibly Fairlight manipulated, but also quite possible these drums came from their original source. The voice in example Voice3.mp3 sounds like the same breathy Fairlight voice but treat with effects. It's easy to forget a lot of artists / producers sampled their own sounds and / or manipulated factory samples with external effects, sometime beyond point of recognition. Very rarely will you hear a dry version of the original sample, but on the other hand a lot of presets are easily distinguishable.

Hope this helps! Anyone, please correct me if I'm wrong :-)

First opportunity you can get one of these, go for it. They're awesome and inspiring to work with.

Kind regards,

Peter

On 12/5/06, my_list_address <my_list_address@yahoo.no> wrote:

Unfortunately I don't own a Fairlight myself, but I joined this group
because I've always been fascinated by the CMI. I have some (hopefully
not too stupid) questions:

1) How was that fantastic and famous Fairlight-voice preset
(http://www.ghservices.com/gregh/fairligh/examples/aahh.wav) made?
In my opinion it doesn't sound quite like a human voice because of
that added "breathy" quality.

2) Does the Fairlight CMI have some sort of special pitch-shifting
feature (which not even my Yamaha sampler from the late 80s had)? I'm
asking because I've heard some very deep voices in songs where I
believe the Fairlight has been used. I have an example here:
http://home.c2i.net/w-460389/audio_snippets/deep_voice.mp3

3) Getting back to my initial question, I've heard voices with similar
qualities and wonder if these are Fairlight disks, or voices that
could have been manipulated with the Fairlight:

a) http://home.c2i.net/w-460389/audio_snippets/drums1.mp3 (the
percussive "ahh" that starts about 8 seconds into the song)

b) the same song, but about 16 seconds into the song.

c) http://home.c2i.net/w-460389/audio_snippets/voice3.mp3 (the
background choir/voice -has some of the same qualities as that first
Fairlight preset voice I mentioned).

Thanks.

Hi,

1) This is how I believe it to be. Maybe Peter Vogel can elaborate on this one? It is a breathy sample, probably a characteristic of her voice. Some voices are breathy by nature are and maybe only a portion of the recording was used, missing out the attack possibly? It was 8 bit and I believe this sample was on the original Fairlight CMI Series I Factory Discs which had a very small sampling bandwidth. I doubt this was recorded in studio / lab conditions and if she sung into it again, wouldn't quite be the same. Maybe a fluke which got captured and remembered forever.

2) The light pen was used to get you around the Fairlight function, as well as editing. It does more or less what a computer Mouse does now, just a lot more hi tech back in the day (not forgetting cool). Using this in real-time, you can edit parameters (along with the keyboard for data entry), but "pitch shifting" it this way would just be the same way as playing it on different notes on the music keyboard., i.e. playback rate... If you do a search on www.youtube.com for Fairlight, there are enough examples to show you what can be done using the Light Pen. Drawing waveforms, accessing pages, clicking on parameters, etc.

3) These could've been samples from factory libraries or original samples, but there's no real way of telling if the source is a Fairlight. Could be Emulator, Akai, Synclavier or any other sampler from around that time. Even some of the typically 'Fairlight' samples got sampled over to other samplers / libraries.

I don't think people experimented any more or less in them days than they do today. Things are a lot easier now and I think what separates the current geniuses from the average Joe Bloggs is their creativity, experimentation and lust for something different. Just about anyone can get setup in this day and age, with very little outlay. In those days, it was different, so people that got into it, yearned to do it and had the drive, talent and creativity to make it work. It also took a lot longer to produce a record in those days.

As to price, it's really hard to say. It all depends on spec, condition, history and how much the buyer is willing to pay. They're up on eBay from time to time. I used to search everyday and keep an eye out on what these things bring. What does it bring in terms of use? Authenticity, a way to work that is different and most importantly... superior sound quality. It sounds amazing and nothing really (dare I say Syncalavier) sounds like it.

I'm not sure if you're aware, but there are a few other variants of Fairlight. Series I, II, IIx and III. The III being the most technically advanced and way ahead of any technology at that time. There's also the MFX advancements of these too. I have a Series III (rev 9.34 machine), which uses a G-Pen instead of a Light Pen, is 16 bit, up to 100kHz sample rate, stereo sampling, 16 voices opposed to 8, etc, etc. Overall the differences are HUGE. Google the specs. There's a lot of info out there.

Hope this helps...

Kind regards,

Peter

On 12/7/06, my_list_address <my_list_address@yahoo.no > wrote:

--- In Fairlight-CMI@yahoogroups.com, "Peter Connelly"
wrote:
>
> Hi and welcome to the group.

Thanks!

> 1) AFAIK this was recorded direct using a Fairlight employee, called
Sarah
> Cohen

So it's just Sarah singing "aaaaaah" into a mic? No manipulation,
editing or anything?
Is it the 8 bit sampling and the rest of the Fairlight circuitry
itself that changes the voice to become "airy" and "synthesized"?

> 2)
> on the example you supplied just sounds like a voice played at a low
pitch,
> with added Chorus or something.

I've heard similar voices on several recordings where I think the
musician has a Fairlight.
Using the light-pen and the edit functions, can sounds be pitch-shifted?
Excuse my ignorance (again), but can someone please explain to me what
the light-pen/edit functions on the Fairlight can do?
Is anything like that available on modern computer systems? All I've
ever edited when it comes to audio waveforms is cutting/splicing and
cropping.

> 3) Quite possibly Fairlight manipulated, but also quite possible
these drums
> came from their original source.

No, I was talking about the percussively-played "ahhh" voice, not the
drums from my example (drums1.mp3)

> The voice in example Voice3.mp3 sounds like
> the same breathy Fairlight voice but treat with effects. It's easy
to forget
> a lot of artists / producers sampled their own sounds and / or
manipulated
> factory samples with external effects, sometime beyond point of
recognition.

I have to start doing some serious experimenting when I get my gear
set up (no room here right now).
I believe people were much better at experimenting back in the days
when all of this technology was new (and much more expensive and out
of reach to most people than now), as opposed to today when people
seldom use samplers for anything else than playing back the
bog-standard instruments that others have made.

But back to the Fairlight; is there a library called "farrar" for it?
I've heard that some of the sounds in my examples may come from it,
but I don't know if it's a Fairlight library, Emulator II or what.

> First opportunity you can get one of these, go for it. They're
awesome and
> inspiring to work with.

How much do they go for these days?
Apart from the collector's appeal, what does a Fairlight have going
for itself these days? Should I see it more a "sampling synthesizer
workstation" than a sampler (where the latter is supposed to duplicate
as close to the original as possible, the sampled sound)?

Hi Hallvard,

There could be a score of reasons why the Fairlight Arr sounds different to the other examples, the most obvious reason being source of sample, i.e. vocalist / choir. Maybe there was some filtering going on with the original voice and then re-synthesised, I'm not 100% sure, but I too would like confirmation if anyone knows any better. As daft as it might have sounded to my colleagues outside, I've just tried saying "ahhh" in a variety of ways and they all sounded VERY different. Maybe Sarah Cohen had a breathy voice, just like Kirsty McColl (RIP) had.

Yes, Peter Vogel is about... :-)

With regards the 3D graphic window, check out this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOP1IKdc4UI)

With modern samplers there is miles more functionality, but what was special about the Fairlight at the time was not just the sound quality (due to it's military components and build spec) but it was revolutionary. It was an innovation and nothing else compared to it. Even Page R was revolutionary and sculpted the way forward. Some artists bought the Fairlight solely based on the sequencer alone. What we know today (sampling and sequencing) is thanks to Fairlight.

Anyone else, please feel free to add / amend or comment :D

Peter

On 12/18/06, Hallvard Tangeraas <my_list_address@yahoo.no> wrote:

On 8/12/06 11:57, Peter Connelly wrote:

(Fairlight "ARR1" choir/voice sample)
> 1) This is how I believe it to be. Maybe Peter Vogel can elaborate on
> this one?

Is he here as well? Wow!
Yes, that would be great.

> It is a breathy sample, probably a characteristic of her
> voice. Some voices are breathy by nature are and maybe only a portion of
> the recording was used, missing out the attack possibly? It was 8 bit
> and I believe this sample was on the original Fairlight CMI Series I
> Factory Discs which had a very small sampling bandwidth. I doubt this
> was recorded in studio / lab conditions and if she sung into it again,
> wouldn't quite be the same. Maybe a fluke which got captured and
> remembered forever.

You've got some very good points there, Peter. But I'm still not
convinced that this is a real, unedited human voice.
Or is it just that the early Fairlight CMI transforms the sound so much
that it no longer is (more or less) an identical copy of the source input?

Here's that voice again (ARR1) which I had on a Fairlight CMI IIx audio
sample-CD I bought a few years ago:
http://home.c2i.net/w-460389/fairlight_examples/Fairlight_ARR1.mp3

Now, for comparison, here's a choir sample from an Emulator II (I
believe I found it at the Hollow Sun website a while back -can't find it
there now):
http://home.c2i.net/w-460389/fairlight_examples/Emulator_choir_D4.mp3
That definitely sounds like a human choir!

Another Emulator II choir sample:
http://home.c2i.net/w-460389/fairlight_examples/emulator_choir_G2.mp3

And finally another Fairlight voice sample from that same audio-CD:
http://home.c2i.net/w-460389/fairlight_examples/Fairlight_real_female_voice.mp3

The last sample also sounds a bit strange, but at least here it sounds
like a human voice, albeit a low-quality recording.

I've read a lot about the Fairlight on the web, using Google. But not
many sites go into detail. They usually just explain what the Fairlight
is, but not having one myself I'm curious (especially in relation to the
ARR1 sample) about the filters, editing abilities etc. to try and find
out if any of this has contributed to that special sound quality.

For example, using the light-pen and the graphic editing capabilities,
could a normal human voice be transformed? No website I've come across
actually explains what that 3D graphic window is, neither what you can
actually do with a Fairlight, but I'm guessing that part of what can be
done is raise/lower the various frequencies of a sound. Perhaps the
higher frequencies (the "airy" part) of the voice has been raised or
something like that....
Please excuse my ignorance.

> Just about anyone can
> get setup in this day and age, with very little outlay. In those days,
> it was different, so people that got into it, yearned to do it and had
> the drive, talent and creativity to make it work. It also took a lot
> longer to produce a record in those days.

If you compare the capabilities of the Fairlight back in those days with
today, what kind of currently available hardware/software would that be
to emulate those functions/capabilities?

Obviously you can do CD-quality audio sampling with just about any
computer today, and of course the dedicated hardware samplers out there,
but I've heard that the Fairlight can do so much more. Can someone
explain to me what those things are?

> I'm not sure if you're aware, but there are a few other variants of
> Fairlight. Series I, II, IIx and III. The III being the most technically
> advanced and way ahead of any technology at that time.

yes, I've read about them all, though I've never had a chance to see/try
out any of them.
Seeing the specs of the series III, isn't this more or less what many
modern samplers are capable of, meaning that it's still not an outdated
sampler, but fully usable as any modern sampler?
I suppose the difference is cost, whereas today you can get many of the
same specs for a fraction of the cost back then.

regards,
Hallvard