Fairlight CMI
More info
- Creator
- Peter Vogel, Kim Ryrie
- Released
- 1979
- Type
- Sampler and workstation
The first commercial sampling workstation, an Australian computer costing around $25,000 that gave 80s pop its orchestra hits.
Peter Vogel and Kim Ryrie in Sydney built the Computer Musical Instrument around two Motorola 6800 processors, with a keyboard, a monitor and a light pen for drawing waveforms directly on screen. The plan was synthesis; it was sampling that sold it. Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush, Jean-Michel Jarre and Herbie Hancock were among the early buyers.
The Series II added the Page R sequencer in 1982, a grid that anticipated both the step sequencer and the piano roll. The ORCH5 sound, an orchestra stab sampled from Stravinsky's Firebird, is on countless records from 1982 onwards. The company later moved into audio for film and TV; Blackmagic Design bought it in 2016 and the name lives on as the audio page of DaVinci Resolve. The demogroup Fairlight borrowed the name.