Fairlight CMI 30A FIRST LOOK | NAMM 2011 | ProAudioStar.com

[UMAMIMAMU]

$20,000? HAH! You could get TWO Mellotrons for that much!!

[revokdaryl1]

This is a great synth and very advanced for its time, but I think the Yamaha CS-80 deserves to be mentioned here as well.

[Novaheart1998]

It's really cool, but its $20,000. This is 2012 not 1978.... if it was $3000 it would be really affordable to the rest of us, not just to rich people!

[vincentjanse]

that thing is a piece of trash why would I use a old looking synth especially for that price when I can buy a new one

[Mueller5032]

Question at 1:54: "How would they use it? Would they use it for songwriting?" No, pal! They used the sequencer in order to cook spaghettis and sometimes even for painting and paperhanging...

[sinbindinchin]

the price is an absolute joke, if it was a recreation of the original hardware i could understand it, but this is just a modern pc with a keyboard and retro looking monitor.

[Rikk303]

@sinbindinchin Had a programme called "Aegis Sonix" for the Amiga (the K/Board he used as a trigger unit looks like a C64 salvage job as it happens).Polyphonics and sampling for fifty quid nearly 30 years ago.Great for retro-freaks and Moog lovers but no keys player would ever consider this.I play guitar and bought a Casio WK1300 for the rhythm bank...mainly for timing.....Wakeman would've loved it 30 years ago.Basically Rolf Harris on steroids but it blows this away...£100 as well 2nd hand

[OnlyRawAudio]

Whoooahh! Ive only seen picture of this machine. Thats pretty awesome

[mfsflyer1]

The synth that shaped all electronic music, amazing how it is still one of the greatest musical instruments alive, you would be lucky to own one even today.

[MichaelKhanTV]

i want to make sounds this way.... wish there was a vst or something like it where i can draw lol... 3d waveforms are awesome....

[TrowbridgeHardcore]

@MichaelKhanTV z3ta dosent allow you to draw but u can mod a shape which can be pretty fun

[angie4josh]

That duchebag that kept asking about the interface after the guy just answered him is fucking annoying. I would have been asking how they incorperated timestretching and non timestretched samples to satisfy old and new users.

[MrGijser]

Respect for this tech. I had the lucky opportunity to work with the CMI 12 years ago. Regretting the fact that i did not took ownership of that machine then. Could have done it at the time..I needed a quick Basic refresh training to operate it. But CMI 30A available again is damn tempting. Can't afford it though. Sound is so thick.

[adriankeibord2]

I deeply respect this instrument epoch. But honestly!

There, there, there !!!!!!??????

Glance a backhoe but with modern technology including software and interface.

To me the guy paying 20 grand for a troglodyte this can only be even a dinosaur.

Nostalgia and a mere convenience.

Hopes that this company came up with something revolutionary blew the competitors Korg, Roland, Yamaha.

But this comes with unearthing a deceased.

That digs expensive this is.

[GeorgiMl]

whyyy oooh whyyy do they make improvements...make the machine exactly the same, use a modern cheap computer(to make it affordable) make the exact same features that made this machine unique, put in a cd rom or usb instead of a floppy and that's it .... WE HAVE POWERFULL SEQUENCERS AND HI-FI EQUIPMENT AND ... IT'S EVEN MORE EXPENSIVE THAN THE KORG OASYS ... uhh! ... i love the fact that they make them again ...but this what i saw was like giving Dirty Harry a plasma gun or giving Jesus a Jetpack!

[MaynoDolphin]

@GeorgiMl @GeorgiMl Agreed memory was limited and expensive back then, not so now. So there really is no excuse for the high price point other than the "nostalgia" factor.

[doritostheking]

@MaynoDolphin It's incredibly rare and good condition ones are almost impossible to find. You might as well ask why the mona lisa is worth so much.

[MaynoDolphin]

@doritostheking You misunderstand. I know how and why the original CMI Fairlights are valued as such. The technology was cutting edge new and incredibly expensive in 1979. What I am saying is this new Fairlight is needlessly expensive.

[doritostheking]

@MaynoDolphin It's one of a hundred and hand built. That's why. I mean, they've written all the software just for this. They'll be lucky to break even.

[MaynoDolphin]

@doritostheking That's Fairlight Instruments' choice to put inall that expensive stuff (eg. iphone) and making it "limited". Doesn't mean it's actually worth 20K. As he said, The ability to sample natural sounds, create sounds on a screen, and merge sounds together is commonplace now but in 1979 it was unheard of.

[doritostheking]

@MaynoDolphin They're charging whatever they need to make a profit. And to be honest, I don't think more than a hundred people would buy one anyway.

[MaynoDolphin]

@doritostheking Probably not. There are so many options today for doing essentially the same things this machine can do at lower cost. This is very much a niche item.

[doritostheking]

@MaynoDolphin Well there you go, you just answered your own question.

[MaynoDolphin]

@doritostheking Oh but I never asked any "question". ;-)

[kurryg1]

@MaynoDolphin youy forgot the synclavier v1 wich was out at the sametime could do monophonic sampling and something the fairlight couldnt , namely specral synthesis and

re-synthesis , by 1982 the synclavier v2 was a 32 voice monitor /sequencer driven monster that ran circles around a fairlight 2x , a year later it had harddisk recording as well and a samplerate of 50khz, the synclavier v1 could be heard on 1980 the korgis 'everybody go to learnt sometime (koto etc)

[MaynoDolphin]

@kurryg1 No doubt the Synclavier was a fine piece of equipment indeed.

[Penguindog55]

Nice, the original Fairlight doesn't seem ancient even today.

[Peteyuse]

That is actually ridiculously cool. Kudos.

[LaugermanPROductions]

Its time for the Miami Vice theme!!!

[k8fan]

Uh, the mouse had been invented and was demoed by Doug Englebart at "The Mother of All Demos" on December 9, 1968.

[IcarusTuga7]

i love this retro style machines..Fairlight CMI-30A 30th Anniversary Edition 21.000€ :| uiuiu

[numanuma20]

At 11:18 is that an ipod touch?

[DFFS91]

I want to hear electro music with this thing!

[auro1001]

I want one!

[Stoney3K]

Too bad the 'green screen' is a TFT flat screen instead of an old-school CRT.

Is the new machine running an embedded system? Linux?

[PhuckHue2]

incredible machine. my personal favorite. all I need is $20,000 to buy one :p

[Ningirsutyr]

"Hi, we're Fairlight and we're trying to rip our customers off by using a light pen interface instead of an operation with a regular mouse or with a touch screen and we're also putting an iPhone that you can't take out instead of enabling the same thing with an application." Jerks!!!

[TurbeenBeatz]

@Ningirsutyr lol this is the collectors edition man! they only will build a 100 of these. its for the die-hard fairlight fans who can afford the 20k. not for "normal" home musicians of today. there will be a software edition of this in the near future peter vogel said.

[Stoney3K]

@TurbeenBeatz I hope there will be a stripped down keyboard version of the CMI as well. I'm not that fond of VST versions because a DAW is a little more prone to failure or latency.

[Coasterdude02149]

@Ningirsutyr Jealous much? :) I’ll think of you when I boot my series III. You’re too young to appreaciet the fact there was life before the iPhone, iPad, text messaging, computers and cars that parallel parked for you.

[TotallyNuss]

@Ningirsutyr  Man you're such a dope.

[RainMainDein]

Great, the best....how to get the bucks together....

[Geeljasjes]

It's still the sexiest looking machine ever.

[Coasterdude02149]

@Geeljasjes It always was :)

[Winblad]

The machine is wonderful, and I remember it well from the early 80's.

However, the audio on this recording is absolutely awful. I would consider it embarrassing for a company calling itself ProAudioStar. One would think a priority might be to perhaps have multiple microphones for product interviews such as this. The audio drops out during detailed explanations, and trying to hear the questions being asked is nearly impossible.

Learn to record and process audio properly!

[flux302]

@Winblad man this was from a show floor demo. ease up on em a bit.

[COMPACTASS1]

20k for green screen?

[samplemybits]

excellent video!

[sonicase]

lol 20k to emulate a sampler from the 70s

if people just want the look of it maybe they should just sell mod kits for a pc and keyboard

[BennyFromXXX]

@sonicase I would not call it emulating. It’s actually a very powerful machine.

On their site they have a white paper about what that Crystal Core media processor is capable of.

20K is indeed a lot of money but for the media people that can afford it that thing is programmer heaven.

[ohgoddamshazam]

I foresee one of these in Slagsmalsklubbens future.

[nn8nn]

the legendary new old music machine!...good stuff