Blog
Me with a Fairlight Series III in 2000
When I, in my early teens, developed an interest in music production the Fairlight was in it's autumn. But it was still, despite DX7s and affordable samplers THE machine. I was so fascinated by the myth of this machine. All of the artists/producers I admired used the Fairlight: Oldfield, Jarre, Parsons, Gabriel, Bush... All of them had the Fairlight. But none of the instrument shops had it. That was how mighty it was. Out of reach, only available to the greatest. I dreamt about Fairlights.
In 1991, and without any production skills at all, I tracked down the danish Fairlight dealer, and went to his office and asked if I could please see one. He told me, that he didn't have any, but was kind enough to give some brochures. As I walked away I peered through the windows and saw, that he actually did have a CMI. That was how close I came.
Nine years later, as the Fairlight had gone into the historybooks as a difficult, bad sounding machine, the opportunity finally came, and I was invited to spend a few hours with the Series III Fairlight. And I was disappointed! It was so slow, and the 8 bit resolution sounded so wacky (the Series III was a 16 bit machine, but I worked mostly with the IIx library which was 8 bit).
I guess the strenght of the Fairlight belonged to the artists who used it, and not - as I thought - to the machine.
I am still a bit fascinated by the machine, and I have bought the Fairlight IIx sample library, but I guess I'm more fascinated by the myth and the artists of the 80ies...