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...