| Fairlight CMI | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Manufacturer | Fairlight |
| Dates | 1979–1989, 2011–present |
| Price | £ 15,000[2]–112,000[3] |
| Technical specifications | |
| Polyphony | 8–16 voices |
| Timbrality | Multitimbral |
| LFO | for vibrato[4] |
| Synthesis type | Additive synthesis Sampling (8 bit @ 16 kHz – 16 bit @ 100 kHz), waveform editing/drawing, additive resynthesis (FFT) |
| Filter | low-pass for anti-aliasing[4] |
| Input/output | |
| Keyboard | 73 keys non-weighted, velocity sensitive. Option: slave keyboard[4] |
| Left-hand control | 3 sliders, 2 buttons, numeric keypad (right side)[4] |
| External control | Computer keyboard Light pen CV/Gate (option, CMI II~) MIDI • SMPTE (CMI IIx~) |
The Fairlight CMI (short for Computer Musical Instrument) is a digital synthesizer, music sampler, and digital audio workstation introduced in 1979 by Fairlight.[5][6][7] It was based on a commercial licence of the Qasar M8 developed by Tony Furse of Creative Strategies in Sydney, Australia. It was one of the earliest electronic music workstations with an embedded sampler and is credited for coining the term sampling in music. It rose to prominence in the early 1980s and competed with the Synclavier from New England Digital.
- ^ "Mix Announces Certified Hits of NAMM 2011". Mix (28 January 2011). Archived from the original on 10 August 2016. Retrieved 20 February 2011.
- ^ Beecher, Mike (June 1981). "Fairlight CMI Review". Electronics & Music Maker. United Kingdom: Music Maker Publications (UK), Future Publishing. pp. 56–59. Retrieved 7 June 2023.
- ^ "Fairlight CMI Series III". Sound On Sound. United Kingdom: SOS Publications Ltd. October 1987. p. 37. Retrieved 7 June 2023.
- ^ a b c d Holmes, Greg (17 September 2010). "The Holmes Page: The Fairlight CMI". GH Services.
- ^ VCO8 (7 October 2015), Peter Vogel demonstrates the Fairlight CMI 30A, archived from the original on 12 December 2021, retrieved 26 October 2017
{{citation}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - ^ "Fairlight History". FairlightUS.com.
- ^ Vogel, Peter. "The Fairlight Story". anerd.com. Retrieved 5 April 2016. — with links to some Fairlight history and photos