I Don’t get it.<\/em><\/strong> Fairlight<\/a> is coming back and for $20,000 you can own your very own piece of 8-bit sampling history. That’s fantastic for nostalgia buffs with more money than sense, but to imply there’s any musical value in the exercise is .. I don’t know .. stretching the point a bit. Why not just get the (equally awful) iPad app? You could get a keyboard controller and a dedicated iPad for under a tenth of the price of this re-issue and your audience won’t know the difference. Trust me, 99% of the time they won’t.<\/p>\n (I think Unca Tom’s already got this whole re-issuing old stuff because we have no new ideas<\/a><\/em> thing pretty well nailed, so I won’t go there.)<\/p>\n I visited the Fairlight factory during a visit to Sydney as a spotty teenager back in 1985. I had imagined I’d just rock up to the place and there’d be a shop front and a couple of demo units on display, but it wasn’t quite like that. Luckily they took pity on me when I said I’d come from Tasmania to see the CMI, and I got a short but pants-wettingly exciting tour of their demo studio out the back. At that time, the CMI was all over just about every record I bought. Peter Gabriel IV<\/a> was one of the earlier ones that I owned and I still love the distinctive, disturbing sound of that record. Jean-Michel Jarre’s Zoolook<\/a>[1]<\/sup><\/a> was a fine comeback after what I thought was a somewhat flaccid Magnetic Fields. And of course Ms Bush’s Fairlight album<\/a> is one of the all time pop classics, as is Songs From The Big Chair<\/a>.<\/p>\n Back then in the past it really was the future.<\/p>\n But times change, and things – particularly technological things – move on. The thing that gave the Fairlight its distinctive sound was the awful sample resolution. A lot of people had to employ programmers to actually operate the thing because the software interface – although admittedly revolutionary at the time – was diabolical. And of course similar to today it required a mortgage or some extremely dodgy business practices to actually own one.<\/p>\n So now we have all this nostalgia wave and the chance to pay $20,000 for an instrument that frankly, half a dozen apps on my phone could eat for lunch.<\/p>\n I Do Not Understand.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Money factor aside, why ride a Penny Farthing when you can get a modern bicycle with all the improvements that have been added over the years and enjoy a smoother, less ridiculous-looking ride? Your audience DOES NOT CARE. (Unless they’re hipsters in which case you all deserve each other ;)<\/p>\n The more I work on my latest project<\/a> recreating a style of early-80s electronic music, the more I realise it doesn’t matter a jot what tools you use. What matters is whether you can raise the hairs on the back of someone’s neck by playing a particular combination of noises at them. (C minor ninths always do it for me.) Peter Gabriel’s record still sounds distinctive to this day, but the live versions<\/a> of the same songs carry just as much punch, his (incredible) backing band could still keep playing if you pulled the power chord out of the CMI – and you’d still cry over Biko<\/em>.<\/p>\n You can carp on about vintage authenticity all you like but if you’re not getting an emotional response out of the music<\/em> – I’m sorry but splooging your pants over a bit of gear<\/em> doesn’t count – you might as well go and play with Excel spreadsheets instead.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Look at this will you. (Go ahead, I’ll wait..) Nostalgic Music Buffs Embrace The Return Of The Fairlight I Don’t get it. Fairlight is coming back and for $20,000 you can own your very own piece of 8-bit sampling history. That’s fantastic for nostalgia buffs with more money than sense, but to imply there’s any … Continue reading The Fairlight is the Penny Farthing of Samplers.<\/span> ![\"penny](\"https:\/\/dj2mn.f8.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/penny-farthing-234x300.gif\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Parked_penny_farthing\"](\"https:\/\/dj2mn.f8.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Parked_penny_farthing-300x225.jpg\")
<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n![\"penny-farthing-crash.jpg-300\"](\"https:\/\/dj2mn.f8.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/penny-farthing-crash.jpg-300.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n\n