This page provides a place for Fairlight users to show their stuff.

If you are currently working on (or have recently completed) a project or show with any type of Fairlight gear (CMI Series I, II, III, or MFX, or CVI or Voicetracker), you are welcome to add an item here. All that is needed is a paragraph about the project, what hardware was used, where it was done, when it happened, who was involved, web site addresses, mailing address, contact info, where albums/videos/books can be purchased, etc., etc.

Maintenance and repair technicians are also welcome to post a note about their services. For now, I'll also put a few links to web sites here.

Just send an e-mail to gregh@ghservices.com and mention "In The Wild".

Other quick links:
http://www.jsigle.com/prog/cmi/indexe.htm - Jörg Sigle's "Fairlight CMI II Restauration" page. Great info on connecting a PC to a CMI.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOP1IKdc4UI - Kendall Wrightson demonstrates a rare Fairlight IIL at Syco Systems London from a Micro Live documentary, circa mid 1980's. The video is 3+ minutes long.
http://egrefin.free.fr/eng/fairlight/fairlightE.php "Candor Chasma" mainly deals with the Mellotron and the Fairlight CMI. Good stuff!
http://www.keyboardmag.com/story.asp?sectioncode=28&storycode=15085 An article by David Holloway on the Fairlight that appeared in Keyboard magazine. My site is mentioned as a key resource.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairlight_CMI - Fairlight CMI - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Fairlight_CMI - Reference.com/Encyclopedia/Fairlight CMI (same info as previous link)
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/opinion/mg18524921.400 - Interview: Electronic maestros (New Scientist, 26 March 2005)
http://www.hollowsun.com/vintage/fairlight/ - Part of a larger site featuring other vintage instruments and a commercial "Nostalgia" product.
http://www.mhc.se/software/plugins/ - Commercial VST plugins and Audio units
http://www.artissimo.gr/english/mt_news/Fairlight_CMI_web_pages_Greg_Holmes.htm - Music Technology : News : Summer 2005
http://www.gregholmes.com/ - My current music site.

Robert Fink wrote his UCLA thesis on the origin of the "ORCH5" Fairlight sample. He contacted me at the time, requesting permission to include my site in his references. I've been cited! http://homepage.mac.com/rfink1913/FileSharing1.html
2006-10-01

Marcin 'Rambo' Roguski, has an ftp site with some cool files, including an MP3 of the famous Fairlight demo tape and some other stuff. And he's made the interface look like CMI Page 2! It's definitely worth taking a look. http://fairlight.id.uw.edu.pl/
2005-04-15

Chris Strellis, has created a DVD of synth history from 1984 to 1985. The PAL format DVD features: Bob Moog demonstrating the Minimoog, Syco System's Kendal Wrightson demonstrating a Linn 9000 and a DX1, a Kurzweil 250, a rare Fairlight IIL, Francis Monkman demonstrating a Prophet 5 and a DX7, the Roland GR707 guitar synth, Martin Rushent showing the recording process on Synclavier and Linn Drum, Steve Lipson demonstrating his Synclavier system used making tracks at Sarm West, Midge Ure shows how he writes tracks on his Atari/Roland D50/Stepp DG-1 guitar synth setup, and Beethoven's 9th is recreated using samplers and synthesisers at IIRCAM. Also shown is the SpecDrum and some C64 SID action, Alan Townsend from Roland informs us about MIDI, and rare interviews with Vangelis, Bob Moog, Alan Wilder and his Emax, and Jerry Kovarsky from Korg. There's also some Series III footage at the start of the Tomorrow's World Special: Roll Over Beethoven. For more, go to http://www.strellis.com/synthhistory.html
2005-03-11

Noel Quinlan, from Australia, has been a studio session musician, bandleader, musical director, jingle writer, studio designer, film composer, and live media event director. He's released successful albums using the Fairlight Series III. Visit his site at http://www.bigskymusic.com.au/
2005-02-17

Adrian S. Bruce, a former Fairlight employee, has a web page called "Art & Technology: Technical Development" at http://www.users.bigpond.com/adriansbruce/tech/
2005-01-31

DigiFish Studios, operating out of Adelaide, South Australia, composes original copyright-cleared music for commercial use covering the styles of orchestral through to dance & techno, for the international and local market. Visit www.digifishmusic.com
2005-01-25

Laurent Lemaire sends us this tip:

The official Fairlight distributor in Sydney still has a lot of new & used spare parts for the Fairlights.
Graeme Rothwell
GBG Technology Pty Ltd
www.gbg-technology.com
2004-11-24

Klaus Michael Indlekofer wrote to me:

Dear Greg,

First of all, thanks a lot for your great CMI page! As you might remember, thanks to your Swap Shop page, I was able to find a Series III/MFX2 some years ago.

I'm contacting you since I would like to announce my "cmios9" utility for ftp-like access to Series III and MFX2 drives and image files (OS9 and MDR-DOS filesystems). It's freeware (GNU GPL) for UNIX-like systems (like Linux or MacOS X). I also compiled a version for Windows users. This program is a very powerful tool and I have been using it for over almost 2 years now for backup and programming. (BTW, I'm a programmer for real-time control systems and scientific simulations.) It's still a console application, but a Windows and MacOS X GUI is under work.

I thought your CMI page might be the best place to announce such new software, which enables CMI users to "build a bridge" between the Fairlight-OS9 world and the modern PC/Mac world. And it's for free for non-commercial/educational purposes!

For more infos, my web-site http://members.tripod.com/kmi9000/kmi_cmi.htm contains lots of technical information about the CMI system and its hardware+software I collected over the years.

Best regards,
Klaus Michael Indlekofer
2004-07-01