The original Fairlight is back

[David Polich]

The designer of the Fairlight, used by many 80's
chart-topping acts such as Kate Bush, Peter Gabriel,
and Frankie Goes To Hollywood, has brought back
the Fairlight CMI30A for a limited run. Orders were
accepted until September 30th. So if you still have
$19,000 (the cost of the re-issued system)
burning a hole in your pocket, you'll have to spend
it elsewhere.

The re-issue looks (and supposedly sounds) just like
its ancestor.

Link:

http://www.fairlightinstruments.com/specs.html

[HCMarkus]

Call me stingy, but I'd file this one with the $1900 Lexicon Reverb Plug In.

[cuttime]

Does it come with the 8" 175 KB floppy disk drive and the 6800 processor? All in 8 bit glory? Such a steal!

[James Steele]

Apparently the window isn't closed on this:

http://www.fairlightinstruments.com/fiblog/

Seems some people have expressed actually wanting to hear samples before plunking down deposits. Imagine that! It seems from the specs given that it's modernized somewhat, but it's vapor. I pondered what to write next, but I got nothin'.

[kgdrum]

$19,000 (the cost of the re-issued system)
it was a great sounding keyboard but the technology was awful,this almost sounds like a joke.
Most of the interviews of keyboard players who actually had and used the Fairlight generally despised the The Fairlight and were very happy to move to newer technologies.
Yes the sound of it is amazing and it is truly a CLASSIC KEYBOARD but $19,000
KG

[HCMarkus]

SO... you want to hook your new Fairlight up to your state-of-the-art DAW? We have the solution for you: The Fairlight Bridge! With this amazing software you will feel like you are on a Golden Gate to Brooklyn or Nowhere, and it's yours for only $2,999*. Step right up and put your money down today.

*Lexicon reverb option is an additional $1,999. Cables not included.

[James Steele]

Well, if you look at the site shown they've modernized it extensively. Still doesn't make it worth $19,000 IMHO.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

We have yet to discover the limits of the Crystal Core as a musical instrument, but thanks to its massively parallel architecture, it should be able to deliver many hundreds of tracks of sample playback without any degradation of audio quality and close to zero latency.

That's kind of like a composer saying: I have yet to discover the limits of my composing as musical sound, but thanks to my massive ego, I should be able to deliver many hundreds of cues without any dogs in the bunch and close to a zero wait time for my clients. Just $180,000 gets you my reworking of a score I did back in 1980.

You know the world is full of stuff like this. I'm off to a meeting this morning with a guy who spent $200k - $200,000!!! - on a 30 minute infomercial and only has raw footage (bad raw footage at that) to show for it. We're supposed to find a solution for him to get the thing done and aired. Point being: There are lots of people waiting to put their hands in your pockets and extract your money with items of lesser value in return.

I also file this under the Lexicon offer - by a factor of 10... Coincidence?




(It's easy to pick the pocket of someone who is stoned - or bronzed!) LOL

[funkyfreddy]

I seem to recall a $49,000.00 guitar synth...... and back then you could guy a house for that kind of money.

[James Steele]

I seem to recall a $49,000.00 guitar synth...... and back then you could guy a house for that kind of money.

That's pretty cheap. If you've tried to gal a house before, you know it always costs a lot more than that!