Hard-Core Gear Porn Monday...
From the original Analog Industries archive. Some links and images from that era no longer resolve.
My in-laws are visiting all week, so I’ll be traipsing all over the Pacific Northwest seeing the sights. As such, don’t expect much postage this week. However, here’s a sexy little number that showed up in my mailbox this morning. Tons of nice kit here, and Tom will no doubt be happy to see both a Fairlight and a Synclavier. Play Industries is the joint. Go forth.
13 comments
Happy!
I was disappointed to learn that gearporn legend Philip Taysom:
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/Oct04/articles/readerzone.htm
Has recently sold three of his four Fairlights and one of his two Synclaviers. Now he's only got one of each. How does he manage?
Frankly, this just makes me depressed.
I, of course, would prefer a Fairlight to using a computer any day just because of the novelty factor of the Fairlight...
But for a pro recording studio, is there any reason at all for having a Fairlight, other than of course the "That's Fuckin' Fresh!!!" factor of a Fairlight? Is there some sort of feature that a Fairlight has that has not yet been duplicated in easily available software yet? It isn't like a Emulator II or something which had analog filters that would be hard to perfectly duplicate, as far as I understand the Fairlight is just a sampler (maybe the DAC on the Fairlight is top notch, but I imagine that the DAC on a modern DAW setup is comparable... and I imagine a lot of people go from DAW straight to digital mastering straight to CD duplication nowadays, and never leaves the digital domain until it enters the CD player).
I don't even know of anyone who has really did a lot of work on a Fairlight. They weren't exactly common in their day, and are rare nowadays. I would suspect that most Fairlight admirers (myself included), have never used a Fairlight. Not that I wouldn't own one myself, if I had the money. I just wonder if a Fairlight is like owning a Lamborgini, or if there is a real use for them that justifies the price?
A Fairlight and a Synclavier? He must have told Stevie Wonder he was gonna paint the studio and made off with all his stuff.
Failight, Syncalvier and a ... Synsonics drum machine by Mattel.
http://www.play-industries.com/img/playindustries_studio1c_lg.jpg
that's the second time I've seen one of those crop up in a porno.
those things were sub-terrible, is it an in-joke?
red rhino, what you say could also be said of something like an Akai MPC (ie: that computers make it obsolete), but, like the mpc, the fairlight, especially the early ones, have a unique sound, and the sequencer has a vibe too. it's hardly a secret weapon, but it has its value to some.
all that gear and all they have for monitoring are ns-10's?
The Fairlight has a distinguishable sound... and folks rave about the PPG whose sound is equally unique/distinguishable. This guy owning 3 - that is just wrong.
The MPC is not past-tense only the 60. And unlike the Fairlight... it is omnipresent.
I’ll go ya one better on the Mattel drums juxtaposition: I once recorded a movie soundtrack by playing a Fairlight Series III from an Ensoniq ESQ-1. (I really didn't like the feel of the Fairlight keyboard. On another session, I watched a player snap a key while recording.)
The studio where I worked was a Fairlight importer and at one point cobbled together a crazy system out of multiple parts. It was so unstable that I’d have to play a few notes, stop the multitrack, reboot the Fairlight, and then punch in a few more notes. The sound *was* cool, though — certainly better than anything I could afford. In fact, my ESQ-1 still has a Fairlight nameplate glued to it.
Because of this thread, I just listened to a couple albums that I heard made extensive use of a Fairlight (Ministry's "A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste", and B-52's "Bouncing off Satellites" the first two tracks being done ENTIRELY on Fairlight in fact). It doesn't sound any different that if you sequenced it on any other sampler (The B-52s track done entirely on the Fairlight have a kind of thin anemic sound to them, missing a lot of bass... but the Ministry record doesn't have that same bass-less sound and so I am pretty sure that is just how the songs were EQed on that specific record).
If the Fairlight has a specific "sound" to it, it certainly is lost on CD.
Not so much a "sound," as a sample is a sample. The thing about the Fairlight is Page R, the sequencer. That has a particular feel to it that you can hear a million miles away if you know what you're listening for. "Mind" was sequenced with Opcode's Vision. Don't know about the B52 record.
-CR
yes, Page R is the MPC-like factor here in that it has its own feel.
the 8 bit fairlight I certainly does have a sound
whether one prefers it to the mirage is a subjective question .... ;)
i have a friend who owns Fairlight I, II, and III. he turned down a swap for a U47, so I guess the Fairlight vibe must be worth something!
all that room is missing is a mattress on the floor to be perfect
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