Peter Gabriel owned the first Fairlight CMI in the UK, and was the first musician here to release an album featuring its sounds. It’s a sound produced by a Fairlight CMI. An entire orchestra at your fingertipsĬan you hear this sweet sound at the beginning of ‘San Jacinto’? It’s not a real marimba. “It’s one of the stars of my collection, and always creates a lot of interest.” 2. “I have been fascinated by the Fairlight from the first time I saw it on television,” says Annie Jamieson, Curator of Sound Technologies. Interestingly, Robin’s Fairlight CMI Series III is one of the first objects specifically acquired for the museum’s new Sound Technologies collection, started in 2016. And so I realised that the best place for the Fairlight was the National Science and Media Museum.” I thought it was a good example of this transition and it could be brought back to life. The best home would be somewhere where people could share its history… The Fairlight is a marker, it marks a seminal moment in the history of electronic music, and technological advances in music in general. “I just thought: there must be a home for this machine. Robin was the founder of music project M, best known for the 1979 hit ‘Pop Muzik’, but he also experimented with the Fairlight on his solo albums.ĭuring an event at the museum last year, he explained his decision to donate his Fairlight: The National Science and Media Museum’s Fairlight was acquired in 2017, and was kindly donated by musician and producer Robin Scott. Back to life again: the story of a museum object New genres like techno and sample-based hip hop were born this way.īut how did the Fairlight work? Was it designed to replace orchestras? To create sound they couldn’t? Was it intended as disruptive tech or as a leisure machine? This exclusive playlist will help you discover one of the most influential musical innovations of the 20th century by listening to the music it helped create. This game-changer opened completely new scenarios of exploration for new and experienced musicians alike. The Fairlight CMI was the first commercially available digital synthesizer with a sampling function, a technology able to digitally reproduce acoustic instruments and sample any sound in the world. In 1979 a new machine hit the music scene-an instrument that claimed to contain all others. Discover its history and influence on pop music through this video playlist. An example of the Fairlight CMI, a groundbreaking synthesizer, is part of our Sound Technologies collection.
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