Long Live The CMI!
Fairlight founder Peter Vogel and Graeme Renaud talk about why the CMI is the thinking musician’s Harley Davidson, and why they brought it back.
17 December 2013
Story: David Corazza
History is littered with electronic instruments that have come and gone. A few have profoundly influenced the way in which music is made and recorded. The Fairlight CMI (Computer Musical Instrument) sampling keyboard can rightfully claim to be such an instrument. I recently spoke with Peter Vogel (the father of the Fairlight CMI, and its 30th anniversary variant — the CMI-30A), and Graeme Renaud of Peter Vogel Instruments.
If you haven’t heard, The CMI-30A is a ‘modernised’ reissue of the fabled Fairlight CMI. For most of the ’80s, the CMI defined the sound of contemporary music. With prices north of $30,000 and sometimes over $100k, it wasn’t for everyone; still, over 300 units were sold during its time. The new CMI-30A costs $20,000, expensive some might say, but much cheaper and more flexible than the original. And only 100 will be made to boot (literally).
AUSSIE INVENTION
A bit of historical context is in order to understand where the CMI-30A came from and why it is so different from everything else today. Back in the late 1970s, electronic instruments were hardly prolific, nor were they extensively used by mainstream musicians. Primarily the province of experimental types, academics, and a few notable musical exceptions (Kraftwerk, Giorgio Moroder, Tangerine Dream et al.), the synthesiser was this amazing device where the user could determine timbre and dynamic behaviour. The act of generating wildly new and interesting musical voices was starting to catch on, and Moog, Korg and Roland thought this was a mighty good thing.
Then, in 1979, two Sydney boys unveiled a machine that forever changed the way music was created. The Fairlight CMI was simply unlike anything that had gone before, it allowed musicians to see their work. Waveforms, fourier transforms, filters, key-maps, etc, all displayed on the CMI’s green CRT screen. For the first time ever, a ‘synthesiser’ seemed friendly. The CMI introduced two other things; the world’s first on screen sequencer (Page R), and a little process called sampling! Though not fully appreciated at the time, their historical impact is undeniable.
Yes, for the first time ever this massive box with two 8-inch floppy drives and a light pen, allowed users to digitally record and manipulate any audio for musical good and evil in glorious 8-bit fidelity. Eight voice polyphony, and 16kB RAM per voice, (no, that’s not a typo), all yours for north of $30,000. Which in 1979 would have easily bought a house in certain parts of Australia.
He bankrolled this hopeless bunch of kids and gave us the keys to a very expensive, well-kitted out studio, and told us to go for it
MUSIC MACHINE
So, with that very brief recap of what the old CMI was, it’s important to understand what the CMI-30A is not! It has no plug-in architecture, it doesn’t record digital multitrack, and it’s not terribly expandable. It is a self contained sampling and sequencing instrument — just like its predecessors.
Many in the music and recording world have scratched their collective heads and wondered why the hell this thing was ever brought to market. Is it purely an exercise in obsolescence and vanity? The forebears of this machine are over three decades old, come on now, surely we have all collectively moved on. Right? Maybe not.
The 30A is an extremely focused machine that eschews the ‘everything but the kitchen sink’ approach to workstations and software. It is made for making music.
For decades, second hand CMIs have been few and far between thanks to their extremely limited production runs (just over 300 in all its years of production — rarer than a Linn LM1). As a consequence, they have commanded high prices, they are rarely seen second hand, and owners are reluctant to sell them because they do what nothing else does. When buying used CMIs, they’re always rated by what celebrity samples come with the machine. I recall a few years ago, looking at a magnificent CMI Series III in Sydney, the seller calmly stated that there were samples from JJ Jeczalic (The Art Of Noise), Pet Shop Boys, and Peter Gabriel, amongst other ’80s icons. So, can owners of the new 30A expect such celebrity sonic goodness?
“We just brought back Thomas Dolby’s machine for exactly that purpose,” said Peter Vogel. “He had it in a shed for years, and the shed had no floor, so the grass had grown up into the series III and we had to machete it out.” Perhaps not surprisingly, given the mythology of the CMI for being over engineered, built like tanks, and built to last, the darn thing worked!
EXISTENTIAL CRISIS
But these days every producer and his dog has a sample library for sale, so the question remains, ‘why does the 30A exist?’ Well, for a number of excellent reasons. Niche demand is one. Many buyers are folk who couldn’t afford a CMI the first time around, and now, the opportunity presents itself to do so at a fraction of the price. Peter has taken advantage of newer, more reliable technology. The processing power in the 30A is vast and its peripherals modern (when was the last time you tried to source new SCSI drives, to say nothing of 8-inch floppies). And it does all this whilst remaining true to the original CMI ethos of being fast, focused and unique. The fact that only 100 will ever be made will be enough for collectors.
Cosmetically, it looks stunning, almost identical to its forebears. There are subtle reminders that this is a contemporary variant of the family tree; the flat LCD screen, the configurable touchpad controller on the keyboard, and the MADI interface all speak of the ‘now’. Other than that though, if you were to walk into a room, glance at the CMI-30A, you would be forgiven for thinking it was a CMI series I or II. Right down to the angle of bevel on the keyboard edges, even the light-pen had an unmistakable weight to it. It’s proudly retro.
Peter: “When we launched it at the NAMM show last year, many people actually got the point of the machine, and some actually shed a tear and cried out, ‘It’s a CMI! Can I actually touch it?’ Then as they played it, they would start to recount stories of how back in the ’80s they fell in love with it and how it changed their musical lives.” It seems to be similar to the effect that the CMI app is having on users. It has sold over 20,000 units now, and although it contains hundreds of classic CMI II and III sounds, the user experience with the 30A is another thing altogether.“Every week or so I get an email from somebody who has rediscovered the memories from their formative years as a band-member or engineer, thanks to the app,” said Peter. Which vindicates the idea of recreating the CMI in full pomp, you just can’t get the same feeling from an application. Unlike software that sits on a computer, the CMI isn’t fighting for the users’ attention. It doesn’t compete with pop-up update reminders, email chimes, or any of the unwelcome interruptions typical of a general purpose computer. Its beauty is its focus and simplicity. No distractions, clear limitations and boundaries. It compels the user to get down to the business of actually making music.
“It’s about that visceral feeling of sitting down with something substantial,” said Peter. “That’s the experience we’re re-creating with the 30A.”
“It’s about an experience that’s becoming harder and harder to find these days as everything shrinks,” added Graeme. “The limitations actually make you be creative, and its something that many people have lost”.
A ‘Fairlight tragic’ (his words, not mine) Peter encountered in Silicon Valley summed it up this way: “When I sit down in front of my Mac, it feels like I’m sitting down in front of a computer, but when I sit down in front of my CMI, I feel like I’m sitting in front of an instrument.”
It made ’80s pop what it is, not the other way around
SOUND OF THE ’80s
And it’s not just a nostalgia for the CMI’s workflow, the sound is undeniably rooted in the ’80s, or perhaps its the other way round.
Graeme: “One of our guys from Italy sent me a composition, and as soon as I started listening to it, I thought — you couldn’t have made that with anything else. Everything that comes out of the CMI has a particular sound: as soon as you hear it, you know. It’s quite remarkable. Everything has a vaguely ’80s pop feel.”
“But it’s logical,” said Peter. “Because it made ’80s pop what it is, not the other way around.”
The buyers so far are predominantly folk who have never had a CMI before. A 50/50 split of amateurs and pros; many are fans who have admired traditional CMI users such as Peter Gabriel, or Kate Bush, and can now indulge themselves.
Overwhelmingly, the professionals who have bought the 30A have done so as a point of differentiation from the mass of computer-based software tools out there. They want to look and sound different from their peers and associates and I cannot think of a more profound way to do this right now. The sounds have always been in demand, and the instrument is one of the rarest ever made. It has presence and gravitas in spades, and make no mistake, it has a tactile authority that few electronic instruments possess.
A SAMPLE OF WHAT’S TO COME
As these things do, the conversation turned to music, and particularly what we feel about music today. Trying hard not to come off like a deleted episode of Grumpy Old Men, I politely offer that I feel there are things missing and that the sheer creativity and excitement of practitioners such as Trevor Horn and Art Of Noise are conspicuous by their absence. I suggest that really interesting and innovative production has generally taken a backseat.
“I agree with you whole heartedly,” trumpeted Graeme. “I think it had something to do with the fact that new ground had been broken; people were actively exploring — it was exciting! And we don’t have that today.”
These days the popular conception of sampling is about emulating existing instruments. But for Peter, “It’s not what sampling is about, it’s about doing things that you couldn’t do before.” History has shown that samplers morphed into ROMplers (playback-only samplers), and now software playback sample libraries are trending into the gigabyte realm. It’s all so beige. Where is the next Tom Ellard dropping mics inside watermelons from his upstairs window?
Graeme: “We’ve completely lost the art of sampling. Nobody is pushing the boundaries. Unfortunately, that’s what happens with technology. A particular technology follows a developmental curve, it’s new, exciting, and lots of people get involved and start to push the boundaries. Then it begins to mature, mainstream applications begin to appear, and people lose interest. It just becomes commonplace; and all of that early excitement and originality disappears. I believe that sampling deserves a renaissance, it wasn’t in the limelight long enough. It’s what’s lacking in everyday life now — everything’s quick, everything’s instantaneous, everything’s achievable. Do you actually have to put effort into something? This is what makes the CMI worth appreciating.”
“It’s not at all intuitive,” added Peter. “It goes against the grain. The modern philosophy is that you should be able to turn on your software, and never look at a manual; but with the 30A you actually have to understand its architecture and how it works. And once you do, your results may surprise you.” For an instrument of its fame and rarity, the manual for the 30A is refreshingly clear and concise; a mere 61 pages including contents, body, FAQs, and epilogue — “Thank you for RTFM.”
“The CMI experience is about a level of integration that you rarely get elsewhere these days,” said Graeme. “Nowadays you have to cobble together bits and pieces of hardware and software, but it never feels like a proper system. There has been very few machines that have ever displayed this sort of integration.” And Graeme should know, he worked for NED, the company behind the iconic and breathtakingly expensive Synclavier.
“It’s designed to be a system,” Peter continued, “with certain capabilities, it’s not designed to be expandable. What you see is what you get, and you get it all the time. It doesn’t demand constant coddling and attention to get it to work. It’s easy to use but hard to break.”
SAY NO MORE
It’s all about recreating the original Fairlight experience, which means nothing without the sound. Graeme proceeds to play an ethereal note or seven, and sonically it actually sounds like a classic CMI, no mistaking it. There are hundreds of sounds bundled in the new library, including classics from the series IIx and III, very nice indeed. Most of the classic CMI control pages are there as well, though MCL (Musical Composition Language) has gone the way of the dodo it seems; but folk who have ever used these beasts will feel right at home with the 30A. Customisation abounds with user-drawable velocity response curves, harmonic manipulation and much, much more. Yes, I know that there are scores of software packages out there that can do sophisticated sound design, but none of them have the immediacy of the CMI. There is an intangible frisson of delight when you use this machine. This is more than nostalgia on my behalf, it is an understanding born of over three decades of using hardware and software. It is an intimate experience with an instrument that is wildly fun to use.
To those of us who ‘get it’ no explanation will be necessary; to those of you who don’t, no explanation will be sufficient.
RESPONSES