[music-dsp] [OT] vinyl? No, thanks...

[Dave Hoskins]

> ;)
>
> Btw, it's not that big of an issue at all. I just wasn't buying that 
> recordings from the days of fairlight are actually 12 bit.
>
> Sometimes I wonder why I often think that the fairlight and the synclavier 
> were the most intriguing digital systems ever made. But of course, if you 
> need 100k to get an instrument or a at least a big budget to use those 
> machines, probably the rest of your studio is not that bad either. And 
> then, all that was digital was new and wild.
>
> I buy every release that is worth it on vinyl, if available.
>
> Vinyl? Yes, please..., with pleasure.
>
> c
>
> btw. i would definitely prefer a Fairlight CMI to any actual workstation, 
> but this is an emotional response with a lot of nostalgia in it.

Apparently they are re-launching it:-
http://www.fairlightinstruments.com.au/index.html

An interesting cut from that site:-

"The reason for this is that the CMI's unique sound was the result of the 
limitations of the technology of the eighties.  A-D and D-A converters were 
very primitive by today's standards - the 1979 model CMI used eight bit 
audio, and even the top-notch Series III used only 16 bits (which performed 
more like 14 bits in reality).  The variable pitch of the sample playback 
was generated by very crude hardware which approximated the pitch but 
introduced significant artifacts. To compensate for the noise and distortion 
introduced into the samples, we used analogue low-pass tracking filters. The 
"tracking" involved dynamically setting the cuttoff frequency to just above 
the note being played.
The end result was a complex set of colourations which made the CMI sound so 
distinctive.  To make it even more interesting, because of the large amount 
of analogue circuitry involved, the sound of each channel was subtly 
different, and these differences were quite variable and unpredictable.
The Fairlight 30A will use the Crystal Core engine to faithfully reproduce 
all these acoustic quirks. Thanks to this use of programmable "virtual 
hardware", each channel will have its own "randomness" which gives the 
combined output the rich analogue CMI sound."


And it had approx. 20,000 components in the thing!
Dave.