Fairlight: How Australia Changed the Sound of Music (Artsound FM, Canberra)

By Paul Conn

Listen to 'Fairlight: How Australia Changed the Sound of
Music'

Behind this strange claim is a story that started in a Sydney
basement and ended up in recording studios around the world. Along
the way, the sound of music (yes, the way music actually sounds)
was changed.

The best part is that it all started in Australia, just because two
nerdy guys thought they would push the boundaries of technology 40
years ago without ever realising where it would lead.

So what was this Fairlight? Its proper name was the Fairlight
Computer Musical Instrument, or Fairlight CMI for short. As the
pictures show, it was a plain looking computer with a keyboard, big
floppy disks and monitor, but no hard drive or external storage. It
was custom built long before today's mass manufactured personal
computers, laptops, tablets and more. But this dull exterior hid
what it could really do.

It went from that Sydney basement through an amazing set of
circumstances to the recording studios of Stevie Wonder, Peter
Gabriel, Kate Bush, Duran Duran, Tears For Fears, the Pet Shop
Boys, Frankie Goes To Hollywood and literally hundreds of other
musicians. In the end, you could not listen to radio in the late
1980s and not hear the Fairlight's sounds on nearly every
song.

And then, in the 1990s it just disappeared.

Image of Fairlight CMI Synthesiser Image of Fairlight CMI
Synthesiser

'Fairlight: how Australia changed the sound of music' tells the
story of its strange rise, its immense success and its sudden
demise, as well as letting you hear plenty of the sound effects and
music it was used to create.

If you enjoy the Fairlight story and would like to see it in
action, here are some great examples:

Herbie Hancock showing children on a Sesame Street program what the
Fairlight could do (entertaining and clever)

Pet Shop Boys performing Opportunities (Let's Make Lots Of Money)
live in the BBC's Old Grey Whistle Test in 1986, with two
Fairlights in the keyboards array and up on the monitors

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