Simon Trask takes the bull by the horns and previews the latest 16-bit, £60,000 version of the Fairlight CMI. Millionaires have never had it so good, and there's more to come from Australia...

THE ULTIMATE SOFT MACHINE

The Fairlight (in its previous Series II guise) was/is probably the most famous computer musical instrument in the world. Everybody knows the name, but few really know what its true capabilities are. Now there is a new breed of Fairlight, far more powerful and far more sophisticated than the old one ever was - the Series III. Richard Elen takes a look at the mind-boggling potential of this Rolls-Royce of sound sampling/synthesizing machines.

What do one of London's top studios do with a computer room?

Another world first for E&MM: Jim Grant takes us through the creation of a sound without using the CMI's sampling facility.

At last, the CMI frees itself from the constraints of an analogue interface and starts talking MIDI. Paul Wiffen checks out the results.

TechTalk: Kim Ryrie

Second and final part of our interview with Fairlight's co-founder. Simon Trask listens to what he has to say about the future of musical technology.

TechTalk: Kim Ryrie

In an exclusive interview, the co-founder of the Fairlight company and father of the CMI talks about the machine's development, and outlines his plans for the future. Simon Trask pops the questions.

INPUT: computer analysis/Fairlight/Emulator/PPG/Synclavier/edit and compare/explain FILE FOUND: guest reviewer/Tom Dolby... ASSIGN

Second instalment of Jim Grant's five-year mission into the unknown, or what goes on inside the world's most popular computer music tool.

Jim Grant gives an outline of how the Fairlight CMI copes with performance effects.

In the first part of a major new series, Jim Grant attempts the impossible by trying to explain the workings of the Fairlight CMI in terms that mere mortal musicians can understand. In-depth simply isn't the word...

Delving ever further into the Computer Musical Instrument from down-under, Jim Grant samples the delights of Page 9's real-time sequencer.

After a two-month absence, Jim Grant returns to the fold with some notes on CMI waveforms, lightpens and interpolation.

More on Kim Ryrie's CMI, the instrument that started it all, from the pen of Fairlight-user Jim Grant.

Part three, and Jim Grant outlines the basics of sound sampling.

More scintillating graphics displays as our CMI series comes to Page 6. Jim Grant puts the text in between the pictures.