Fairlight Instruments has announced that it is changing its name, in anticipation of the release of new products.
The new name, Peter Vogel Instruments, reflects the company’s transition from building on the past to inventing the future.
Vogel says:
I am delighted to announce that we will be unveiling some amazing new products over the coming year, under the new brand. These are now in development and all I will say is that we are working hard to make the new products accessible to the average musician, unlike the Fairlight CMI which back in 1979 cost more than the average house.
The CMI-30A, which we released last year as an homage to the original Fairlight CMI, will continue to be our prestige flagship product. A major upgrade now in the works will become available later this year to existing 30A owners free of charge.
The iOS app has been rebranded and has been withdrawn from the app store pending Apple’s approval. Existing app owners will see an update offered shortly. In response to customer requests, significant new functionality is being developed for release as a free update later this year.
We are also developing an entirely new keyboard product, quite unlike anything previously made by Fairlight — or anyone else.
All will be revealed at NAMM in 2013.
The company has also has a new Web address, http://petervogelinstruments.com.au/.
Let us know if you’ve got thoughts on the new name, the announced updates or the promised new Vogel synthesizer!
I wish them well. Their website has an interesting “history” page. Here is something they say about their current goals:
*
We are not planning to compete with the multitude of soft synths, samplers, and MIDI sequencers that are presently available. Those products generally do what they do extremely well and are the result of millions of dollars of R&D. The new CMIs are unique in that they produce the classic “Fairlight sound” (the sound that defined music of the eighties as well as the modern Fairlight sound) — that of uncompromising signal purity.
Both these extremes are made possible by the extraordinary processing power of the Crystal Core engine, which outperforms audio software running on a conventional processor, no matter how fast and how many cores. We have yet to discover the limits of the Crystal Core as a musical instrument, but thanks to its massively parallel architecture, it can deliver hundreds of tracks of sample playback without any degradation of audio quality with latency measured in microsends. To get some inkling of what is possible, see the specifications page.
*
Dedicated hardware is great. Programmers may remember LISP machines, computers dedicated to running one particular language. But in almost every example I can think of, dedicated hardware–no matter how good–is always beaten out in the market by general purpose hardware that is “good enough.”
I wish this company well. Along with Moog, the Fairlight was the machine I used to see everyone talking about in interviews. It’s nice to see the past still sticking around, still putting up a fight.
Huge admirer of Peter Vogel. I might make that particular NAMM show my first.
I like my Fairlight app the way it is minus the bugs. I even like the icon the way it is. I hope this update don’t piss me off.
“and are the result of millions of dollars of R&D. ”
I’m sure that will be news to dozens of developers…
Here, i’ve an idea. Lets rebrand ‘Coke’ as ‘Muhtar Kent’. He’s the President and Chief Executive officer of Coca Cola. I know we’ve lived with the name our whole lives, but thats cool, because it “reflects the company’s transition from building on the past to inventing the future.”
What? Peter Vogel vs Fairlight? Are they serious? This is utterly ridiculous. Dave Smith was forced to use a new name for his Company because Yamaha wouldn’t give him permission to re-use Sequential Circuits. Bob Moog had to use Big Briar until he re-aquired the rights to the Moog name. But this Vogel guy willingly changes his company name from the awe inspiring ‘Fairlight’ to ‘Peter Vogel’?
Like many execptionally bright people i’ve come across in my life, this man displays astonishing stupidity.
I give massive props to this guy and what the Fairlight achieved. But I think he’s in some very dangerous territory here where he is going to have to deliver something really, really good and make it accessible, or the whole thing could become a joke. You can’t brag about having amazing stuff that’s far better than everyone else and then show up with the same thing everyone else has. People wise up pretty quickly. That being said, i truly hope he does blow us all away with something.
Whatever he releases better be amazing because my desire to buy it would have been greatly enhanced by it having ‘Fairlight’ written across the back, rather than ‘Peter Vogel’. Is it any wonder this many was MIA for 20 years?
It don’t have to be any better than anyone else. I don’t care about the name, and if its not a Fairlight, it can be called a Vogel. It sounds good and unique too, and I don’t give a shit how the name sounds.
Fairlight just sounds better. And it has this special meaning. I’m not sure whether or not this was a wise decision.
Ah, but you don’t know what the new synth will be called. Hint: it won’t be Vogel!
A Voter? Voter Pegel?
Why the change?
If Dave Smith can do it, though, I don’t see why Vogel can’t. It seems like more and more of the old school guys are going this way.
Dave Smith didn’t choose to do it, he had no choice. This guy is choosing to ditch a name with huge history that has become part of popular music legend for a name that no one knows. He even has his bloody face in the logo. Egotistical?
Own name is good name for a synthesizer. Its not easy to rob some ones name and claim rights for it…I guess.
Bob Moog would have disagreed with that…
That came to my mind, when I pressed submit.
A FairLITE at a $2k-3k pricepoint would be super awesome. 61 keys, built the size of a conventional synth, running some stripped-down CMI30A engine, with a decent Display (or,even better, a port for plugging an iPad as display), extensive MIDI control (14 bit! no less!!!), maybe some flashy wooden sidepanels. Now that would really make me think about sending ALL my money to Mr. Oberheim for what must be the greatest New Analog synth ever: the 2-Voice.
i don´t doubt the historical importance of the fairlight but the app is the worst 50€ i´ve ever spent.
i found it also a bit tasteless that alot the missing functions are just excused as a “true fairlight experience”.
scraping the name of a coveted piece of history and a known brand seems like a suicide but hey…it´s his business.
Peter has managed to ruin the Fairlight brand. This name change is the final nail in the coffin.
R.I.P Fairlight!
Let’s give the guy the benefit of the doubt and see what he comes up with at NAMM.
Nobody believed he could do a new version of the Fairlight when it was announced, but he delivered it.
Love the logo!
Look: it’s his business and his legacy and he can treat it however he sees fit. If he’s “ruining the Fairlight brand” he’s free to do so because he’s the guy who built it. Many have dismissed the 30A as overpriced nostalgia but there’s some interesting tech on display – check out Peter’s YouTube video on the 30A’s real-time effects – and hope that some of that voodoo trickles down to the CMI app for iOS.
Hopefully the new iteration of CMI Pro for iOS will be more affordable – $50.00 is too rich for me – and will eliminate the novelty elements (the power switch gimmick at start up and the disk noises) for a professional workflow. Priced appropriately I’d be among the first to buy into the new brand.
As for the name Peter Vogel Instruments? Well, PVI CMI has a nice ring to it.
No real demo of the 30a still. Only small portions of audio that might as well be coming from a computer sound card. Even a badly recorded IIx sounds amazing.
Come on Peter, how hard is it to sample some sounds and get someone to show how it really sounds. I want to like the 30a but after waiting for a decent demo and getting burned $50 for a crap app I’m going to vintage. Comparing ‘bad’ recordings of both the 30a and series II I’m going with the II.