Re: Yet more about Fairlight

[katefans@chinet.chi.il.us (Chris n Vickie)]

Chris here,

   Jon Drukman quotes me:

>> Yo! katefans@chinet.chi.il.us (Chris n Vickie) raps: 
>>                                                ^^^^ Do not!
>>   I didn't say it did it in real time, Mr. Person. The Fairlight captured
>>one sample in ram at 8-bit quality (allowing for a quick playback to check)
>>and then used a Fast Fourier Transform (which took no little time). FFT
>>breaks a complex waveform into its simple component waveforms. The freqs.
>>of the component waveforms, and their relationships was the only >>information stored.

> Yes, thanks, I know all about FFT.  You are talking about the synthesis
> section of the Fairlight, not the sampling part, which is what made it
> famous.

  No, I am talking about the relationship between them. Pray tell, in
what fashion is a FFT any possible use in synthesis, other than as a
means of waveform analysis? 

>  The orchestra stab on the Art Of Noise was not stored in its component
> harmonics, believe you me. 

   What do you base this opinion on, other than respect for the sound of
the sample? Far better to store component waveforms and reproduce them
via synthesis, than to store them at eight-bit quality.

>>  I'm writing from memory of a three-part series on the Fairlight in
>> Keyboard, so I might be a tiny bit shaky on some details, but I'm quite
>> sure of the basic operation. One piece of proof is the fact that the
>> Series II stored multiple sounds on 8" floppy disks, one of the most
>> inefficient data storage mediums known to human-kind. CP/M formatted
>> 8-inchers were 128k, for Kate's sake!

> You are more than a tiny bit shaky on the details.  I suggest you go
> re-read your Keyboards.

   You read them. I would, but they were all thrown away in the move to
Chi-town. You are welcome to prove me wrong.

>>  Besides, what does "some guy from Sequential" know, anyway?

> Considerably more than you, it appears.  I know the argument by authority
> is a logical fallacy, but I trust his knowledge of the electronic music
> industry more than yours.  Sorry.

   I pre-date commercial digital synths. The studio I used to work at,
when I was but a young snot-nose twerp like yourself, had a Mellotron!
Sequential Circuits! A bunch of young up-starts. I used to spend my lunch
hour playing with an ARP 2500 and an Oberheim 8-voice. Those were _real_
machines! Knobs! Patch cords! Funky sliders! I used to visit the UMKC
Conservatory of Music and paw at the Moog Series III and the Fairlight.

  My knowledge of the electronic music industry is not quite so easily
impuned.

> Jon Drukman (pure acid hell)                    uunet!sco!jondr 
>  jondr@sco.com

                            Chris Williams of
                                Chris'n'Vickie of
                                    katefans@chinet.chi.il.us