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Fairlight CMI: The Invention of Modern Sound

In December of 1975 two people in their 20s, Kim Ryrie and Peter Vogel decided to change music forever, forming a home-based company called Fairlight. In their teenage years, both were incredibly interested in electronics, which led to them later developing a revolutionary piece of equipment, the digital synth to rule them all -- Fairlight Computer Musical Instrument or CMI for short.

In 1979, Fairlight set the direction of music development, developing features that are still used in modern music. CMI was the first-ever musical instrument with a sampling feature, of course, one could say there was the Mellotron, which used samples recorded on tape, but you couldn’t really use your own samples without significantly modifying the instrument, potentially damaging it in the process. Sampling, sequencing and the whole idea of a workstation as it is, goes to Fairlight. Who knows what direction music would go without their genius inventions?

Let's compare the modern home music studio with a CMI setup.

Looks very similar, doesn't it? Same two keyboards and PC. With the exception being that CMI had an actual "touch screen" feature. The pen attached to the monitor could be used to navigate its graphical interface. Obviously, the modern setup is much more compact compared to the bulky grey-coloured behemoth that is CMI. But what really is important is that the concept is still the same.

After the groundbreaking invention of CMI, every company tried to outdo each other by creating more compact gear. That's how we got Roland's Juno-60 or Yamaha GS-1. All these early digital synths were kinda pricey, ranging from $4,500 (Juno-60) to a whopping $76,000 (CMI) in today's money.

Today's technological progress has made well-made music equipment more accessible than ever, enabling more people to easily produce music in the comfort of their homes. It's crazy to think, that all the developments we have today were started at home by two Australian guys in their 20s.

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Drum Recording 101

As we all know drums are the key fundamental in most music all around the world. A good-sounding drum section drives the rhythm, propelling the song. On the other hand, poorly recorded drums can make the whole record feel weak and uninteresting. So to bring life into the song you need to make sure to properly track your drum kit.

Before even starting to set up the mics, you need to double-check if your drums sound how you want them to. This includes tunning, damping or maybe even changing the drumheads.

After all the preparations it's time to set up the mics. You have a lot of options on how many mics you can use. There are a couple of recording techniques using just one microphone. With this technique, it's incredibly important to set it up right, if you want to end up with a good-quality recording.

According to The Recording Engineer's Handbook by Bobby Owsinski, using the single mic technique it's crucial to retain balance between all the different drums in the drumkit. To position our single mic the book tells us to use a method called Triangle Setup, by visualising a hypothetical equilateral triangle with the width of the drumkit as the base. Choose your best condenser mic, preferably with a large diaphragm, and place it on the apex of this imaginary triangle, which should be right above the snare. The distance between the snare and the mic should be from ~15 cm (6 inches) to ~30 cm (1 foot).

If you are a lucky owner of at least two mics, you can use Brendan O’Brien’s Method. For that method, the author suggests using AKG D30 on the kick and Telefunken U47 tube microphone as an overhead. If you don't have said mics, you can always find an alternative online. The bass drum mic should be placed not too far away from the drum's outer head, to capture the low-end punch. The overhead mic needs to be approximately 1.5 meters (5 feet) high and 1 meter (3 feet) away from the drumkit. This method will capture the kick drum and the overall sound of the drumkit, ensuring good-quality recording.

Now using these methods, the finished recording should be crisp and easy to mix (which is a whole other world on its own). References:

Owsinski, B. (2005) The Recording Engineer’s Handbook Bobby Owsinski. Boston, MA: Course Technology.

Chapter seven - Single Mic Technique; Two Mic Technique;

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Recording techniques: Magnetic Tape Recording

It's hard to imagine life without a computer these days. Before there was internet or any digital consumer-grade electronics, people used analogue devices for all kinds of entertainment. One of the most popular ways of entertainment was music, which at that time was stored and played back either mechanically or magnetically. At the first stage of the evolution of music recording, there were wax cylinders, which stored all vibrations caused by the sound of the music played onto tiny grooves on a small cylinder made of wax, these recordings were unreliable and quite frankly mostly impractical. Because of these limitations you with your band of highly trained musicians needed to perfectly record the song in one take, which wasn't an easy task, with no editing, splicing or punch-ins, just a straight live performance at its best captured on a small cylindrical object.

Of course, progress doesn't stop. After that, we got a new development in music technology — vinyl records. But let us move on from mechanical playback to a completely new world of magnetic tape recording. The first practical tape machines started as bulky reel-to-reel one-channel mono recorders (invented in Germany in 1935 by a not-so-friendly group of people) [1] and one of the first-ever compositions recorded on these types of machines was a live performance of Debussy's "LA MER" by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under the direction of conductor Arturo Toscanini in June 1935 in Queen's Hall that was later destroyed during World War II [2]. By the late 1940's this technology was upgraded and later commercialized becoming the industry standard in the U.S. studios after 1947 when a famous American folk singer Bing Crosby did the first ever radio broadcast using the tape machine [3].

Around 1975, digital recording started to gain popularity, but advancements in tape recording continued. It had become the fastest way to record music at that time, thanks to recent developments in multitrack technology. But in my opinion, the peak of tape machine evolution is the invention of the so-called "portastudio" created by Tascam (TEAC) in 1979. Tascam model 144 was the first ever portable 4-track recorder designed for everyday users, instantly becoming a hit in the emerging independent music scene, allowing them to record high-quality demos without needing access to a professional recording studio. Even though it was still cheaper and faster than studio time or a professional 4-track machine, when it was first introduced in 1979 its price was a whopping $1,200 which adjusted for inflation would be around $4,800 in 2024. I, myself, am a lucky owner of Tascam model 244 portastudio and I should say I could easily rely on it in the absence of a computer or an audio interface. Of course, I'm not the only one to be recording on a tape machine in 2024, there are still a bunch of artists doing this to this day.

In conclusion, there's much more to the analogue sound than just old cassette tapes, it's a whole vibe, a movement if you will, that might never stop existing, who knows maybe in a 100 years or so there still will be people tinkering around with tape machines.

References: [1] "Magnetic Recording: The First 100 Years" by Eric D. Daniel and C. Denis Mee [2] Vox - Tape recording was introduced 70 years ago today - https://www.vox.com/2016/5/16/11672678/tape-recording-70th-anniversary-jack-mullin [3] Toscanini 1935 - LA MER - Debussy - BBCSO Orch - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-8xjtDNGOc

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Songwriting techniques: The Middle 8

Songwriting is an art form with a lot of different techniques to it, one of which is the middle 8 trick, famous for being used in a lot of popular songs in the 60's. The name comes from its placement in the song structure which tends to be around the middle and its usual length of 8 bars. The best use for it is to get rid of the repetition in the generic verse/chorus structure by introducing a new chord progression and melody, it doesn't necessarily mean that it needs to feature more lyrics, it can also be an instrumental part or a solo and it will still do the same trick. Changes like these keep the listener interested and invested into the song, quoting the BBC article on the middle 8: "...much like a subtle twist in the plot of a novel or movie." [1]

A nice example of the middle 8 can be found in a hit song by The Beatles called "Please Please Me". Just after the chorus, we can hear a quick drum fill played by Ringo Starr before rapidly jumping into the part where John sings “I don’t want to sound complaining, but you know there’s always rain in my heart.” Then George and Paul repeat the last part "in my heart" before the song ascends to its culmination "with you". Lasting exactly 8 bars this section is a great example of the middle 8. Even though the last example features a chorus implemented into the song, it doesn't mean that it's necessary, instead you can just use the middle 8. In another very popular Beatles single "Hey Jude" according to the formal structure [2] there's no chorus, of course you may say that the last part of the song where Paul sings "la-la-la-la" is the chorus, but what it really is, is a coda. After the first two verses there's a part where Paul sings "And any time you feel the pain...", this is the middle 8, and this too is not the chorus of the song, as the lyrics do not repeat in the same part later, instead we get different lyrics which only slightly resemble the part earlier. Like that we have two clear examples on how to use the middle 8, I hope this information will suit you well in your future songwriting ventures.

References: [1] BBC - Songwriting Guides. Writing a song - Middle 8 - https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/soldonsong/guide/song_middle.shtml [2] Formal structure in Beatles Music: [137] "Hey Jude" - https://www.aaronkrerowicz.com/beatles-blog/formal-structure-in-beatles-music-137-hey-jude