The Fairlight synthesizer is possibly most famous for being one of the worlds very first digital samplers.
Those early sounds from 1979 have been immortalized by being added to the NFSA's "Sounds of Australia".
We take sampling for granted these days , but in the 1970's and 80's it was a revolution.
Page 8 is where the sampling magic happens.
Here is the HELP page for page8
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To access page 8 type
P8<return>
To access page 8 help type
H8<return>
To step through the help pages use the ADD & SUB buttons on the keyboard.
Here is a typical view of Page8.
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The sounds are sampled from the rear of the mainframe.
Typing "S <return>" or touching "Sample" will start the sampling process .
After about a second, the display box will show the sampled waveform.
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The Filters
The 2 filters are digitally controlled. They filter out unwanted frequencies.
Their cutoff points are set by Filter Low & Filter High.
The filter circuit uses a CMOS 4051. It takes the form of a switched resistor (SR) filter.
SR filters employ resistors with analog switches to control frequency cutoff.
You will find this circuit on the Master Card.
The Sample Level is a software based volume control. It can be used to attenuate input signals if they are too "loud".
The Sample Rate:
This is the frequency at which the external signal is sampled and then converted. thus determining two aspects of the sample: Bandwidth & Duration
Those early sounds from 1979 have been immortalized by being added to the NFSA's "Sounds of Australia".
We take sampling for granted these days , but in the 1970's and 80's it was a revolution.
Page 8 is where the sampling magic happens.
Here is the HELP page for page8
To access page 8 type
P8<return>
To access page 8 help type
H8<return>
To step through the help pages use the ADD & SUB buttons on the keyboard.
Here is a typical view of Page8.
The sounds are sampled from the rear of the mainframe.
Typing "S <return>" or touching "Sample" will start the sampling process .
After about a second, the display box will show the sampled waveform.
The Filters
The 2 filters are digitally controlled. They filter out unwanted frequencies.
Their cutoff points are set by Filter Low & Filter High.
The filter circuit uses a CMOS 4051. It takes the form of a switched resistor (SR) filter.
SR filters employ resistors with analog switches to control frequency cutoff.
You will find this circuit on the Master Card.
The Sample Level is a software based volume control. It can be used to attenuate input signals if they are too "loud".
The Sample Rate:
This is the frequency at which the external signal is sampled and then converted. thus determining two aspects of the sample: Bandwidth & Duration
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