In some of the news I’ve missed in the last couple of days are some unusual announcements. Urs Heckmann can be fairly considered one of the great soft synth designers, with accomplishments like Zebra. His latest, Bazille, like many recent soft synths, is a hybrid: FM synthesis plus phase distortion plus the obligatory subtractive synthesis. In an early teaser video (he apologizes for audio quality), he shows off its modular design. Now, modular routing is something we’ve seen in some form in other recent synths, from Maschine to Future Audio’s Circle. But for Bazille, the layout of the whole synth is clearly set up with rack-style modular routing and free-form patching in mind. There’s definitely some promise here. Oliver Chesler of the utterly brilliant wire to the ear found this first and has some other good thoughts.
The surprise news, though, is that Fairlight may be re-releasing the Fairlight CMI, their original digital sampler. The Fairlight Instruments site teases a “CMI Series 30A (Thirtieth Anniversary) Limited Edition.” Peter Vogel’s CMI, ubiquitous sound of the 80s, established many things we take for granted in computer music. Heck, it even had a light pen. So, too, will the 30A re-release. They’ll make 100 of them, you’ll get WAV import and improved sound quality, and… no, you won’t be able to afford it, though Vogel says it’ll be cheaper than the original. (In other words, it’ll be cheaper to get a new Fairlight than a new Buchla.)
Sonic State scoops the details from the man himself:
More Anniversary Fairlight Details: A little more information from Mr Vogel
Of course, I dream of a successor to the Fairlight CVI, their ground-breaking video instrument.
Alternatively… Synclavier: The Next Generation, anyone?