Fairlight CMI Series IIx

The Fairlight CMI Series IIx is a digital sampling synthesizer and workstation - it is an upgrade of the Fairlight CMI Series II, with added Page R function.

Peter Gabriel upgraded from the Series I Fairlight to a Series IIx (or a Series II as some reports vary). He used the Series II (or IIx) a lot for textural purposes on the So album. When he got the Series III, he kept the Series II for it had some sounds the Series III didn't.

Quotes on the Fairlight CMI Series IIx
Peter Gabriel on the Page R function: "'The thing that is really interesting is that if I perform on the Fairlight's Page R sequencer, where I'm pulling everything into note by note detail... if I construct a performance using a computer in a cold, analytical way, where I'm looking at it note by note under a microscope, a different feeling will emerge than if I just press the red light for record, either on a computer or a tape machine, and just have to respond instantaneously or at least perform in real time. Now, that energy is something very special and magical and is something that I want the huge leaps in computer technology to incorporate to the full. I think that the way you can do that is by this concept of the layered performance. You can record one performance which you can perhaps correct - this is equivalent to forming your own piano roll on the Pianola. In the second performance you use the keyboard, not as a music producer, but as a control centre for several parameters - perhaps volume and vibrato. On the next one perhaps you have a mixture of 12 different sounds and you could have the melody line, which you have just programmed, generated on any combination of those 12 constituent instruments. Suddenly this thing, instead of being just one sound, becomes something over which you have control. You're moving closer in in hierarchical control. But I always want to work in red light mode. You act as a conductor because a conductor is a performer, the orchestra speaks through him.'"