Fairlight-CMI

Hi all,

If you look at the pictures I posted of the mainframe, you'll see that this system isn't the late generation of MFX3, its probably the first generation of MFX (i.e seperate rack modules) which has later been upgraded to MFX3, it also has inputs for the music keyboard, printer outputs and the old qwerty/graphics tablet, therefore its CMI capable with the correct card config. I've seen several of these built up as Series 3 machines, in fact when I had a Series 3 mainframe I was looking for this generation rack to swap out the components, but of course they are very rare secondhand. I completely accept this would be a full strip out. As Peter has suggested, it wouldn't be cheap. I've owned several Fairlight systems, and went through the process with Peter, of handing him a REV 6, which was upgraded to Rev 9.34 Wavesuper and eventually Rev 11.39 MFX2. I also bought a late Revision MFX3+ and rebuilt it. On reflection, I probably wouldn't bother going to Rev 11 anyway, given the disk recorder wasn't sample accurate, and the limitation of only having stereo inputs. I guess if I could get the spares, I'd be looking to build a Rev 9 machine. I hoped there would be more Series 3 spares flying about, but understandably, the current end users are sitting  on them. Anyway ,as a result, I may strip ot the MFX hardware, and sell the rack and MFX hardware seperately, otherwise hold on to it and look out for complete Series 3 mainframe and do a swap out. Of course, any more suggestions would be welcome.

Cheers Tony

--- In Fairlight-CMI@yahoogroups.com, "paradyse_james" <paradyse_james@...> wrote:
>
> Yes I confirm
> 
> The 2 motherboards are different also.
> 
> The MFX3+ is a complete different machine. 
> 
> --- In Fairlight-CMI@yahoogroups.com, "horiprod" <horizontal_productions@> wrote:
> >
> > This is a response to Tony's question about "downgrading" an MFX3+
> > 
> > Regarding the conversion, I'd say it wouldn't be worth it, especially since it's an MFX3+ There virtually are no cards which are common to the series III except for the colour graphics card, and possibly the Turbo-SCSI. The MFX3 (non-plus) had some of the old cards, but even then, you'd have to find 8 channel cards, waveform RAM, output modules, router, sampler, and probably have to build an analogue power supply. Far better to look out for an old series III on ebay. Even non-working, they can be fixed up and upgraded..
> > 
> > Hope this helps,
> > 
> > regards,
> > 
> > Peter Wielk
> > 
> > Horizontal Productions in sunny Sydney
> >
>