Fairlight CMI

The instrument that put the word "sampling" into music. Introduced in 1979, the Fairlight CMI recorded real sounds and played them back from a keyboard, at a price only top studios could pay. What it gave pop was sounds lifted from the world rather than synthesized, played like any other keyboard voice. Its users included Peter Gabriel, Stevie Wonder, Herbie Hancock, Trevor Horn and Jan Hammer, and the glossy, collage-like production of 1980s art-pop owes it a great deal. Every sampler further down the timeline is a cheaper answer to the question the Fairlight asked.