Peter Vogel Cmi App Reviews

Hi there, Love the app and was having fun composing after the in app upgrade. I later upgraded to the most recent iOS 8.1.3 (12B466) and am now having functionality issues, especially when sampling voices in an instrument as well as in page "R" composition. Entire voice panel Greyson out and gets stuck on one voice.

Keyboard is currently buggy.

A real throwback...but SOOOOOOO expensive for what it does. Ended up deleting this to make room for more useful instruments. Wishing for a refund.

This pocket sized Time Machine is great! You get more uses out of this device the more patient you are. By nature, it's a time consuming tool. (Quicker than the real hardware) If you are ready to take a wild leap into this app's virtual jungle this is for you. If you need instant results try something else, this is the vintage red wine of keyboards/samplers/apps. I fully endorse this -Chris "Frenchie" Smith Record Producer, Austin TX

Want my ten spot back!

This is an app to show the history and to give you a taste of how it worked ( very cool for the 80's) but there is apps out there with up to date technology for less money. A waste of 10 dollars and I don't think the upgrade for another 39 dollars will be worth it either. The sampler is the best part of it but to save the samples you must upgrade.

Page 6???? Why is the pro upgrade I purchased now labeled player?? Unhappy. Very. Please fix it ASAP. I paid for the pro upgrade and it should say pro on my app, not player. That's just lousy.

Plus there are other features missing which renders the version that you pay $10 for a complete ripoff. The "non-pro" version should have been free. And it should be $10 or $15 to get the fully functional pro version. To have to pay $50 for the "pro" version is absurd. I feel the people at Fairlight are being extremely shortsighted and greedy.

You load up the sim, and it feels like sitting down at the keyboard. The buttons click, the background hums, its great. But when I pay $10.00, I expect the full thing. If you think I'm unlocking the full thing for $50.00, you're crazy.

I have the pro version...it's a lot of fun to play with. Although it's fascinating to learn how archaic the original was, I'd rather have an interface that was user friendly than a historically accurate recreation of the original. The sounds are great and I am relieved to be able to hook up to a proper keyboard. The import and export of midi and wav files is a bit retro as well. 4 stars for now - five when I can connect over wifi directly to my DAW.

I bought the $10 app cause I was curious, and I'm sure this is a pretty good emulation. The problem for me is that it emulates something that by today's standards isnt that impressive. The sounds are just ok, nothing near spectacular. Makes me glad that synthesis has come this far. But $40 for the full version is laughable. For another $60 you could have ACE or another modern soft synth that will blow this thing out of the water.

I love using the sounds of the Fairlight, but there are still some major bugs with Page R. When changing patterns in song editor, it often doesn't play the right pattern. If this wasn't the case I would give this app 5 stars.

This should be free, the pro version is comically priced. Also it doesn't seem to be updated for ios 5, mine keeps crashing. Completely inessential.

Really Fairlight? I thought Apple had rigorous standards for the AppStore. This App didn't even finish loading on my new iPad 3 before it crashed in 3-5 seconds. Ridiculous, this better get fixed or I'll ask for my money back.

I think it's fantastic! I just wish there was a VST version.

I've wanted a Fairlight since I was a teenager in the 80s, but back then I had no hope of getting one, given the $40,000 pricetag. In recent years, I've been tempted to buy one off of EBay, but that'd still be about $6000, for an aging piece of hardware that had a reputation for being cranky even when new. Plus, I don't even know how to play music - this is pure nerd lust. So now, thanks to this app and the Pro upgrade, I can effectively have a Fairlight, for just $50. I have new incentive to learn to play, too. If you're a fan of 80s electronic music and artists like Peter Gabriel, Thomas Dolby, Art of Noise, Kate Bush, or Herbie Hancock, it's worth buying. You may recognize some of the samples included, such as TREVHORN, which was used in Yes' Owner Of A Lonely Heart. I'm looking forward to some of the new features they're working on, such as in-app sample recording.

This is nothing more than a crippled demo and a complete waste of money. I didn't realize there was a 'Pro' version when I bought this... At $9.99 I thought I WAS buying the full version. This version is completely crippled and not much can be done with it. The help system is littered with "Pro version only", so much so that it's hard to read any of the help contents.

what a joke,paid for the demo DO not buy

I have yet to actually use it but I can already see that this app is a little overpriced. Sure, the initial purchase is reasonable but the pro version price is unrealistic and shows that fairlight as a company fails to understand the economics of the app store. Bring the expansion down to $10 and I can promise you that your sales will more than make up for the price cut. It's either that or wither on the vine

After downloading the $9.99 version I was not able to open the program. The first page opens and plays a little tune the shuts down and returns to my start screen. Is there a way to fix this ? Really looking forward to play all these great sounds. Thanks..

This app is to remind people how far samplers and synthesizers have come. I could have saved my money and stop looking at a app that is a waste of my time and reminds me that the developer sets the price of the app and price has nothing to do with quality of the app. I am thankful that I purchased the demo (10) and not the full (50). I still wish I would have spent my money elsewhere or given it to a homeless person of something like that. This app is no good. It crashes. the Samples are too short to be of any use. It does not belong on the app store. I wish apple had a fair system for refunds for horrible apps that are way too expensive.

Any keyboard playing nerd who remembers the 80's knows the Fairlight. $50 is a no-brainer for something like this, the hardware cost more than a house in the 80's. However, there are a two things this app needs more of. 1. More Series III sounds. 2. Export to wav file. I wouldn't even mind if there was an option pack for the full S-III library that was a paid option, but come on Peter, don't be stingy! What most reviewers don't appreciate is that the Fairlight was not a modern workstation, nor is this emulation meant to be anything more than reincarnating something old. Fairlights needed proper outboard gear to make it sound great in a mix. GarageBand it is not and never will it be. It's way cool to get to play around with the original interface. It was groundbreaking stuff 25-30 years ago. Like I said, for $50 it was a no brainer. If you've ever lusted after a Fairlight, then this will be worth the trip down memory lane.

I can't get any sound at all on an ipad2

Page R slows down and gets unresponsive at times. While changing octave using the keyboard slider sound dropds out while a song is playing. I have Pro version from day one and I kinda regret buying this. This app has never been fully functional.

This app is a rip off. I even upgraded to the $50 app. It is fun in a nostalgic way, but is weak as a real music making tool. I would stay away and send my money elsewhere.

Great piece of music history on your Ipad. If you're into creating that retro 80s sound this is a must have app. I like this version, but I think I'll get the pro version in a couple weeks to add the xtra features.

When I first turn it on it gives me an audiobus error so it disables it, the first loaded instrument plays fine but then I choose another instrument and D2 on the digital keyboard is the only one that sounds...please fix... Thanks.

I used to have great enthusiasm for the old fairlight and it was a childhood dream to have access to its mystery.That quickly went away after meeting with the company at NAMM and it's president who wasn't very friendly to answer some legit questions.It is my stupidity for even buying this APP when it is clearly for nostalgia and a blatant marketing tool for the company's snobbery mindset and bad PR for an overpriced anniversary model.I feel bad for anyone expecting real support for the 20k anniversary edition over it's lifetime.

I dreamed for years of owning a Fairlight back in the 80s. The $20,000 price seemed insurmountable. Now I have on on my IPhone! I see some people complaining about the price - I guess those people are too young and green behind the ears to understand the value of this app. Those who complain about not enough sounds, they are in there, its just a little hard to find, go to the Disk control page and tap All Voices. Need wav export? Use the headphone output, and record into your workstation!

This is just great. the interface is creative and does everything I want it to. The sounds are hauntingly good and the sequencer produces fine results. I bought the demo and then upgraded to pro and the upgrade has unlocked functionality well. It would be nice if it transformed to a labeled and recognized (i.e. The app is still labeler "player" after upgrade and restart & store will only let me review the lite version) pro version. Also, if I put it on my other iPad, do I download the lite and then upgrade? Well, I just did that and it worked for my other ipad. Those are minor issues, though. I hope the people who deducted stars come back and five star this once they realize that the app store just works this way. Also, I did have one crash. Make that two. Also, allocating voices to instruments needs to be a bit easier or much better explained. Other than that, this is a sheer delight to use. I have seen and heard and used Fairlights and Arps and Kurzweil K250s and Moogs and Rhodes Chromas and crazy Casio CZs and most of the synth and drum apps that are any good (korg ms & strange agency stuff & Nanostudio & etc. So am pretty demanding. This is very well-worth the money and is a professionally useable instrument. The few crashes I had were in edit mode yet it has been stable w/ performance and midi and importing user sounds etc. All I need now is a good Rhodes Chroma app and I'll be all set.

And the silly voltage selector/circuit burn up was cute the 1st couple of times. Now it’s just childish and annoying. There is nothing here even remotely worth $50 Fairlight or no.

Over the past few years, I have been increasingly interested in the Fairlight CMI. I have yet to hear a good emulation of it. I love old digital samplers because of their gritty sound. It's tough to fake that. The sound library you get here is amazing. It sounds just like the CMI. The sequencer is also quite awesome. It looks and feels just like the original. I wish I could have access to an original Fairlight, but this gets me close enough for the $50 it costs for the pro upgrade. Even without the upgrade, there's plenty of functionality. You can still select sounds to use and trigger them from a midi keyboard or sequencer. All you need is the Line 6 midi Mobilizer or the camera connection kit with a midi interface, just like anything else that supports hardware midi on the iPad/iPhone. Overall, this is a wonderful trip into the past that I can take around with me anywhere to make some good old lofi tracks. It's definitely not for everyone, so don't complain if it doesn't work like GarageBand or Beat Maker. It is not meant to be anything like those apps. It is something truly unique.

Abandonware at its finest.

This app needs an update. It worked for a couple of days and now it is stuck on the disk image/loading screen. Each time I launch it, it just shows the disk as if it is loading, but never does.

Worth every red cent ! The CMI is reborn & dare I say "better" ? Yes, still some bugs but hey ! It's the CMI for 50 bucks How can Anyone possibly complain 😋 However, I'd love to see graphical ADSR envelopes ...

The other folks whining about the title post-upgrade should know that Apple doesn't let the app change its name after purchase, but the functionality is still there. In any event, the app itself is fun and nostalgic, and it's great to play with those classic old sounds. However, it's not too hard to get the app to crash. I've probably seen 3 crashes in an hour or so of playing. Scrubbing through a single instrument line on Page R definitely caused one, not too sure about the others. Also good: accepts midi input via the camera connection kit trick, provided you have a suitable low power interface to attach (e.g. Midisport 1x1)

i was thinking it didnt work but i found out it was user error i read the manual then learned the way to program it and find that it very much still is alive and kicking.... i am taking off one star only because the developer website seems to be down. did he die? im praying he is well or the company is well, getting error 500 on google and no such page 404 errors is not comforting for the future of this app. if i were you i would enjoy it now but treat it like a real piece of gear that will eventually stop working, most probably like the originals. unless they build a remodel of the original like Moog and the other modular synth companies. i would say this is a gift, so enjoy it. i listened to Peter Gabriel's album Security and i can now understand how they programmed it for that record. its amazing. kate bush records too.... but if you want bells and whistles and eye candy synth pads stick to garageband. this is nostalgic and for those who want to have that hardware sampler in their palm! Super awesome! It keeps getting better and better with updates with midi, max, legacy support for older non core apps, I'm thinking this is for when you use the Akai keystation, with the usb/lightning adapter. But the real power is reading the manual and finding other fairlight user's to see what songs you can share! I have a E-mu sampler with all the CMI III samples but not as easy access as this app offers! As a sound fx tool and quick goto machine for any sound you might need? It's here! And creating samples on this thing is taken my understanding of the art sampling to a whole new level, as the touch interface is so much more tactile and user friendly than the horrible 90's when programming meant digging pages on a lcd screen! There are other synthetic emulator apps and I have those too! But the cool thing about this app is that it is a sequence music programming tool that actually uses musical notation! And not midi scratches! Finally I feel like I am scoring in real time instead of programming a sequencer! Well music theory students know what I mean! Sibelius this is not but a Fairlight CMI that you can hook up to a 88 key midi controller and soon I am sure will be able to do more midi CC options (as the developer left an open letter for additional features wished for!) In my book this means a golden goose that will continue to lay eggs because I see this app growing doing things the original Fairlight CMI couldn't do. Well it already exports email! The pen or stylus used on the newer iPad Pros might in the future get to even draw 3D waveforms and wave tables! Great Update!

People who upgraded to Pro instead of purchasing the Pro version didn't get the recent update. Web site and support page is dead. This is cool app, but I'm not going to repurchase to get updates. Update - they fixed it so five stars. Thanks!

For $50 this needs app needs basic ADSR, wav export capability and the original Fairlight ability to draw your own waveforms.

Nice Update! but this just over wrote the $39.95 in App purchase that I just bought! And when I tried to download the Pro version, it wanted to charge me again!!! Please Fix This! don't want to pay $50 for this App again!s

Edit: I read some other reviews to see if others had the same experience and found post describing how to access the rest of the soundbanks. It's half-hidden and takes several slow screen changes to get there, but I'm a bit more satisfied with the app now that I have access to some sounds.. adding a couple of stars, but still think the app needs serious improvement - and is overpriced. Original: I am reviewing the $10 demo version of this app. I have used apps with FREE demos that had more functionality than this one. It has only a small handful of sounds to play with. They are not editable. All tracking features are disabled in the demo. I don’t often leave reviews - and have never left a negative one until now - but, I’m really disappointed. Apple needs to do better at filtering BS like this. I don’t doubt the full version is neat. If you really want to work in the Fairlight’s archaic medium, buy the full version. Don’t bother with this waste of a Hamilton. Personally, I’m not about to shell out $50 for an emulation of an outdated, if nostalgic and historically significant, piece of gear.

Why are you guys selling the $the ten $ version and i cant evem make my own song unless i pay 50$$ that is stupi

This is truly an amazing piece of software. C'mon people give the developers a break, your holding $27,000 to $75,000 worth of hardware and software in your hand for $50! Very complicated but I'm getting the hang of it. Thank You!

I hate being the guy that complains about an app because I really love ios music apps, but this app is one I wish I had listened to other reviews on. There is little more to do with this app than tweak the existing few tracks and samples with a few sample loop points and frequency mods. That's it. I get you might want users to buy the upgrade, but I have one suggestion: Limit non-Pro users to 1 single song that can be modified as they please. It's rare that I delete a music composition app, and even more rare that I would delete a 10$ app. But I cannot even really get a few for how laying out a track would feel with CMI pro. Will this type of work flow be too cumbersome for me to actually use in real life? I still don't know after spending 10$... I certainly will not spend another 40$ just to find out. I can say for sure there is no deception going on here with anything as far as the selling of the app and the wording on the App Store page, but it's a different matter when you are actually playing with the app seeing the blunt limitations for yourself. I get that it's nostalgic for some, but for myself it's not... it would be an attempt at creating and tweaking sound in a retro environment for a different perspective on music production. A different interface sometimes changes the way I feel about what I'm doing and leads me to different conclusions,.. this was not the case with CMI. I have no idea if it might or might not be the case unless I shell out another 40$. Again sorry but it has to be said 10$ for a nostalgic interface that plays 2 songs is kind of a rip off. The only app worse is Unity synth, but it's the same idea. My opinion about the cost value of CMI is it should be a 1$ or free app.

Worst $50 I ever spent. This is a toy that I should have read more about. You're paying for a name. This app is an empty shell. Buyer beware.

As excited as I wanted to be about this app, it simply doesn't work on iOS10. Save yourself the time and cash (note - purchased the app and upgraded to the pro). Honestly, this would be completely amazing, if it worked.

Have to give this very well designed and thought out app a Five Star rating. Many thanks to Peter Vogel, and the designers of this app. The legendary Fairlight right on my iPhone and iPad. I use this app all the time for sampling and it is fully MIDI compatible. Additionally, the Pro Upgrade is worth it, expanding the Fairlight library.

This is my second input on this app, as I wanted to talk about the upgrade to the pro-version via in-app purchase. After feeling intrigued, I shelled out the extra $ for the pro version. The number of extra sounds where kind of limited in number, about 110, but at least they are better sampled than the ones that came standard. The rest of the difference is in the sequencer. At first it felt very clumsy, but after a couple hours of playing with it I created my first track. Not only that, but I also learned to edit the samples so they do not pop and click as much. Learning those things has opened possibilities that I surely did not had with the player version. So, with that, and the capability to make your own samples; I upgrade my rating to a 4. Please, read the lower portion for info on the player version. ORIGINAL REVIEW: I was too young to "want" the original Fairlight, but I did enjoyed the music created in it. So, it was such a surprise to see this app on the site. I selected the normal version as I did not want to spend on the pro-version without testing it first. After "burning" the Fairlight twice (stupid mains switches!), I was able to turn it on. Looking at this reminds me of my first computer, a Commodore 64. There are a lot of sounds in here, some great, some quirky and others not so much, but overall, great 80's sounds. There are some things that made me give it only 3 stars. There is no background audio, no network MIDI to utilize it with apps like Genome and a lack of updating from the company. The only way to integrate this app with your audio setup is to plug your MIDI keyboard to the iPad, play something in Fairlight and record on an external device, like another computer DAW or a field recorder. Recording capabilities are on the pro version, but the price is steep for that feature, plus you have to contend on using Page R, which was great long ago, not so now. Having the sounds of Fairlight is awesome, but I wish this version was for the more modern musician, background audio, expanded midi capabilities, a simple one-track recorder, audio/midi copy/paste to other apps. Leave the pro version, with all the quirks, looks and exact mimicking to the hardcore fans of the original equipment.

I was stupid enough to upgrade to the pro version, and what a waste of money that was! The sequencer is nearly impossible to figure out. After a week, I still had nothing sequenced. I realize that this is a retro app and is supposed to replicate the workings of the original CMI, but seriously, the learning curve is so steep on this that whatever end result I might achieve would not be worth the effort. You can't even export the samples to other music apps. This is the most expensive app I've purchased, and also one of the very worst. Music Studio 2 is a thousand times better in every respect.