This man is David Vorhaus. He's the man who, in 1979, sampled a full orchestra playing a short chord into a Fairlight Series I. He was friends with Peter Vogel, and his sample became ORCH5, the most famous preset sound ever. It's this [tiny mp3],an ochestral stab, which was used on dozens of 80s records (and there's more than a hint of ORCH5 in the new Destiny's Child single). In April 2004, Robert Fink, associate professor of Musicology at UCLA, presented a paper called "The Story of ORCH5". He talked about the use of ORCH5 in Afrika Bambaataa's 'Planet Rock' (for which programmer John Robie played an 8-finger chord with the sample). After a while, he concluded that "John Robie’s ORCH5 blasts capture, perhaps by accident, the sad revenant of European classical music in a single digital sound. They are classical ghosts, trapped in the hip-hop machine."
David Vorhaus was in White Noise with Delia Derbyshire. I've never heard them, but judging from the reviews here and here, I'd like to. David owns a VCS3, serial #0001 which is the first ever synth built in Europe. In the pic he's playing his Kaleidophon double bass-inspired synth controller. Read David's story here.
FAIRLIGHT WEEK CONTINUES