Pearl “Fightman” FM-8 Electronic Drum Synth SN 170031

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"PEARL FM-8 FIGHTMAN Electronic Drum controller/ synthesizer

Note this does not have any sequencing capabilities.

It is a drum synth aka drum brain.

"This is a fully working very rare Pearl FM-8 Fightman Analog Drum Synthesizer. I believe it was made before the Syncussion. A great piece of 80’s tech!

The closest machine that resembles it in my opinion is a Roland TR-606, except the Fightman has some very real sounding Toms.

The Hi Hat, Crash, are said to be very Metallic and the Ride is almost like a Synth Tone.

This Drum Synth is very hard to come by. This unit does not have Midi.

The only test I was able to perform was plugging it in and powering it up. The tempo light blinks and changes tempo when you adjust the tempo knob.

Unit measure 13-1/2” x 8” x 3” "

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Pearl FM-8 FightMan 8ch Analog Drum Synthesizer SN 801934

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2nd one in a week. SN 800828 was posted here.

"FM-8 has 8-ch: Kick, Snare, Hi Tom, Low Tom, Floor, Hi Hat, Crash, Ride.
But this unit does not sound SNARE ch.
This unit does not come with connector cables for DRUMS IN and CYM IN.
You need these connector cables to trigger sounds."

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Pearl FM-8 FightMan SN 800828

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"FM-8 has 8-ch: Kick, Snare, Hi Tom, Low Tom, Floor, Hi Hat, Crash, Ride.

This unt does not come with connecter cables."

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Pearl Fightman vs Beastep Pro

Published on Apr 30, 2018 Joel Braverman

"Using gate / Ties on BSP’s Seq1 to control Hi Hats brings full control of ancient Pearl Fightman drum brain’s HiHats to reality - jam with Crazy 8 sequencer driving two Anyware Minisizer nano-modulars and providing clock"

Baseck Jamming with a Rare Pearl Fightman FM8

jus some ol fashion rock n roll! pearl fightman fm8 analog drum brain. @matrixsynth Have any idea when these were produced? #drummachine pic.twitter.com/OUQ9AaxHD6

— BASECK (@baseck) June 29, 2017

There have only been four previous posts to this one featuring the Pearl Fightman FM8. Anyone know when these were produced? Wikipedia doesn't even mention the Fightman FM8.

Update via Atomic Shadow:

"I bought a brand new Pearl Fightman drum set in 1984, just before my son was born. It cost $400.00. It had 5 identical 10 inch trigger pads with black, Remo drum heads. The sides of the pads were blue and the stands that came with it were crap. The sound module had one, sampled sound for the toms, bass, snare, hit, cymbals, etc. The adjustments were very basic. Pitch, sustain, volume. That's about it."

Pearl Fightman FM-8 Rare Analog Drum Synth

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Note this does not have any sequencing capabilities.  It is a drum synth aka drum brain.

"This is a fully working very rare Pearl FM-8 Fightman Analog Drum Machine/Synthesizer. I believe it was made before the Syncussion. The closest machine that resembles it in my opinion is a Roland TR-606, except the Fightman has some very real sounding Toms. The Hi Hat, Crash, are very Metallic and the Ride is almost like a Synth Tone, it's beautiful!

This Drum Synth is very hard to come by, trust me.

This unit does not have Midi.

I will include 2 homemade adapters that have 3.5mm inputs so this can be triggered with a trigger sequencer like a Beststep pro, or Modular Synth."

You can find a video of one posted here.

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Rare Silver Pearl Fightman FM-8 Vintage Analog Drum Synth Module SN 801323

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Pearl Fightman Analog Drum Synth Demo

YouTube Uploaded by zibbybone on Jun 17, 2011

"Just picked this guy up the other day. The 'skinned' drum sounds (kick, snare and toms) are not the greatest sounding, but I do think the cymbals (hat, ride and crash) are interesting. Interfacing the synth is interesting: there are 2 sets of cables (1 for drums and 1 for cymbals) that plug into the top rear which would then (normally) go to drum pads (with RCA phono jacks). I'm using my trusty Analogue Solutions Europa sequencer to program a simple pattern. Since the Europa only has 7 trigger outs, I elected to leave out the low rack tom since the high rack and floor tom would have the widest stereo seperation. There is also a cable for closing the hi hat and I have no way to interface that (maybe someday I'll find a deal on a SDS6). After getting every sound into the pattern, I then tweak the tuning and decay on individual sounds. This unit does not have individual outs, only a stereo output. I forgot to demonstrate the built-in metronome, but there's really nothing special about it."

Pearl Fightman FM-8

Don't know much about this unit other than I believe it is analog. It came up on Ah, with someone asking for more info. If you know more please post in the comments and I'll update this post.

Update via Ross, the person who sent this to the AH list and the owner of one:

"It sounds analog and not quite like anything else analog that I've
heard. Better than a cheesy drum machine but not pristine analog like
a Tr-808. It sounds sort of like very early Kraftwerk type drums
(autobahn or earlier); noisy and minimal."

via