Wake up guys...

[Noplan]

Thanks for all the feedback, warms my heart. I am aware that it might stink a bit pushing for the product like this, for certain people, but I don't always know which gear to use when I am driving in the roughtrade communication landscapes with my very swedish 44 year old Volvo 4x4, hand painted with a roller in black. You know - it's not always easy. I might ask Propellerhead for a public comment on what to explain to those wishing to find my products in the Propshop, unfortunately it's not possible for me to be there currently.

Thanks for sharing your tragic background. I forgive you.

[mguh22]

Bitley,

The sounds in your product are of exceptional quality, but your website and especially the jpg graphics attached to each Combinator in the ReFill do not look high-end enough. This does affect people's purchasing chance when watching YouTube videos and also perhaps subconsciously can affect their enjoyment of the product.

You should aim to match the graphic design/aesthetic that Propellerhead themselves have in their website, the new skin that Reason 8/9 has and the graphics they get on their Rack Extensions. Good colours, good textures and good fonts. Clean, vintage-contemporary design; regardless of the classic sound content.

Your sound is every bit as good as these other professional products, but the overall appearance/marketing/advertising level is where your products currently falter. You need to look less Windows XP and more MacOS Sierra

The UVi Darklight IIx is a great example of the kind of approach necessary.

I hope that helps.
Best wishes.

[stratatonic]

Thanks for all the feedback, warms my heart. I am aware that it might stink a bit pushing for the product like this, for certain people, but I don't always know which gear to use when I am driving in the roughtrade communication landscapes with my very swedish 44 year old Volvo 4x4, hand painted with a roller in black. You know - it's not always easy. I might ask Propellerhead for a public comment on what to explain to those wishing to find my products in the Propshop, unfortunately it's not possible for me to be there currently.

Thanks for sharing your tragic background. I forgive you.

Tragic?
He has a 4x4.
I'm riding public transit.

--

And here's my 2c worth:
Talk to Jiggery Pokery and turn this thing into RE. He saw the light and his organ is extension now. His refills have been turned into Rack Extensions.
If there is zero money in refills, better a few shekels even if you have Props take a cut. I'm sure you know this all by now. You won't see Props making more refills either.
NObody under the age of 50 knows what the hell a Fairlight is either, so best to continue marketing as an 80s thing. I took a quick glance at the hiphop vid: nice enough tune, but the sounds he used from the refill were pretty generic. They certainly didn't make the song stand out in any way.

So make an RE. Sell some units.
And in a few years start a thread stating that it's NOT a Rack Extension.

[selig]

Patrick: At the risk of me sounding like a broken record, PLEASE consider making AT LEAST a CMI RE. I'm a huge fan of the original CMI, and so far your ReFill is the only game in town for using these classic sounds…

Why an RE? I can't imagine using a Mellotron Combinator and having the necessary control compared to how well designed Re-Tron is, as but one example. For that matter, imagine ANY popular synth/sampler with only four knobs - Even the NN-XT when folded has SEVEN knobs (and THREE wheels), and that's just enough to do minor tweaks IMO.

Also, let's not get stuck in the mentality of using 80s instruments only for 80s sounding music. Take the Roland 808, released in 1980 - do tracks featuring the kick "sound 80s" to anyone? OK, maybe 90s, but you get the idea. It's STILL a popular sound today, so it's up to producers being creative - don't blame a lack of creativity on the "sound"…

[OldGoat]

Was an instant buy for me (on saturday) after I saw that the price is currently dropped to 55$ (Summer Sales).
Bitley: Perhaps you should promote this sale here a little more...(create a thread that contains these information in its title/first post).

Just for your information: I do not like 80s music (except early Slayer/Metallica/Beastie Boys...), 80s-Synth is something that I run away from in most cases like Europe's Final Countdown...but WBF can do so much more...

What also could be done:

Let's make a contest (like the ones we have here for REs from time to time).
I think that a lot of users of this forum would participate even if there is nothing to win, and you would get some more examples of what can be done with WBF...

[stratatonic]

Patrick: At the risk of me sounding like a broken record, PLEASE consider making AT LEAST a CMI RE. I'm a huge fan of the original CMI, and so far your ReFill is the only game in town for using these classic sounds…

And here's one of your over 50 market.

I can't imagine using a Mellotron Combinator and having the necessary control compared to how well designed Re-Tron is, as but one example. For that matter, imagine ANY popular synth/sampler with only four knobs - Even the NN-XT when folded has SEVEN knobs (and THREE wheels), and that's just enough to do minor tweaks IMO.

Added functionality is always good! And you'd likely sell some units to folks who have ALREADY bought one of your Refills, because of that.

, let's not get stuck in the mentality of using 80s instruments only for 80s sounding music. Take the Roland 808, released in 1980 - do tracks featuring the kick "sound 80s" to anyone? OK, maybe 90s, but you get the idea. It's STILL a popular sound today, so it's up to producers being creative - don't blame a lack of creativity on the "sound"…

Still think the focus should be 80s music. Why not? Like your example above, the added control of the RE will give a potential buyer the perception that it can be used for something more than 80s type music. Yes, it is up the the producer being creative with the tools given. And can morph any sound into whatever they want.
But you have to market it as a 80s Fairlight. Apparently the name has mystique and prestige for many in that era.

[selig]

Patrick: At the risk of me sounding like a broken record, PLEASE consider making AT LEAST a CMI RE. I'm a huge fan of the original CMI, and so far your ReFill is the only game in town for using these classic sounds…

And here's one of your over 50 market.

I can't imagine using a Mellotron Combinator and having the necessary control compared to how well designed Re-Tron is, as but one example. For that matter, imagine ANY popular synth/sampler with only four knobs - Even the NN-XT when folded has SEVEN knobs (and THREE wheels), and that's just enough to do minor tweaks IMO.

Added functionality is always good! And you'd likely sell some units to folks who have ALREADY bought one of your Refills, because of that.

, let's not get stuck in the mentality of using 80s instruments only for 80s sounding music. Take the Roland 808, released in 1980 - do tracks featuring the kick "sound 80s" to anyone? OK, maybe 90s, but you get the idea. It's STILL a popular sound today, so it's up to producers being creative - don't blame a lack of creativity on the "sound"…

Still think the focus should be 80s music. Why not? Like your example above, the added control of the RE will give a potential buyer the perception that it can be used for something more than 80s type music. Yes, it is up the the producer being creative with the tools given. And can morph any sound into whatever they want.
But you have to market it as a 80s Fairlight. Apparently the name has mystique and prestige for many in that era.

Again, let's not get stuck there - and in saying that, I'm certainly not meaning to imply one should NOT market an 80s iconic instrument to the 80s fans! Only pointing out that for those UNDER 50, or those who weren't so lucky as I was to spend my formative years behind the green screen day and night, there IS life after the 80s for these iconic instruments…missing this is to miss a chuck of your potential market IMO.

[bitley]

Well I am well under 50 and I know a fairly light deal of things

[jonheal]

50. I remember that. I think ...

[bitley]

But seriously; Nobody creating electronic music can be unaware of the Fairlight. Without it we perhaps even wouldn't have Reason. Fairlight was the first sampling instrument and its sounds were first used by Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush, etc. You can read some Fairlight history, perhaps on my so called OLDSKOOL website. Updated as late as just a few days ago.

[adfielding]

Thing is, this is a world apart from a refill. Refills normally take five hours to make, contain 50-100 patches and doesn't allow for much tweaking.

I really like your Refills, but... while it's been a good while since I worked on a commercial Refill, I always put a lot of effort into everything I put out. This is a really, really insulting statement. I like your Refills but please don't slag off other people to promote yourself. At the very least, it's unbecoming of you. There's a lot of stuff in this thread I don't agree with, but that takes the biscuit.

Anyway. That aside - WBF is a cracking Refill. I used it pretty much exclusively when I needed a fun project to work on, and I ended up with an album that people seemed to dig. Which is funny, because I never intended to release it, but after leaving it alone for about a year and a half I realised I was actually really happy with how it turned out.

All I'll say is... if you need a break from the norm, a combination of WBF/FL Platinum, Reason, and a laptop are great for that.

[selig]

But seriously; Nobody creating electronic music can be unaware of the Fairlight. Without it we perhaps even wouldn't have Reason. Fairlight was the first sampling instrument and its sounds were first used by Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush, etc. You can read some Fairlight history, perhaps on my so called OLDSKOOL website. Updated as late as just a few days ago.

I disagree that the CMI spawned Reason in any way, direct or indirect (not sure what you're basing this on, since Reason is hardly based on sampling technology - maybe I'm missing some behind the scenes relationship that you are privy to?)
Technically the CMI is not even the first sampling instrument (that credit belongs to the Melodian IIRC), but it IS the first polyphonic sampling instrument. And of course, I owe a LOT to the CMI myself, so I'm not slagging it off in ANY way!

[selig]

Thing is, this is a world apart from a refill. Refills normally take five hours to make, contain 50-100 patches and doesn't allow for much tweaking.

I really like your Refills, but... while it's been a good while since I worked on a commercial Refill, I always put a lot of effort into everything I put out. This is a really, really insulting statement. I like your Refills but please don't slag off other people to promote yourself. At the very least, it's unbecoming of you. There's a lot of stuff in this thread I don't agree with, but that takes the biscuit.

Anyway. That aside - WBF is a cracking Refill. I used it pretty much exclusively when I needed a fun project to work on, and I ended up with an album that people seemed to dig. Which is funny, because I never intended to release it, but after leaving it alone for about a year and a half I realised I was actually really happy with how it turned out.

All I'll say is... if you need a break from the norm, a combination of WBF/FL Platinum, Reason, and a laptop are great for that.

Maybe what he is saying is that HE spends five hours on a ReFill, which is why this ReFill is NOT a ReFill? Either way, this is basic marketing hype, so I don't take it personally myself.

And again, this ReFill is FANTASTIC - that's one thing not being argued here (although almost everything else IS).

[tibah]

Thing is, this is a world apart from a refill. Refills normally take five hours to make, contain 50-100 patches and doesn't allow for much tweaking.

I really like your Refills, but... while it's been a good while since I worked on a commercial Refill, I always put a lot of effort into everything I put out. This is a really, really insulting statement. I like your Refills but please don't slag off other people to promote yourself. At the very least, it's unbecoming of you. There's a lot of stuff in this thread I don't agree with, but that takes the biscuit.

I wasn't going to jump into this thread, but I agree with Adam here. The whole thread starts with numerous insults. Including other ReFill developers, Rack Extension developers and Reason users.

My personal "biscuit", if I may use that word, is the "$2000 on Rack Extensions" part. I can't speak for others, but I did spend roughly €1000 on Rack Extensions so far and only 15% of them are even in the same boat to compare them to a ReFill like WBF - instruments. 85% are effects and utilities. Rack Extensions like filters (since I dislike the one from NNXT), Chenille or Polar can all expand the experience one can get from your ReFill, so I don't get why you would semi-hate on the format. Interaction is key in software and because I "could" use something doesn't mean I want do. Overall, ReFills and Rack Extensions make a happy couple in my rack.

Last but not least, there are many more examples of using raw sources and Reason stock devices to tweak and patch new sounds, even for free - http://www.reasontalk.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=7252469

[XysteR]

The refill is great - anyone would get use from it.

I couldn't give a flying-fart what the website looks like - and in reality nobody else should be bothered too. That's down to Bitley to tune for marketing perposes - He could spend a lot of time and money changing it, but someone would still whinge. Just like in music, you can't cater for everyones taste! It's probably more productive to keep full attention on the refill methinks. At the end of the day it's about the sounds - It's the same old shite with Re's when they come out, people hating on the style, colours etc!? I mean honestly, who gives a shite?

One thing I will agree on (and I kind of felt the same when I read it) but couldn't be arsed to bring it up, is the pulling down of Re's. That was a little bit naughty to be honest and has clearly been off-putting for some. I'd choose to keep my Re instruments over any refill I own, any day!

[bitley]

Friends,

There is no hate on Rack extensions, other refills, Reason users, biscuits, Tasmanian dwarfs, uilleann pipes, Kong users, Donkey Kong players or Jazzmatazz records in this thread, no need for anyone to be offended in any way at all; it was just written in a moment of slight frustration, when feeling that the enormous amount of work with this soundbank still hasn't reached out much to the Reason user base at large.

I was perhaps feeling like, um, someone opening a new McDonalds restaurant only to serve just five customers the first day. That guy would call the marketing division and ask if they'd not published any advertisements. He would go out on the street, perhaps go for a little ride in his McDonalds pickup, to see if the signs were visible at all. As I am not running a McDonalds restaurant, I don't have a marketing department and no large signpoints. I just have a small website out there in the universe, and I am just hoping for some google search results pointing my direction. There is a youtube channel and a little cloud on the soundcloud heaven, but sometimes one just can get the feeling of things not being enough. There have been Facebook advertisements of the simplest form, and they have resulted in a 'Like' or two, but still: Aren't there more Reason users? That's the feeling.

Now, from reading all the good comments in this thread, I've started to realize that perhaps I need to change some of the bits in this puzzle. I have often been thinking that a product info & order page shouldn't have too much text, since that wouldn't be attractive to people not much into the english language; japanese visitors perhaps just plays the demos anyway? Who knows!

Anyway: I am greatful for those who have been understanding me, and I am sorry to hear if anyone felt jumped on in any sort of bad way.

I personally started out with synthesizers in 1985, and I felt like I discovered the world when I bought my first issue of Keyboard Magazine in 1987, first week in highscool in a town named Södertälje, where they sold international magazines. Long before internet and all that. I had been programming sounds on my first synthesizers; Casio CZ-101 and Roland Juno 2. But I thought those sounds were very basic and so on. So I started purchasing sound banks on Atari ST disks or even on paper; manually entering all the values into the Juno 2 from a Livewire soundsheet. Suddenly I realized those sounds weren't too exciting either. So I realized I might need a reverb. Or a delay. And a drum machine. I often tell the tale of how I used to beg and cry for a little cash from my dear parents, then go in to Södertälje by commuter train from Gnesta where I grew up, a 30 minute ride, walk from there to Tälje Musik, a musicstore, and rent a Roland TR-626 over the weekends. Armed with the Juno and the 626 I would record sound-on-sound demos on my dad's old Sony TC-366 reel tape recorder from like 1970 or so. The Sony manual described, painfully theoretical, how one should connect the RCA cables in order for the magical sound-on-sound effect. I rummaged my dad's guitar equipment and found his pink Ibanez AD-9, analog delay pedal, and connected that one to my Juno. My dad saw me and said with surprise: "What in the world are you doing, son?". That's how it all started for me... hehe.

In 1989 I worked an entire summer saving up for my first own computer; an Atari 1040 ST. After that, I realized I needed multitimbral synthesizers and the Yamaha TX81Z became the first one. In 1991 I had begun buying, selling and trading synthesizers like mad using the yellow pages, or Gula Tidningen as it was called in Sweden. Gearlist back then; Kawai K4, TX81Z, Matrix 1000, Yamaha RY30, Roland JX8P, Alesis Midiverb III, Roland M120, Korg DW6000... then finally in 1992 I could afford my first sampler; an Akai S700.

After that - a complete BAZUNGA of instruments, samplers, soundbanks, a journey that's been going on ever since then. The search for the perfect sound. I bought sample CDs, I sampled anything that made a sound; stored it all; samplers like EPS 16 Plus, ASR10, S-1000, S-2000, E-5000, Emulator III, Casio FZ-1, etc etc... sometimes I found Fairlight sounds and just WOWed about how cool they were, instantly recognizing Art Of Noise, Pet Shop Boys, Howard Jones and Yazoo sounds.

Now... to the Fairlight... then...



Fairlight always was that magical, mythical, amazing, utterly expensive, utterly secret machine that only guys like the ones above, A-ha and Kraftwerk had access to. And then one day, in late 2009, a friend I chat with starts mentioning that he had one in his studio and just sold and shipped it to France in a specially made giant wooden box. I go like "Nooooo man How Could You Ever!?"... "CASH" he said... hehe, "but I have recorded all of the sounds, including my own ones, I have them on my computer..."... and I start begging like the worst beggar ever, saying that I really would love love love love building a sound bank based on that. It's actually a rainy night and the time is like 21.00 (9 PM) on a friday night. He says "my kid and my wife are having a cold... they are sleeping already..." and I'm like... I don't care man... I care, but you know, I don't care... can I come over? "Now?!" "Yeah?"... hehe. "OK then but we have to be really quiet and we can't use any speakers"... "Sure bro, no problems"... and then I walk about a mile to reach his flat, rain is pouring down and almost nobody is outside. I get up there and we meet for the first time, two synth nerds sneaking around like thiefs there in his flat, "shhh, be quiet!", "Oh... sorry... damn... dropped my shoe!"... then he shows his Fairlight sample collection and I'm just bewildered by the promise of getting access to all this. Armed with the newly burned DVD with all the samples I literally sing in the rain, and dance the way back home.

Then I know a guy who knows Peter Vogel. Founder of the Fairlight CMI, down in Australia, so we contact him asking if maybe we could do something with these sounds if we treat them carefully, and we send a demo of the first built sounds. He replies in a week; "This is actually a very good idea as it will help spreading the information about the Fairlight. We will do something new here and it will take a while, so I think your soundbank can fill up some spots for us, but I don't own the rights myself any longer so you will have to ask the "other" Fairlight as well." So I write to them as well, the ones making the high end standalone DAW and mixing systems. "Oh, cool", they respond, "...we actually love Reason and use it in our demos sometimes so if we could have the old CMI sounds in there it would be a fun addition... Go ahead!"... and suddenly I have the blessing. I also write to the remainings of E-mu Systems, and they also respond in a super positive way; "Your demo sounds great. Feel free to include those sounds". So then a lot of bases are covered for this project to start.

The first version is released in 2010, and it comes with about 400 patches, but none of the factory presets, just "Fairlight inspired" sounds, so people on Propellerheads' User Forum, including Peff, etc, tells me to please add the Fairlight presets too. Then a google journey starts, and I print out several versions of the PDFs people have made on the Fairlight soundbank, covering about 22 8-inch floppy disks with about 10-15 sounds on each. As I have all samples it's basically a work of looping them, fixing start points, cutting them, etc, and I use various tools but not happy with external loop editors I first feel that looping sounds in the NNXT itself actually is faster, so an extremely tedious process begins; a single violin sound can take up to three hours to loop correctly, tweaking, tweaking, tweaking... working days and nights, endlessly, and after like 2-3 months I am able to release the first update, called Supremacy; an addition to Fairlight CMI Legacy.

Six years later... I am still... extremely enthusiastic about the opportunity I got, and I still build sounds, and I still loop them in Reason, but now I loop the waveforms instead, which is much faster and better. So for WBF R2 I actually "resampled" much of the work, using the new fixed waveforms instead, with included looping points, so that it's easier than ever to build new sounds.

The amazing soundbank I am talking about really, is of course the original Fairlight CMI soundbank. It was amazing for real, because it was assembled at Fairlight in Australia, from manually snail-posted 8-inch disks sent from studios mainly in the UK, some sounds are actually sampled by Peter Gabriel himself for instance. I am guessing the CMI was so extremely expensive, even for guys like him, that contributing to the disk library perhaps gave price reductions or other benefits. One such disk, sent from France, I believe, featured the all time classic Sararr sound, the one you'll hear playing the main melody in Art Of Noise's legendary Moments In Love;

For the one into this for real, the story behind that sound alone is extremely exciting; it is a sample of a singer named Sara, carefully instructed to "sing like a synthesizer", "with lots of air in your timbre".

These sounds were, in 1982 or 1983 high end sounds only for the high end users lucky enough to even have access to a Fairlight. A system that cost like five new Volvo cars back then, or the equivalent of a luxurious mansion. $200,000 back in 1982 is like how much today? That, is the Fairlight.

The rest is history? I don't know, it lives on for me, I still love that track and all the other tracks people made with these machines.

And I love becoming a part of the Fairlight history in a way, by renewing it, adding to it, keeping it updated.

That's the moment in love from me... I could write a book on this but I would need to do it in my native language... Sorry for any faults in the english...

[avasopht]

Well the frustration definitely came across. I'd just say that I wish the best for your refills and not only are there brilliant suggestions in this thread, there have been brilliant suggestions in the PUF from other users since it first came out.

For example, whenever someone says something like, this doesn't work for me, I don't like the look of XYZ or they list a problem, that might indicate an issue that thousands of others are having that are getting in the way of sales, for instance, QVProd's positive response after seeing the hip-hop demo which seems to have led to an instabuy

I've been using it for urban music since I got it and it's educated me a great deal about patch design so I'm 100% sure this has tremendous value so it seems as you say to just be a marketing issue A shame it doesn't appear on the prop shop, but an IDT device might be the perfect way to market to the masses who frequent the shop. It could just be a small collection of signature sounds suited to a set of genres with a top class demo (and even tutorial, which would get you even more views and purchases).

If anything I'd just like to encourage you with positive vibes. I'm sure you will soon get the HUGE pay off you deserve.

[svenh]

Please allow a question from a guy with moderate synth programming capabilities:

These are samples from old synths, right? How close could you get soundwise with modern VA synths like Thor, Antidote or Predator (and possibly som external fx)?

[ravasb]

I was about to jump on Synclavier, but saw that it just went from $55 to $88. I am sure it is worth it, but I will have to wait for later.

[Exowildebeest]

Please allow a question from a guy with moderate synth programming capabilities:

These are samples from old synths, right? How close could you get soundwise with modern VA synths like Thor, Antidote or Predator (and possibly som external fx)?

[selig]

Interesting about the looping - as an old CMI guy: when I left the studio where I ran the CMI I recorded all the sounds I made myself and all the factory sounds I used on a regular basis. They are all looped. I hope this doesn't sound dismissive in any way whatsoever, but IMO it was super easy to find the original loop points, and would have been detrimental to use looping software to do so IMO. This is because the CMI had a crossfade loop function built in, and most of the samples used that function to create their loop points (at least all of the ones I looped). A crossfade loop cannot easily be re-crossfade looped since some of the data is already repeated in the sample. In other words, one any waveform editor the loop points can be found in a matter of minutes. I don't recall spending more than a few hours looping hundreds of samples because of this.

All this to wonder - did I miss something? Should it have taken me 3 hours to loop a sample? I was extremely happy with the results I got, fwiw. But my goal was to perfectly reproduce the original loops not to create new loops. Now I DO recall a few of the samples didn't have the best loop points, so maybe that's what was going on (I didn't loop the entire library after all). But a great deal of the samples looped almost effortlessly because they already had excellent loops IMO.

Anyway, I always get a little teary-eyed when thinking back on that time of my life - my first full time in-house studio gig, 3 years sitting behind that screen on a daily basis running the very first CMI in Nashville, friends nick-naming me "Mr Green Screens" (Capt Kangaroo reference, a US children's show when I was growing up), and countless memories of Page R and the look on other peoples face when I first gave them the royal your (and played back a sample of their voice)!!!

As I have done before, I want to again thank you Patrick for keeping this instrument alive for us Reason users - it's a dream come true for folks like me to have all these sounds lovingly preserved for our future musical adventures!

[bitley]

Thanks Selig, some samples are trickier, like string / flute trills etc.

[ReasonUser]

I'm sure the pirates won't like this, but have you thought about turning it into a RE? Unfortunately that might be the only way to boost sales.

[bitley]

No plans like that at all. Totally impossible mission.

[tibah]

I wish you nothing but the best bitley, seriously. I have been on Fairlight XXL and upgraded to Platinum shortly afterwards. I had some issues with you, as some of the statements you have made in the past, to me personally, never came true. Everyone out there, trying to jump on me for what I'm about to say, let me be clear, it's a great ReFill, but...

So you get real world criticism and your reaction is to post a picture of the original Fairlight and a wall of text, getting on the personal note of things? You get solutions to your issues, but you keep on ignoring them? You even get them for a guy like Giles who also needed help to materialize his ideas, which could be a way for you? Or expand on the Kontakt market, since you offer that too (I believe Kontakt is a bigger market, but who knows really).

Do you want to promote your products in here in a professional way or do you need some ego boost to keep going or complain about your situation? First it's the best thing ever, beating all REs out there and now it feels like I'm donating to this poor guy. You are a professional sound designer who tries to sell ReFills and you're moaning to people that have regular jobs, kids and probably not even 2h a day for music and are happy about every minute they even can spend in front of Reason, let alone have the budget to afford all the nice goodies floating around.

Do you actually believe you will still sell your ReFill, via dropbox, in 10 years from now? I mean you got to have some plans if you do that for a living right, beside adding more content to that ReFill and spam, and sometimes hurt your own business with your attitude and appearance on here.

Thinking outside of the box, in life, is sometimes the right way. I love your work, seriously. If you believe me or not, that's really up to you. But please...

Wake up.