Wake up guys...

[joeyluck]

People make music with your ReFills. Many also just futz around with it for nostalgic reasons; like myself. They are iconic sounds. It's fitting for something nostalgic to have a look and interface that is also fitting of that nostalgia.

For instance, folks really enjoy having the Linn Drum in the Reason rack. And a drum machine is the most simple of interfaces. The Fairlight has a very unique, and in-depth interface. One reason (pun intended) that people create music using software is the visual appeal. It's inviting, it inspires, it enhances the experience.

[QVprod]

Well Dave - there are the user demos too... if it is all up to the demo music, well I find that hard to believe.

What i mean is that most people arent producing 80's music so you might want to showcase whats possible. The hiphop demos are a nice start for sure but imho you should have more genres and preferably all on the product page.

BItley, I gotta agree with Dave909. I've known about your refills for years and never bought them because all sound demos were 80's music. I'm sure there are many others in the same boat. Even looking at the user demos on your site, most of that is 80's music as well.

You have a great product, but it's definitely not showcased well. UVI Darklight for example, while their sound demos are mostly 80's as well, there is a bit of sonic variety. Presentation is everything to a customer. It doesn't take much to lose their attention.

My suggestion would be a curated list of demo songs spanning genres to showcase on the Product pages themselves, pretty much the way UVI did it (but you can be much more diverse please). The way it is now, the average person isn't going to think to look for more. They'll hear the 80's sounds (like I did) and think that's it.

[jappe]

My suggestion would be a curated list of demo songs spanning genres to showcase on the Product pages themselves, pretty much the way UVI did it (but you can be much more diverse please). The way it is now, the average person isn't going to think to look for more. They'll hear the 80's sounds (like I did) and think that's it.

Hmm..that could be an interesting project for the reasontalk community; creating a thread per genre to contain tunes using WBF2.
I'm just about to release another pure Bitley tune; I'm afraid it's 80s vibe again, but I'd be happy to try another genre for next tune.

[Libraquaricorn]

I just woke up this morning, brought "Songs from the Big Chair" by Tears For Fears to the car and pulled the trigger on the WBF R2 summer deal just now...

[bitley]

Joeyluck: All combinators are designed, none of them has the default look; it can look like this for instance;

WBF R2 user interface

I'd love to hear more diverse user demo tracks, that's highly welcome, to those of you who have used the sounds in your music, please add the music to this group;



The tracks from Kreek are not so very 80's if I remember correctly

[16BitBear]

Personally I have looked at most Refills as patches or presets. I view WBF2 much like I would a really powerful 'sample-based' instrument in Kontakt. Things like Albion or Emulator II by Rhythmic Robot. These are not just 'patches and presets' they are full blown instruments and synths.

That's one of the main reasons why I want it so badly. It will be like having a Fairlight in my rack.

[bitley]

Then again, I don't hear much 80's in this demo but your mileage may vary

[bitley]

Personally I have looked at most Refills as patches or presets. I view WBF2 much like I would a really powerful 'sample-based' instrument in Kontakt. Things like Albion or Emulator II by Rhythmic Robot. These are not just 'patches and presets' they are full blown instruments and synths.

That's one of the main reasons why I want it so badly. It will be like having a Fairlight in my rack.

Yes, and if you want to create personal & new sounds with it, just do it; you can even share them with us if you want to, I gladly add good user work as signature patches. There are about 6,000 samples to pick from, combine, mix and match. Add new samples, if needed, or create Thor / Malström patches which fits into the concept. There are hundreds of patches for those instruments as well, one of the reasons the refill is always much larger than the Kontakt bank, which is purely sample based.

Oh well, that's 303 posts from me, the magic number is reached, I may perhaps not post anything more

[anko]

i can pretty easily understand your frustration bitley. i discovered wbf (in an earlier incarnation) not that long after discovering reason and have always considered it a just plain stunning resource. all the carefully crafted samples, all the individual instrument patches, all the well though out combinators, the depth and breadth of material here is just amazing.

i agree with others that from a marketing perspective highlighting a broad range of wbf based tracks in different genres might be a good move. also i think that some way of emphasising that there's so much more than just samples in there might be good...

i'm no marketing expert but if you could get those to aspects more up in folks grilles it may help.

i'm also very disappointed for you that these resources aren't featured in the propheads shop! my impression is that there is some sort of politics there. if you could sort that out it might be a good boost too.

anyway congrats again on this wonderful resource.

[mreese80]

Bitley refills are the best. I've never heard any other refills or RE's with the quality of sounds that I get from his sound libraries (refills). I can use just one of his refills to make a complete track. I remember how I got hooked, FAIRLIGHT XXL. I also know for a fact that former SO SO DEF Producer Big Vicc uses Bitley's refills in his production also. It's damn near impossible to go through all the sounds in his refills. They are second to none. Flawless

[tobypearce]

Hi Patrick,

I'm a big fan, supporter, and user of your refills. I've been watching this thread with interest. I like to offer some observations. I hope they are constructive and helpful.

*WBF2 is fantastic. I agree with all the positive comments made above.

*It does contain way more than just 80s sounds. It's useful for many genres. I make trance and deep house, so I particularly like (just for example): the amazing pads, older drum samples and leads, and use them in a very non 80s way.

*I agree that the presentation feels 80s in many ways, and at present it's up to the user to discover the many other ways to use the refill.

*You might sell more refills if this issue was addressed.I would hope so, and you deserve it.

*There is a trend towards addressing EDM in particular (like it or not). Two recent examples are Omnisphere 2, which has a large, dedicated selection of EDM sounds explicitly labelled as such; and Reason 9, with its 1000 new sounds which will appeal directly to EDM producers. This is an industry trend worthy of your consideration.

*WBF2 could be re-organised to bring out to reflect this trend without adding any more sounds. I do feel that the way it's organised has the flavour of:
*loving homage to fairlight
*unexplored treasure trove
*feeling like I'll never get my head around all that's in it, even after many hours, days, and years of use

*In other words, I sometimes feel I have to work to actually find sounds to use in my actual tracks.

Some suggestions. I hope others can build on these (or say they're rubbish), as it's clear a lot of people care about this:

*I would personally welcome an EDM showcase section of the refill. Not new sounds, just a selection of sounds that work well, categorised the same as the Reason 9 folder is.

*Alternatively, have a showcase for several different genres, including hip hop, deep house, EDM, trance etc. Even 20+ sounds for each genre would be great.

*You could crowdsource suggestions for this.

*There is definitely untapped marketing potential. Yes, WBF is an expertly, loving created source of Fairlight sounds, but it is also jam packed with analogue sounds just ready for modern productions.

I really hope this is helpful Patrick, and very best wishes,

Toby.
*You could crowd source this.

[Dante]

An RE versions with a GUI like darkLight would be awesome. That plus availability in prop shop or without forced paypal would boost sales. I know of at least 2 other users who wont buy because of paypal.

There may be 'nothing wrong' with paypal by you but the customer is never wrong.

[bitley]

Excellent input!

[bitley]

Deep house; I did this one a while ago and my friend remixed it, 100% sounds from the refill



EDM-ish-phish; I did with a friend several years ago, 100% of sounds-that-were-to-become-the-first-version-of-the-refill



EH! - Did this with my friend Jens, during 10 years of collab on / off;

[XysteR]

I bought the Fairlight XXL refill a long time ago - It's probably the most used refill I've ever bought. I remember buying it for some Art Of Noise patches to do this:



I probably didn't do the sounds justice though, I didn't know a great deal on music production back then...

[bitley]

Coool Moments In Love cover! Add it to the group please!

[16BitBear]

Personally I have looked at most Refills as patches or presets. I view WBF2 much like I would a really powerful 'sample-based' instrument in Kontakt. Things like Albion or Emulator II by Rhythmic Robot. These are not just 'patches and presets' they are full blown instruments and synths.

That's one of the main reasons why I want it so badly. It will be like having a Fairlight in my rack.

Yes, and if you want to create personal & new sounds with it, just do it; you can even share them with us if you want to, I gladly add good user work as signature patches. There are about 6,000 samples to pick from, combine, mix and match. Add new samples, if needed, or create Thor / Malström patches which fits into the concept. There are hundreds of patches for those instruments as well, one of the reasons the refill is always much larger than the Kontakt bank, which is purely sample based.

Oh well, that's 303 posts from me, the magic number is reached, I may perhaps not post anything more

This is very exciting to know. Thanks.

[XysteR]

Coool Moments In Love cover! Add it to the group please!

Added

[joeyluck]

Joeyluck: All combinators are designed, none of them has the default look; it can look like this for instance;

WBF R2 user interface

I can't view it.

But that would be a backdrop as opposed to a unique, custom UI. It's still the UI of the Combinator.
And if we are talking about backdrops that include fake controls you can't use, those are the worst.

But I do like many of your backdrops.

[bik44]

I bought this huge library last weekend and it was the best purchase in 2016 (including May madness etc.) Top quality, very living and inspiring sounds. I can't imagine to put this all in one closed Re box - combinator's patches are the best solution giving totally freedom in further tweaking - that's the ground of Reason.
And it's true, this very little presentation on bitley's site tells nothing about this refill - there's much much more.


Wysłane z iPhone za pomocą Tapatalk

[tobypearce]

Patrick,

This is helpful - a theme is emerging now:

Just because the sounds of WBF2 have their roots in the 80s, it doesn't mean the website has to!

Consider the difference between this:

http://output.com/products/exhale/
and this
http://bitley.laconicsounds.net/way-beyond-fairlight/

Perhaps it's the website that needs the change?

[Yonatan]

1) Many know not even about what The Fairlight Computer was and why to be so excited about it. I just recently got familiar with it as the first sophisticated digital synth and sampling workstation, used by top producers like Peter Gabriel etc.
2) Not many know about all the various private websites that offer Reason Refill packages. It has taken many years for me to slowly find different sound designers Refills. And when going to their webpages, very often it is very hard to get right presentation to exactly what it is and why one should need it. Many who made refills since beginning of Reason, still have a kind of 90´s feel to it. I dont mean that things have to be super flashy, but at least to make it clear and simple and straight forward.

And I am 37 years, and should not feel as young as I do when visiting many older Reason webpages. A lot of alternative Refill shops miss the audience. And that is just because it dont cut through in a clear way. I have hard to imagine how the younger generations might see things.

Nostalgia for those who were not active in the 80´s, needs to be shown in their own way of absorbing information and by actual music samples and going through soundbanks in a video.

Younger folks seem as etager into Electronic Music than ever, but are surrounded by a lot of "massive" flashy videos and websites from huge companies, telling them they need a new virtual monster synth and beat machine, when that is not entirely true. They can make more interesting music with a lot of sound banks that have been around for ages, but it is a competitious jungle and many young folks are hyped by gimmicks.
But Retro can be turned into Metro and some sounds just never gets old per se. But marketing is a hard nut these days.
So, I 100% can understand the frustration felt, knowing all the potential and greatness there is in WBF2 and still get overlooked.

There is a lot of hope to increase buyers of WBF2 (and other similiar packages) , because there is quite a lot of tweakings and adaptations to do in how it is presented and available.
And, as a relative late user (2009), in the beginning, I only browsed through the PH shop and the same problem then was the lack of information and demo showcases, and still today I think there is lacking on many product pages, both for REs and Refills.

I personally dont like marketing when it just try to sell things (and PH has gone into that thing with for instance the A-List Drummer, just flashy non substantial presentation). For me, good marketing is to in an honest sincere but simple way, present enough that it reveals the core of the product, making me get a taste of the actual content to either conclude "Wow, that is really interesting! Imagine what I could do with all those possibilities..."

Why is WBF2 not in the PH shop?
If it were, then just link to your page from there and people can decide if they want to buy via your paypal option, or through their PH acount.
See it as a marketing venue to have it in the PH shop.

I actually never understood why there is so few Refills in the PH shop. For me, that has been misleading ever since beginning. I first thought that was it, and later found hrough forums like this, a link here and there to alternative places. One cannot buy what one knows not enough about and neither if not even knowing it exist in the first place. This goes to all commercial Refill-makers.

Maybe Reasonistas and this Forum would have a dedicated topic for alternative sources of sound for Reason with all active resources that ppl know of.
It might already exist? (have not went through it all)

I wish all the best!

[Noplan]

A man's praise in his own mouth stinks.

[bitley]

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.

[avasopht]

Seems like the 80's is trending, ..