Fairlight-CMI

I've been contacted off the list with questions about the Pro-Rec 
Fairlight CMI IIx sample-CD, and thought I'd share that information with 
the rest of you as well.


As far as I know, this is the only sound library anyone without a real 
Fairlight can get. Unfortunately it's an *audio* CD and not a CD-ROM 
(with AIFF, WAV etc. files ready for use), which means that the user has 
to sample and edit the sounds with a computer or their sampler.
I wish they had made a CD-ROM with some common file-format instead. Oh well.

The library claims to be a complete Fairlight CMI IIx library (all the 
factory disks that is). The two famous Fairlight sounds I was looking 
for was the "aaaah" voice (which I've asked about elsewhere in this list 
as how they made it is still a puzzle to me, as it doesn't sound quite 
human in my ears) and the "Orch5" orchestra hit, and they were of course 
included.
What I can say however is that there seems to be some inconsistency 
between the library disks and the samples on the CD, because I found the 
"official" Fairlight list over sample disks here: 
http://egrefin.free.fr/eng/fairlight/cmi2xManualsE.php

And it certainly is different from the ones contained on the audio-CD. I 
can't remember the differences off-hand, if samples are missing, if 
they've messed up the filenames or something else, but for comparison, 
here's a list over what the Pro-rec sample CD contains: 
http://pro-rec.com/samplecds.html

How does it sound? As I've never seen, used, touched and probably never 
will gain access to a Fairlight I'm not up to the task of judging how it 
sounds. I see no reason to doubt that the people behind the CD haven't 
been using a real Fairlight. They've even recorded the system booting up 
and so on! Very strange....
The CD sounds fine to me. The looped sounds are in fact played with a 
loop (which you can hear). I don't know if the loops are this audible 
originally, but at least you can hear where the loops are so you don't 
truncate off more than necessary when editing/looping the sound on your 
computer or sampler.

The overall impression is that they've done a good job. But once again 
I'm frustrated that they didn't just make a data CD-ROM out of it.

Anything else? I think I've covered everything.
So in conclusion I have to say it's a recommended buy for anyone who 
wants those famouse preset Fairlight CMI sounds but doesn't have access 
to a real Fairlight, partly because this is the only Fairlight library I 
know of that non-Fairlight owners can access.

It can be ordered from the following website: 
http://www.cafepress.com/zzizzle/154081

... and can be supplied in a sleev for US$ 29.99 or in a CD jewel-case 
for US$ 39.99.


PS: a few weeks ago I'm sure I came across someone on eBay selling an 
actual CD-ROM collection of the Fairlight CMI. I haven't been able to 
find it again, and I have no idea if it was recorded directly from a 
Fairlight or perhaps just an edited copy of the abovementioned CD. 
Unfortunately I didn't bookmark it as I already had my own Fairlight 
sample collection with that Pro-rec CD.


Hope someone finds all this information useful, and I'd be happy to get 
comments from someone who owns/uses a real Fairlight and has also heard 
the Pro-rec CD and has read the contents-listing, which may or may not 
be complete.


Hallvard