So to answer your question, nope, Mr J Erbe @ Pro Rec had NOTHING to do with the production of the IIx disk, although my story sounds similar to yours, but with an extra twist...
I produced a limited 500 copies of the IIx Library totally unprompted by anything other than my desire to get the library at least somewhat preserved and available for folks to access without the trauma of dealing with 8" drive alignments and a likely hernia. It was ready (just) in time for debut at the APRS show at Earls Court that year. The same one where Fairlight-ESP was showing off the MFX3 editing audio to "The Firm", but I digress.
I was contacted by ProRec who wanted to distribute the CD in the USA (I was living in the UK at the time), and so I shipped him 100 disks in exchange for a bunch of his ROM cards to try and sell. Ironically a few of The Analog Collection CDs were included too.
After a while I folded the Sample CD business and moved onto other things a much wiser young man. I sent Jon the balance of his stock and i think 50 more IIx CDs and we called it quits.
Anyway, it turns out that he quickly ran out of stock and decided to start pressing his own copies of the disk (Most recently using CafePress) and these of course are totally illegal.
Certainly the sounds are licenced by Fairlight to me (Non-exclusively) and while Pro Rec might have obtained a licence from Fairlight to distribute the samples there's still the small matter of the Recording Copyright & Performance copyrights which are clearly mine. At the time getting a sample CD put together and released was a seriously time and money sink and it was a labor of love for all its faults.
Original copies of the CD and its case disks are Black, Gold and White. Not just black and white.
Rather amusingly on the spine of both originals and clones are my initials (William Robert Brady) and my date of birth (in UK notation). the "Sounds of the machine" track has me doing a bad homer Simpson impression after a bad disk read.
Right now I'm letting folks know about what happened by airing some of the underhanded crap pulled by Pro Rec. Nope not professional on my part, but frankly now I've heard that my experience wasn't a one off I'm fuming about it once more.
Over the past few years I've been toying with the idea about re-recording the whole thing as an ultra detailed DVD-ROM, but with the new CMI 30A coming out I'm reluctant to spent the time and money on the project.. My two main reasons for not doing it are that Peter V is far better positioned than I to keep the CMI sound alive (including the wonderful Series III libraries), and secondly I don't want to cheapen or appear to try and steal the thunder of the 30A.
Doesn't mean I wouldn't love to do the project though,,. C'est la vie.
Rob
From: "jbgrahame" To: Fairlight-CMI@yahoogroups.com Date: 03/31/2010 11:08 AM Subject: [Fairlight-CMI] Re: CMI IIX "Old Strings" factory sound?
--- In Fairlight-CMI@yahoogroups.com,
Robert Brady wrote:
>
> It's NOT the Pro Rec Disk.. Although most people have bought from
there.
> It's the "Digital Domain" disk, and I made it.
>
> Most of the Disks sold by ProRec are Illegal copies.
>
> Sorry, I'm touchy on this one.
I fear I'm the guy responsible for Pro-Rec putting out their original Fairlight
sample CD.
Back in about 1993, I created a sample disc called "The Analogue Collection"
and started selling is on the rec.music.synth newsgroup. Jonathan from
Pro-Rec contacted me and convinced me to let him distribute it. In the
end, it was a complete disaster - he ended up receiving about 300 of my
discs on consignment and never paid a cent for them.
I was a young and naieve kid at the time. I sold a few copies on rec.music.synth
after entering into the agreement with Pro-Rec, and he used that as an
excuse to put a stop payment on my first royalty check and never paid out
a cent.
Anyway, he asked me what other sample CDs I might produce and the first
thing out of my mouth was "Fairlight IIx." It didn't take Pro-Rec
long to roll out such a beast.