| Bitley Fairlight Platinum Refill for Reason
I've been using the Bitley Fairlight refill for well over a year now, and I'm more head-over-heels for it now, than I was when I initially bought it. It's the best Reason refill, and also the best sound library out there...... bar none!
When I purchased the refill, it was known simply as the Fairlight Legacy. There have since been several upgrades to the refill, which now tops out at over 3000 or so patches. And because it's in a Reason format, the simplicity of using it is incredible. It's essentially become a living document, in that it continues to grow & improve with each update. So your investment increases in value over time. How many other refills can lay claim to that?
I was lucky enough to use a real CMI Fairlight on a number of occasions back in the late-80's/early-'90's. There was nothing like it at the time. It was very limited by today's standards, but some of my favourite songs and albums were recorded with a Fairlight in the mix. One thing that I absolutely HATED about the real Fairlight was the !@#!@#$ lightpen!! Bloody thing NEVER worked right. And the cost of owning a Fairlight of my own, was simply not in the same universe as far as my financial means at the time. But it was such a unique machine. Much easier to use than a Synclavier, and more distinguished than an Emulator. Peter Gabriel, Art Of Noise, Jan Hammer, Pet Shop Boys and so many others, owe a great debt to the Fairlight.
I happened upon this refill towards the end of 2010, after I'd just upgraded to Reason 4. I was looking for a unique refill that stood out from the rest of your run-of-the-mill Reason refills. I found it when I happened upon a forum post on the PHead website. I couldn't believe that somebody had actually released a refill which contained all of the original Fairlight sample library. I purchased it on the strength of a demo I'd heard by the bloke who created the refill. I was simply blown away & captivated by the accuracy & clarity of the patches he used. When I finally downloaded the refill & tried it out, I was almost moved to tears. It was so dead-on accurate to what the old CMI sound library was, I was absolutely shocked. I spent a full weekend (4 days, actually!) test-driving each patch & Combinator in the refill, much to the dismay of my dear wife.
Since that time, Bitley has upgraded the refill several times. He's SIGNIFICANTLY increased the number of patches, and has also included the Emulator III sample library, as well as several other well-known vintage synths & samplers. It's a veritable smorgasboard of vintage synths, samplers & drum machines. So it's not JUST a Fairlight refill.
Emulator II, Roland Jupiter, Juno & JX synths, Emulator III, Oberheim Matrix-12, Ensoniq, Arp, PPG, and so many others we all know & love, are in this refill. The painstaking attention to detail is beyond marvelous. I'm a vintage synth afficionado with very discriminating tastes when it comes to how accurate samples or replica patches sound. I own, or have, at one time or another, owned many of the vintage instruments that are in this refill. Not to put to fine a point on it....... but you simply will not find a better or more accurate library of sounds than you will in the Bitley Fairlight Platinum refill.
Bitley uses the Dropbox method as his delivery option of choice. And that's really my lone complaint. It's a very large refill. So the need for something like Dropbox for the delivery of the massive file is understandable. I'm just cheap & don't wanna pay the extra $$ to upgrade my Dropbox capacity. But it's a paltry momentary inconvenience for such an amazing refill. Well worth the extra hoop of going thru Dropbox.
If I were only going to use one refill, this would be it. It's genre-agnostic, which is to say that you can use the patches in this refill for virtually any genre of music you can imagine. It's not limited to being merely a retro or nostalgia-fuelled sound resource. It gets used more than any other sound library in my arsenal. So it's uses extend far beyond synth-pop, new wave, 80's music or EBM. If you're into Country & Western..... yeah, you're outta luck. But she'll answer the need for virtually anything else that comes your way.
I can say quite honestly that purchasing this refill was one of the wisest investments I've made. The return on investment & bang-for-your-buck ratio is outstanding.
If you're like me, and don't have the disposable income to justify purchasing a real Fairlight or an army of classic analogue & digital synths, look no further than this remarkable refill. It's the standard by which ALL Reason refills should be compared to. | 
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