Free! Fairlight Series III Factory Library mapped and looped

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Here, for free is a properly looped mapped and tuned selection of most of the original Fairlight CMI III factory library. It also includes a version of the IIx library with a bunch more unknown user content, imported on the series III. This apparently is what anyone with a series III would have acquired over the years. Arguably, the II is the more interesting sounding machine because it changes the sound quality a lot. The Series III was always intended to be state of the art sound quality.

It is provided in the following formats:
Kontakt
EXS-24
NN-XT
Structure

There are WAVs associated with each format so download one of those if you’re not using one of the supported samplers. Bear in mind though, that there are a lot of files since the CMI III supported multi-sampling.

The Kontakt version is compressed in its own folder to avoid problems with moving the directory. This is the only version I have tested properly. The other formats probably need a little tweaking so if anyone wants to improve those feel free to share the files and I will update this folder.

We created this using Redmatica Keymap after extracting the WAVs from a CMI Hard Drive using CMIOS9. I further tweaked the Kontakt version after. So in many cases the loops and the tuning will be more accurate/ smoother than the original. In some cases where the voice is made up of a selection of dissimilar samples, the mapping might be a bit funky 🙂

My hope with this is to:

1. Help people make great music.

2. Bust some of the myths about the Fairlight. Now you can form your own opinion about these classic sounds.

3. I see a number of people trying to make money out of these sounds, selling them in Kontakt format on Ebay, or to Fairlight owners at inflated prices. This is morally wrong. Plus the sounds are not looped as they would be on the Fairlight.

4. There is some cork-sniffing in the Fairlight community, generating illogical arguments about having to own a Fairlight before you are entitled to use these sounds. Furthermore there is no valid copyright claim on this library (which is why so many people sell it on Ebay). It is provided here as free to use. Luckily I am friendly with some Fairlight owners who think this is silly, and my thanks to them for helping with these sounds.

5. Enjoy! Feedback/ discussion welcomed.

DOWNLOAD

39 thoughts on “Free! Fairlight Series III Factory Library mapped and looped”

      • Hi Im looking for the String 4 patch from the Fairlight. is it included in your free download. Unfortunately I dont with records with a DAW. I sample from wave files directly into my little sampler keyboard. This is my email

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        • I’d need more information before I can answer your question, but that sounds like a Series II patch. However the numbers were changed across library revisions. You could download this set and check in the IIx folder. Otherwise go get the IIx library it is freely available.

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  2. Wow, thanks a lot for that! I “only” own a copy of Reason 4 -.-
    does this still work? or is there a way to extract those sound from “rfl” files?

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  8. First of all, thank you for your time and effort making this available for others.
    Since QasarBeach reads original files in .VC format. Is there any chance you can upload them as well?

    There use to be .VC upload of original Series III posted on Matrix site, but the link is no longer active.

    regards
    Mike

    Reply ↓

  10. Hi Tomás!

    My name is Glenn. I’m looking for Fairlight Samples and very sad to report that your download link no longer works.

    Thanks very much for all you’ve done for the sampling community!

    Best regards,
    Glenn in NY, USA

    Reply ↓

    • Good to know, and you’re welcome. We had a temporary problem because the site was hacked. We are on a new server now, most links are fixed (including this one).

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  20. Thank you so much for making this available! You made my day. I just recorded a Swing Out Sister song for fun in my studio, and even though I used real instruments, I thought it might be cool to add some synth strings and horn stabs like the original. I ended up stumbling across your post and was pleased to find that these are the exact strings and horn stabs that they used. This is so cool!

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  21. P.S. On a whim, I bought the full Fairlight III library from one of those folks on eBay, and I’m going to map and loop the entire thing for SFZ.

    Reply ↓

    • Why? SFZ mapping is included in this download already. I think I mentioned in the blog post that there are usually issues with the ones on eBay. I imagine some of them are even passing off this download as their own.

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      • Yeah, I didn’t like the idea of paying someone for samples that they don’t own, but I found a library that has even more samples. It has extra brass instruments, extra guitars, drums, etc. Lot’s of samples that I recognized from the SOS album. I decided to take a chance on paying them for the WAV files, and they appear to be authentic. Although I have no way of knowing if they included some that aren’t original. Now I’m in the process of mapping and looping them. I really can appreciate your dedication to this process, because I’ve only been working on this for a day and it’s given me a massive headache.

        If you have any helpful tips, I would appreciate it! Of course, if you want a copy of these samples I can send them to you.

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        • I had a lot of other people in the background helping me with that, it’s not something I would recommend doing solo.

          So because I had a lot of other Fairlight experts and owners help, I can assure you that it is the complete original Series 3 factory library. If you have extra strings and brass they are likely from Prosonus library. If you have extra drums then either they are fake or you have someone’s personal Fairlight library.

          Reply ↓

          • Interesting. Well I don’t want to clutter your page with my silly comments, but here’s my observation. In your original post you said that your library contains MOST of the original samples. I’m not sure if my download was corrupted, or if I’m overlooking something, but I was unable to find certain samples that I have reason to believe were original CMI III factory samples, the ones that come to mind right now are Gtrchds (guitar chords) and sax trumpet. I couldn’t find those in your library (again maybe I’m doing something wrong).

            I’m not trying to challenge your knowledge on this subject, as I had absolutely zero knowledge about it a mere 4 days ago. Since then however, I’ve become obsessed and have absorbed every bit of information I can short of buying the hardware. If you have any more information I would appreciate it. In the meantime I’m going to continue mapping and looping these samples, as I need several of them to complete a session that I’ve been working on. Thank you for all your hard work, and being generous with your time.

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