KVR Audio

donato · Post by **donato** » Wed Jan 29, 2014 1:36 am

Again, he never said definitively, but it is heavily implied and I think a lot of people feel they were mislead in their decision-making process regarding ST2 group sales.

yevster · Post by **yevster** » Wed Jan 29, 2014 1:38 am

mhog wrote:
yevster wrote:People who own Kontakt Player libraries always get the latest version of Player for free. People who own UVI libraries always get the latest version of UVI Workstation for free. And as for Battery, which is a standalone instrument, not a platform on top of which it's vendor sold countless products, NI supported and updated it for 7 years, not asking a penny for giving existing Battery 3 customers 64-bit support.
I think those are different products. You cannot do anything with Kontakt player alone. On the contrary ST2 free was/is a real instrument. Kontakt (full) etc. are never "free" when upgraded. You pay them, even if the library changes for few GBs (e.g. 4 to 5). Regarding UVI, I can't say anything, because I don't own them. I can talk about the products I own (Omnisphere, Kontakt, Alchemy, Battery etc.) and I don't see any difference in terms of price for upgrade and/or license fees (For instance: NI ones are "free", but I cannot resell my copy of Reaktor, because I used it to buy Komplete at a special price. Different policies, same matter: "money" ...).

You don't have to own UVI to try it. Just download the UVI workstation for free. And, btw, the free UVI workstation has as much sampling functionality as ST2 did. And if you must compare the full version of Kontakt, NI released Kontakt 3.5 as a free upgrade to all current Kontakt users, and that upgrade included 64-bit support.

mhog · Post by **mhog** » Wed Jan 29, 2014 1:59 am

donato wrote:Again, he never said definitively, but it is heavily implied and I think a lot of people feel they were mislead in their decision-making process regarding ST2 group sales.

Thanks for the explanations, Now I understand better why here some people feel disappointed. I never read such posts and of course never read such news on IKM website. So I don't know what to say... I just suspected that the various libraries sold in the "crazy group sales" were a little "obsolete" (so to speak), so never expected something more for a few dollars price (free upgrades, discounts for new products etc.). I just thought "rather old but still good for that tiny price". That's why I bought them. Actually, I feel the same for every "crazy discount", "black friday sale", "christmas gift", "summer deal" etc. Of course I agree with you: if IK officially claimed a ST3 player would have been out FOR FREE and for every ST2/library owners (group buyers included) as soon as ST3 was ready, then YES, I think it must be done and free for them all. This is out of the question. Otherwise, "bye bye IK"

BBFG# · Post by **BBFG#** » Wed Jan 29, 2014 3:35 am

mhog wrote: The sounds: I wonder why people come here claiming "not that good", "nothing new" and such bullshit, as if Sampletank had to be something different from a Bread and Butter Workstation... People interested in ST expect exactly those sounds.

Actually like the sounds better each time I open ST2. This evening I found myself playing through the basses, something I rarely do just to do it, usually only when looking for a good bass during a sequence setup. Found a few that held my attention longer than I expected. I've used basses in Dimension before, and they're solid enough for what they are, but not anything that just grabbed me. I thought I should do some comparison with the Kontakt Scarbee basses... very good for what they are, yet nothing I would put to memory search as first choice. I know it's subjective, but I really like the ST2 Basses quite a bit.
Someone made a reference a few comments back about ST2 being merely GM orientated, so I went through some of the OmniSynth set (which is their GM bank), If GM had sounded that good when GM was the rage, I probably would've used it more then too. Far better than the original set imo.

Since I bought the EthnoWorld for Kontakt, that seems to be grabbing that spotlight away from ST, but there's still some I look for first in ST in the Ethnic & World sets.

Saukar30 · Post by **Saukar30** » Wed Jan 29, 2014 4:34 am

My personal opinion after reviewing the pre-release video, reading comments in the forums & understanding something called reality... I'll break down what I think what's right & what's wrong with ST3 from what we've just seen from the NAMM show:

1. The new ST3 does add some great new features (64 bit compatible, More FX, Routing Multis to MIDI program changes, MIDI patterns, Round-Robin in the instruments).

2. I'm sure the instruments included will be superb. That's based off of knowing how well ST2 still sounds today.

3. The interface is an improvement. It's what users have been asking for... a larger, easier to read & adds a bit of functionality with the mix screen and also the screen that shows information about the instruments.

4. Besides these cosmetic changes, I don't believe there has much that has been done as far as the functionality of ST3. Everything still looks it functions as much as the same as it did in ST2.

4a. That is also a downside. Some users such as myself expected to dig inside the tank a little bit more to manipulate the samples more, however, it seems IK is sticking to the "rompler" direction with limited edibility so far. Is there still that archaic way of importing samples or is that feature even implemented in ST3? For the zones of the instruments can we assign them to different outputs? Is the MIDI assignment more full & complete compared to ST2? These are questions that cant be answered until there is an actual product ready to be released. However, from judging from the "vibe" of the videos, I don't think this area more user interaction was given much consideration.

5.Some concern is if it will upload our current ST2 libraries, that has been confirmed, so no need to discuss this until it gets to be closer to release time. Then the question becomes how easy can we import our libraries.

6. Pricing looks like the biggest question. Some expect a free 64 bit player. Some expect a big discount for purchasing ST from back in the days. All understood, but when it comes down to it, it's business.I think it would be fair to not assume anything for free yet. Maybe in a few years as ST3 becomes a little bit older, that may look like a more realistic possibility. A low upgrade cost would be welcome, but I think what should be a good comparison is what Steinberg did when HalionSonic was introduce to replace Hypersonic. http://www.kvraudio.com/news/steinberg_ ... onic_14588 . However I think that Hypersonic customers were allowed a discounted upgrade to Halion Sonic seeing as it was a "related" new product. Maybe Ik will either do something similar. Maybe not. I don't think the price for an upgrade will be too low, because of the "purpose" of this instrument being that has new sounds. Purchasing ST3 would be similar to purchasing a new rackmount module from Yamaha or Roland. There are new sounds and a new way of accessing them. I think a lot of people here should look here at the reality of things. IK is a business. They're making instruments to make money. No matter what has been done to a product, a lot or only cosmetic changes, you shouldn't expect a company to just giveaway something they've been working on for years... at first LOL. Am I saying they should charge through the roof? Of course not (I only buy products every couple of years except for the past 3). What I'm saying is expect a honest price structure WHEN they say it's ready.

7.Another main issue here is that because of the length of time involved with not so much information given, IK seems to be giving a lot of hype to ST3 but it may fall somewhat short. Personally, as a user/customer, I don't expect products to upgrade every year. It takes time to REALLY know an instrument. But, I do expect when a company puts a lot in advertising to see some results. As a few have said here, IK is really lucky that they have been able to keep a user base interested for so long. After 10 years, one would expect either a game changing product or something new & entirely fresh. I don't think the videos or audio samples convey that per se. Maybe more of a focus, but nothing that generates the type of excitement we were hoping for.

8. Comparing ST to other products is a little difficult. The reason being is that you would think from a company that has had one of the major samplers for the past decade, there would be more features added or more done to keep it up to date. I believe if IK would've kept implementing features & focusing on ST, it would probably be the #2 sampler right now. ST is no Kontakt however. It' s not even in the same realm if you think about it. Kontakt's premise is about what you can do internally with your own samples (o 3rd party). Sampletank is more of a rompler. Currently you can important sound,s but that's not the true focus of it. The true focus of ST3 is for the sounds that are there to be used with effects & minor tweaks made to them. A closer comparison for ST3 would be HalionSonic or UVI.I think personally UVI & ST3 would be a close match up. The sampling for both instruments is amazing with off the wall effects in each. However, UVI lacks a MIDI program change function for it's sounds I believe. in UVI though, there are 3rd party companies who make libraries though which the usefulness of UVI a little more appealing. As I have Kontakt already, I'm not looking at ST to replace it. ST complements Kontakt in that the sounds are good out the box with not much tweaking compared to Kontakt's user library. To be fair, I also own Dimension Pro & Wusikstation as well and I think they all serve a different purpose with a different type of library.

BBFG# · Post by **BBFG#** » Wed Jan 29, 2014 6:16 am

They're both sample players.

gamecat666 · Post by **gamecat666** » Wed Jan 29, 2014 8:18 am

Peter - IK Multimedia wrote:OK, so I see there are many that comment about a "player" version of just the engine to use only for the previous libraries in 64 bit environments. If that were the case, how much would you expect it to cost?

If its just a 64 bit player with no content (ie sampletank 2.6) , free.

bronxsound · Post by **bronxsound** » Wed Jan 29, 2014 8:29 am

free won't make IKM the money

the most fair solution in my view would be offering by IKM the ST3 engine which would include limited selection of sounds from the new content for a very low price. so effectively one would be paying for the upgrade but would be getting a bunch of sounds as a bonus.

gamecat666 · Post by **gamecat666** » Wed Jan 29, 2014 8:46 am

a free player WILL make them more money, if that trolley icon in the top right corner is an inapp purchase store to buy instrument packs and expansions.

'Freemium' is huge money these days

I suppose it'll depend on how well Amplitude free did. thats a similar model - release free player, with a store attached.

basslinemaster · Post by **basslinemaster** » Wed Jan 29, 2014 8:52 am

bronxsound wrote:free won't make IKM the money

They can always charge 7.99 euros for downloading it...

bronxsound wrote: the most fair solution in my view would be offering by IKM the ST3 engine which would include limited selection of sounds from the new content for a very low price. so effectively one would be paying for the upgrade but would be getting a bunch of sounds as a bonus.

A lot of us don't want the new sounds, at least not right now, we just want a working 64 bit Sampletank engine. Customer loyalty goes a long way and earns you more money in the long run, but that seems to have escaped the notice of IK.

trusampler · Post by **trusampler** » Wed Jan 29, 2014 9:02 am

Uncle E wrote:
trusampler wrote:Sampletank 2 + their addon libraries (sonic synth,miroslav,samplemoog,sampletron, and the many sonic reality libraries are to my ears and monitors of better sound quality, so with that alone in a bigger gui + 64bit enviroment, I would purchase this upgrade.
IK told me every sound has been re-done. The sounds are so different now that they're even working on being able to import ST2 sounds, because your music won't sound the same if you simply assign the current ST3 patches in place of those from ST2.

Thanks Uncle E

basslinemaster · Post by **basslinemaster** » Wed Jan 29, 2014 10:40 am

Uncle E wrote: IK told me every sound has been re-done. The sounds are so different now that they're even working on being able to import ST2 sounds, because your music won't sound the same if you simply assign the current ST3 patches in place of those from ST2.

I would have thought that was beyond obvious. I doubt any of the ST3 patches even have the same names as the ST2.5 ones, and most Sampletank owners will also have Sonik Synth and Miroslav as well, and be using combis, etc.etc.etc.
As for "they're EVEN working on being able to import ST2 sounds" - where have you been? Who doesn't want to be able to use their ST2 sounds in ST3?

trusampler · Post by **trusampler** » Wed Jan 29, 2014 11:03 am

If IK mentioned that at some point there will be a free ST3 player it'll come, but it may not be on your time table.

This is still their product and business, and the name of the game is to sell their products.You can't knock them for wanting to make money. Sampletank 2 free player has been out for awhile, when I got Sampletank there wasn't any sort of free anything

Yeh I actually had to pay for it.
I'm sure after awhile they would offer it, and the custom shop option sounds like a good idea, maybe they will adhere that in time, but for now, it's pretty obvious they want to make a few bucks and I for one won't mind paying to play. Nature of the beast man, you guys already know.

Bombadil · Post by **Bombadil** » Wed Jan 29, 2014 11:42 am

Business is business, but a cranky customer base that feels IKM has not treated it fairly, with all of the attendant venting on multiple music forums, isn't good for business, as far as I can see.

tony_12345 · Post by **tony_12345** » Wed Jan 29, 2014 1:35 pm

Peter - IK Multimedia wrote:OK, so I see there are many that comment about a "player" version of just the engine to use only for the previous libraries in 64 bit environments. If that were the case, how much would you expect it to cost?

I can't believe you wrote that. You mean you're just realizing users are requesting this now?

We've been asking if a "free player" version of ST3 would be available last year and you said there was an "option" for a free player version. Why are you now asking what users would expect to pay for a player version? In my view it should be free like the "shells" for Amplitube and T-Racks.

Countdown to Sample Tank 3, with 64 bit support