SampleTank 3: Announcing three exclusive new sound collections

[Peter - IK Multimedia]

i do not care if its sold via ikm , when the recordings etc are comes from sonic reality / esoundz based on the same recording sessions

ok now i say it directly how it feels as decribed above , this feels a completly rip off for existing customer if you already own one or both of the other formats

its incomprehensibly from an customer sight , sorry

I wasn't invalidating your opinion in any way, I wanted to point out the options to defray some of the cost of the new SampleTank 3 libraries for those that may not have been aware.

[Squids]

i do not care if its sold via ikm , when the recordings etc are comes from sonic reality / esoundz based on the same recording sessions

ok now i say it directly how it feels as decribed above , this feels a completly rip off for existing customer if you already own one or both of the other formats

its incomprehensibly from an customer sight , sorry

Listen, calling this a "rip off" is really out of order man. The value of these collections should not be in question given all the details of it which are very clear. Some of the best drummers in the world recorded by top producers with the best equipment and programmed specifically for the latest IK Multimedia SampleTank 3 format. The product is made, as I said, for people who use SampleTank 3 or are thinking about it and want some great drum libraries! THAT'S IT! If you use SampleTank 3 and you want a great drum library, regardless of what you may also have in other formats, then decide if you want to get this or not. But, to call it a rip off is incredibly insulting to all involved in making and selling the product. Please stop that and try to understand there's no way for other companies like IK to take into account what you've purchased in another company's format from the sound company, Sonic Reality. We make sounds for a LOT of companies and we can't have each company we do sounds for take into account that you have sounds from us in a Yamaha Motif or BFD. That's unrealistic! Please, just decide if it's for you or not. But, to rain on the parade just because you can't have it for free or some crazy discount... it's not very cool to do. Please be respectful. These are their own products sold in a brand new format through a different source! We've waited YEARS for SampleTank 3 so we could hopefully get these artist libraries into that format. This is a time for any SampleTank fan to CELEBRATE that this caliber content is being produced in the format and be happy there's more to come! Now, some libraries will have samples we've released in other formats and some won't! Decide which ones you want as we go! Pretty straight forward if you ask me.

[Squids]

sorry Squids i disagree here a little bit

and i don´t see in previus post that someone has bashed the product itselves

myselves , as an Platinum Sonic Reality / esoundz user which has buy many many of your products , and also own the Neil Peart Kit for Kontakt and BFD (already paid twice for the same recordings and kits for an different engine) and see that the price for the same kit just for Sampletank 3 are much higher , you already can think how that is feeling as an customer

for myselves , paying again for the same recordings and kits (the 3rd time) just made for sampletank 3 are definetly a no go for me , if there would be an upgrade path or something like this i had thinking about again

sorry to say this again from the Customer Perspective

The only thing we can ever do when someone buys a product on eSoundz is do something special for them on eSoundz if they buy another product from us. As much as SR has been partnering up with IK for many years it IS still a completely different company. So, when they sell it or in this case are the exclusive distributor of it as well, there's nothing anyone at IK can do to take into account what you've gotten elsewhere. That's understandable I'm sure. There may be something we can do on eSoundz in the future that can accommodate those who love the sounds and want them in multiple formats but would like a break in price. I fully understand the desire for that. However, that's something to take up with us at eSoundz and not take anything away from what the wonderful people at IK are doing with these exciting new products in their latest ST format! I hope we can try to keep things positive because this is paving the way for some really useful and inspiring new sounds!

[msorrels]

I think the issue here is more the depth of information when releasing old content in a new format. I think most people just want the details so they can make up their own mind if buying the same content again in a new format is worth it. If the product materials clearly describe where the content came from and how it is different there won't be any hard feelings at all.

I know yesterday I had to spend some time making sure none of the R.A.W packs I was buying contained things I already had. When your content is repackaged in so many different ways it becomes much more important to just be completely honest with what exactly something is. List where the content came from and what other products it was released in, explain how it's different. If you can't do that (because IK doesn't want to promote another company perhaps) then I'd say you should expect a little flack. Though calling it a rip-off seems a bit much and is uncalled for.

Having read this thread I'm still not exactly sure where these drums have been released before and what's different (other than it's in Sampletank 3 format now).

I also think the data on the American Acoustic Guitar is a bit weak, I'd expect a complete list of the patches and samples of at least a few of them (perhaps by playing the MIDI files that come with it). I'm not even sure what guitar exactly was sampled (trademark issues?). Also an introductory price without saying what the final price really is or a time frame on the special offer seems a bit weak too.

IK can do better than this.

[Squids]

I think it must be fairly obvious to anyone who knows Sonic Reality and IK Multimedia that these libraries are based on SR's sample libraries with these drummers. It says in the description that this was done in cooperation with sound development partner Sonic Reality. We've never had these drummers' samples in SampleTank format before. It stands to reason that this would be based on our archives with these drummers as opposed to a whole new fresh session with them... not when we've never had their awesome current kits in ST before. First thing's first (although I'll tell you it was SOOOOO much work and expense to sample Cobham and Peart that I can almost guarantee that'll never happen again! It's a huge task! I had to fly Cobham from Switzerland, Ken Scott from LA, me and my team from Miami and a vintage Fibes drum kit all to a specific studio near Boston where they had one of seven Trident A Range boards left in existence... and we did the very last session on it before it was dismantled!!!! This is never, ever happening again. Trust me! ).

But, I don't like these samples being called "old" because that sounds like they have some sort of expiration date on them when a drum kit played by these legends is as useful today as it was when we did it. So, yes, the big difference IS that it is in SampleTank 3 format (in SampleTank format at all for the first time actually because it wasn't done for SampleTank 2). You DO get drum kit AND grooves which you don't get in BFD or just the R.A.W. and you get special programming taking advantage of the SampleTank 3 engine which you simply cannot get any other way than this. Again, please, try to look at it this way. IK is putting out a product they did in cooperation with Sonic Reality. They have no responsibility at ALL to mention that these sounds are available from Sonic Reality in other formats from software companies that are technically competitors. Why WOULD they? Right? So...

It's all about perspective. I know some of you guys have been on KVR a long time and remember all the co-op things SR has done with IK, group buys, lots of ST2 libraries and all sorts of things. Please don't get confused about the difference between the companies though. IK's interests are only in their own format, SampleTank, which they created. Sonic Reality didn't create it. We only make SOUNDS at Sonic Reality, not software. We partner up with companies like IK Multimedia just the same as we have done with many other sampler manufacturers. We've just done more of it over the years with IK. That doesn't mean it's the same animal. IK = SampleTank SR = multiple format sample libraries. We'll be the only ones talking about our sounds in a variety of formats but you'll notice that we aren't the manufacturer/distributor of THIS product line. It's from IK.

Look at it this way, if Yamaha or Roland was to put out a Neil Peart sample set for their latest sampling instrument you think they'd make sure they told you that these sounds from Sonic Reality were ALSO available in a variety of other formats they don't make? Of course not. So, there's no need to expect that here. Generally speaking, I see very little reason to complain at all. These are quality sample libraries available for a reasonable price considering the value of what you get. If you already have their libraries in other formats I understand the hesitation to get it yet again... but then again for the price of dinner for two you can have one of the best rock or fusion drummers in the world available to you 24/7 right inside your favorite engine (if it's SampleTank 3!). If that doesn't float your boat then the product isn't for you! It is quite simply for the SampleTank 3 user who wants killer drum sounds to work with in that engine and doesn't mind purchasing it to support the existence of such products at all!

I know asking people on KVR not to be looking for things to complain about is almost pointless... it's what people like to do here I guess. I haven't been around for awhile and forgot that's just how it is sometimes. Oh well... I just think it'd be a shame if anyone missed out on how awesome it is that such top quality drum sample libraries are being produced in this new powerful format. If you're an esoundz customer maybe there's something we can do to help you if you talk to Allen.

[Fleer]

You run a great company, Squids, with exquisite sample libraries. And your colleague Allen is very helpful indeed

[Skorpius]

I do appreciate the fact that, as opposed to the first set of expansions, the new expansions contain "real life sounds" and target other people than EDM producers, DJs and D&B musicians. I hope IK will continue to expand ST 3 with sounds and loops that have their origin in traditional instruments.

My suggestion for the next expansion: a set of new (!), larger-than-life Hammond organ sounds.

Last but not least: Being able to choose from a large range of expansions will surely raise the general reputation of ST 3 and its competitive advantage towards other sample players.

[Astralv]

I just had to post it here: why is it that Sample Tank 3 suck soooo much? Ugh! Where are all the promised gigabytes of sounds? It hardly has between 6 and 12 sounds per category. And the new expansions... I tried today very hard to spend my 25 points and I could not find anything that would sound ok. If it was free, I would take it but I could not justify spending $14 on it. I wish I could sale it. I have Sample Tank 2 and 3 and I hardly ever use it.

[Astralv]

1. All the loops are played by Neil Peart and Billy Cobham themselves so I will see if someone can relay your assessment to those guys, murnau They were recorded by Rush producer, Nick Rasculinecz and legendary engineer / producer, Ken Scott, respectively.

2. The SR BFD and Kontakt products do not include loops (unless you buy the full EpiK DrumS product which is $299). Neil’s loops are sold separately as 2 volumes: Neil Peart Classic Grooves $59 and Neil Peart Modern Grooves $49. The Billy Cobham loops have not been released separately and are *only* available in the full $299 EpiK DrumS product for Kontakt only.

3. These editions were remastered from the original SR recordings especially for SampleTank 3.

4. A better comparison for these libraries are the Toontrack EZ Drummer libraries which are $89 and generally about 2GB.

Who cares? There are so many Easy Drummers, Session Drummers, Addictive Drums, Drum Lab, Spark- you name it- list goes on and on. Who needs more drums?

[Peter - IK Multimedia]

@Astralv - While there's a good chance your questions were mostly rhetorical, and you may have been venting in a time of frustration (I do hope it was therapeutic if so), there are some inconsistencies that should be addressed. This is all information that has been discussed at KVR ad nauseam but I am glad to be here and available to repeat it for those that may not know and may take the inaccurate information and/or opinion as fact:

The stock library that comes with SampleTank 3 is anything but light on the sounds and variety. Yes it is 33GB in size which already indicates there is a lot of content, but also the number of sounds rivals or surpasses the stock libraries of similar products and are in line with the workstation role that SampleTank is known for and continues to excel at providing to many users.

"I wish I could sale [sic] it" - I hope you do know that you surely can sell and transfer IK products, and we have an easy-to-use transfer process in place. You can find details about it at http://www.ikmultimedia.com/faq/1111 - If you decide to do so, I thank you as IK will welcome an interested and positive new user into the family of users who enjoy using SampleTank 3.

With regard to the expansions and your list of other products that are drum-related: I hope you do realize that just because you do not like or need something, that does not mean that others are not interested in and/or like them. Specifically to the final question of "who needs more drums?" - there are people that have a workflow that benefits from having drums in a specific format and SampleTank 3 excels at being a full-service workstation product that can still boast great sounds that rival those of dedicated drum products like those that you mention. So you get very high-quality (and in these new libraries some very unique and useful) drum sounds to add to an already robust set of sounds - plus, I'd love to hear a full song done in the products on that list Offering the new drum (and acoustic guitar) libraries is not just for "collectors" but are serious tools for making music with SampleTank 3 and we will continue to give more options to those that make music that benefits from SampleTank 3's feature set and core strengths.

SampleTank has been a go-to workstation since its inception, and with SampleTank 3 IK has provided a core library and now there are very powerful expansions that can can allow SampleTank 3 to function as the whole tool set AND now has individual tools in Custom Shop that help it truly stand out more than ever - even among one-trick dedicated products.

[Peter - IK Multimedia]

I think the issue here is more the depth of information when releasing old content in a new format. I think most people just want the details so they can make up their own mind if buying the same content again in a new format is worth it. If the product materials clearly describe where the content came from and how it is different there won't be any hard feelings at all.

I know yesterday I had to spend some time making sure none of the R.A.W packs I was buying contained things I already had. When your content is repackaged in so many different ways it becomes much more important to just be completely honest with what exactly something is. List where the content came from and what other products it was released in, explain how it's different. If you can't do that (because IK doesn't want to promote another company perhaps) then I'd say you should expect a little flack. Though calling it a rip-off seems a bit much and is uncalled for.

Having read this thread I'm still not exactly sure where these drums have been released before and what's different (other than it's in Sampletank 3 format now).

I also think the data on the American Acoustic Guitar is a bit weak, I'd expect a complete list of the patches and samples of at least a few of them (perhaps by playing the MIDI files that come with it). I'm not even sure what guitar exactly was sampled (trademark issues?). Also an introductory price without saying what the final price really is or a time frame on the special offer seems a bit weak too.

IK can do better than this.

We are aware that the library information on our web site is not as verbose/detailed as it should be and that is being rectified. Thank you for also expressing this, it is definitely something we are working to improve.

[Peter - IK Multimedia]

I do appreciate the fact that, as opposed to the first set of expansions, the new expansions contain "real life sounds" and target other people than EDM producers, DJs and D&B musicians. I hope IK will continue to expand ST 3 with sounds and loops that have their origin in traditional instruments.

My suggestion for the next expansion: a set of new (!), larger-than-life Hammond organ sounds.

Last but not least: Being able to choose from a large range of expansions will surely raise the general reputation of ST 3 and its competitive advantage towards other sample players.

Yes we will have more expansions that are based on traditional instruments, for sure. Thank you for the specific suggestion, as well as the final thought which is definitely good to hear and I agree with it wholeheartedly.

[Astralv]

I am sorry if my post came across as harsh. This was addressed probably to more than one manufacturer. Yesterday I spent 12 hours to troubleshoot software synths between Tone2 plugins failing due to iLok update and Rapture Pro missing samples which they cannot fix still.

The questions are rhetorical but they have a point. If you marketing your product toward beginners who just bought their first computer and entering music making business with clean hard drive- yeah, maybe they can benefit from your product. I am personally tired of the same old stuff sold over and over again (and I am not saying- you sailing used samples). I am talking about millions of Violins, millions of bass sounds, millions of the same synth sounds and so on.

My request is: if this was already done- do not resale it. I have nearly all East West orchestral collections as well as Komplete 10 Ultimate. That is on top of having Yamaha Motif, Korg Tritot and M3, Roland Fantom and so on. When I buy plugin, I am looking for something that will add to my already existing library. What do you offer that I don’t have?

I am tired of running out of space on hard drives. My system has 5 hard drives and all of them doing the same thing- storing your samples. So much stuff and everything sounds the same. Thin and boring. Open a violin sound category from any company and all it does is “eeeeeeeeee” over and over and over with slight variation. I don’t need any more of this.

Now lets talk about your libraries. I happened to be one of those “EDM” producers you marketing toward. If your staff has hard time to make demos, it is ok. Playing individual sounds can be even more helpful. The libraries are poorly described and it looks like subjective interpretation of what is EDM. Everything is “minimalistic”. Minimalistic, to me, means- song poorly done with no cool effects with basic sounds, nothing but the drums and some basic sounds that everybody heard.
Why is it that the Pads in Sample Tank 3 are all over the place? I was hoping they will correlate with the keys on keyboard or hardware pads. But no. I press C3, it lights up pad in the 2nd raw. I press D 3- it lights up pad on 3rd raw. Why not next pad to first one? You likely about to say, “It has something to do with our MIDI pads controller. Ok. I went the other night to look at your controller- I was considering to buy it. But it says- it is for iPad and iPhone. Who makes serious music on iPhone? There is application for iPhone or iPad when you on a bus or waiting in line for something- you get to play with the phone. I would not buy a pad controller marketed to be used for iPhone.

The other day I wanted to find DubStep basses in the stock Sample Tank 3 library. Do you know how many I found? NONE. This is sad. All I found were old fashion synth bases and guitar bases. No Woobles. Some poor wooble was vibrating out of tempo- that’s all. So I thought- wow- it was just released and it already outdated. But that is ok- I will go to their web site and use my 25 points and buy DubStep library. (Not that I need it- I have Massive, Hive, Serum, Nexus, Nemesis, Dune and so on, and about to install Omnesphere 2). I just wanted to find good samples to assign to Tank 3’s pads. I listened demos. I did not find any impressive woobles or distorted bases that I needed, so I left. Came back to forum and wrote what I felt after visiting your web site. Here: this is not advertisement and I do not own this plugin, but click on the first and 2nd video (trailer and Factory), listen the woooble and distorted bases and tell me that your libraries offer better samples. http://www.vengeance-sound.com/plugins. ... =Vengeance Producer Suite Essential FX Bundle 2&issue=VIDEOS

So you get very high-quality (and in these new libraries some very unique and useful) drum sounds to add to an already robust set of sounds - plus, I'd love to hear a full song done in the products on that list.

I am not sure what you mean by that. On my artist page- first song made with Izotope Beat Tweacker only, 2nd- with Maschine only. 3rd and 4th with Yamaha Motif dance sounds, and 5th- with Cakewalk stock drums. That is my dance collection. When I make Metral songs, I use Addictive Drums and Session Drums. I am not saying- there is no use for extra drums. It just overwhelming to learn different software all the time and worry about hard drive space because off all the endless libraries. https://soundcloud.com/vlada-astral

I think the libraries should be focused per genres and even instrument type. Release just synth leads, or just pads or just wooble bases or just drums, have better demo of actual sounds so we can decide if we need it.

[Peter - IK Multimedia]

None of those were made solely with those drum libraries you mention - meaning using those and ONLY those, nothing more. SampleTank is a workstation with all of the sounds necessary to get your music together - whether you stick with it throughout your project or not. With earlier versions of SampleTank we'd often hear things like "I've often started sketching a whole song with SampleTank with the expectation that I'd replace parts later - only to find that I've left the SampleTank parts intact in the final project"... This is also evident with cases like Lana Del Rey's producers using Mirsolav Philharmonik, T-RackS gear, and CSR on what was intended to be a demo, then trying to re-record in major studios (yes, multiple times) without being able to recreate it properly. So, they ended up using the "demo" with all of our products still in use and intact as the #1 hit that millions heard on the radio and purchased. Edit - adding link: http://www.ikmultimedia.com/news-archiv ... hp?Id=3561

Thank you for clarifying your other points a bit and stating what is clearly your opinion to which you are entitled, too. That was good to hear too.

Edit - a strong theme seems to be that you feel you have a lot of samples, it is hard to manage them, etc. That's a good point, and I know that there can be a lot of "collectors" snapping up a library for every potential sound that they may ever have a need for, for sure, but SampleTank users can go back to the SampleTank 3 well many times - even simply using the sounds they've marked as Favorites for a faster workflow - without having to dig through a mountain of other options - with both depth and breadth available in their workstation. Simple as that, if one is of the opinion that SampleTank sounds are useful to them then they can really get done what is most important - making music.

[Peter - IK Multimedia]

Also, please note that one can see clearly at http://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/irigpads/ (and it is the first text a visitor reads after the product name/headline for iRig Pads) -

Ultra-portable, universal MIDI groove controller for iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac and PC

I'm not quite sure how more clear you'd want us to be there, or were you confused by another page or news item? Specifically misconstruing something to make a point? Who knows. Seems you are not a fan of SampleTank 3 and that's obviously an opinion to which you are entitled but please don't let it lead to rushed judgment or misunderstandings about other related IK products.

As far as using the Pads mapping, etc, it sounds like you also might do well with a little more time using the program and perusing the manual (Chapter 8 explains the PAD page, including how to change the assigned note and more, if you are curious). We also have over 100,000 IK users on our official forum who you can discuss tips & tricks with: http://www.ikmultimedia.com/forum