Soniksynth newbie questions...

[Mike777]

I'm trying to decide between Soniksynth and Sampletank. My questions:

1. are the acoustic instruments the same of different between the two? If not, what's the difference?

2. For acoustic instruments, which has more of the extra instrument sounds for added realism, ie.. guitar slide sounds, pick noise sounds, etc

3. Which has the best piano and organ?

4. Will Sonic Capsules play in Soniksynth?

5. I only see 8 Sonic Capsules available. Where to get more sounds? What format/brand name?

thanks

[Squids]

I'm trying to decide between Soniksynth and Sampletank. My questions:

1. are the acoustic instruments the same of different between the two? If not, what's the difference?

2. For acoustic instruments, which has more of the extra instrument sounds for added realism, ie.. guitar slide sounds, pick noise sounds, etc

3. Which has the best piano and organ?

4. Will Sonic Capsules play in Soniksynth?

5. I only see 8 Sonic Capsules available. Where to get more sounds? What format/brand name?

thanks

Hi Mike. Here are some answers:

1. They are different. The difference is that most of the sounds in SampleTank were sampled by IK Multimultimedia in Italy and all of the sounds in Sonik Synth 2 were sampled by Sonic Reality. So they are different recordings apart from some sounds Sonic Reality did for SampleTank's factory sound set.

2. SampleTank may have more acoustic instruments than Sonik Synth 2. However, if you want those performance elements you should get the Acoustic Guitar Capsule and SampleTank 2.5XL at www.esoundz.com That will give you what you want there. We also have a product called Studiophonik coming out that is dedicated to guitar bass and drums (with different samples) that you may also like.

3. Best piano and organ? Honestly, both SampleTank 2.5XL and Sonik Synth 2 have some excellent pianos and organs and they ARE different! Plus the Piano Collection from Sonic Reality is another nice addition in this area. Something good to know is that if you decide to get both SampleTank 2.5XL and Sonik Synth 2 you qualify for a crossgrade discount for the second product. This is true when you buy any IK Multimedia product... you get the crossgrade discount on any other IK product you buy. Not bad!

4. None. Sonik Synth 2 has tons of sounds but it only plays its own (closed "rompler" like Atmosphere and other sound module plug-ins). SampleTank 2.5XL is open to play the Capsules, Expansion Tanks, Sonik Synth, Miroslav and Sonik Instrument sounds. It's more like a sampler/sound module in that way (expandable and also imports wav/aiff/akai/samplecell).

5. Actually there are only 7 Sonik Capsules and one of them is the "Special Edition" which is a taste of the other 6 (so really 6 full titles). But, the good news is that they are all downloadable on www.esoundz.com and we're adding more downloadable sounds for SampleTank (and every other sampler/sample player) regularly in the downloadable sounds section. No other physical disc Capsules are planned but the sounds we were going to release as capsules will be available on line as downloadable instruments, sound packs and loops in "Loop Club" (ala carte loops you can buy).

Good luck! Let us know if you have any other questions.

[Mike777]

Thanks, a few more questions:

1. can the screen or character size be adjusted in SS or ST? I use 1360x768 desktop resolution and the text is small, I would like to increase ONLY the SS or ST screen, any way to do that (using XP Pro)? Can Vista do it? does Vista have ability to increase/decrease the image of just one window?

2. can I change the color?

3. you said "SampleTank 2.5XL is open to play the Capsules, Expansion Tanks, Sonik Synth, Miroslav and Sonik Instrument sounds." Can SampleTank 2.5 L play those too?

4. is there midi learn in SS or ST? I click the midi button, click on a knob, and see the midi screen, but don't know how to set the button to a knob on my Fantom.

thanks!

[dougsyo]

2. The color knobs are at the far right, beside the control panel. There's COL, LUM and SAT. The red is really gaudy, I have a turquoise color set right now.

3. IIRC ST2L and XL are the same engine but different libraries (L is a subset of XL).

I can't answer 1 or 4.

Doug

[grymmjack]

i own sampletank 2 xl and i lucked out and got soniksynth used in the market place. it was worth it. quite a lot of good sounds inside. i can also vouch for the quality of the SR packs on esoundz. the capsules are great vfm.

[DarkStar]

A1 - not as far as I know

A4 - there's no MIDI learn; inthe MIDI Ctl window you drag the CC number to set it and also change the Max/Min values

[Squids]

SampleTank 2.5L will also work. It's the same full engine as XL but just less sounds come in the package.

Other questions were already answered. Thanks guys.