IK Multimedia Xpansion Tank 2 Group Buy

[Squids]

Some questions for Squids or anyone who has SampleOBXpander.

Looking at the patches for the Sample OBXpander, I note that some of the names may hint at who they sound like. The description of the pack mentions the oberheim synth being made famous by Lyle Mays of Pat Metheney Group, Van Halen and Rush.

Am I right in assuming that the Parent patch titled Eddie OB is something like the sounds Van Halen used, and Lyle OB is something like the sounds Lyle Mays commonly used? (I know this might be a dumb question).

Anyway, as a major Rush fan, I am keen to get sounds similar to those of Rush but cannot identify anything that is definitely a reference to Rush, other than possibly Tom pad. Could this sound like the synths in Tom Sawyer, which would be what I am really after? If not, can I acheive this sort of sound from the OB pack?

Am I reading too much into the names?

I am hoping to make this my choice for the 4x1, but would love any comments or feedback on these questions.

Cheers

Actually I believe that Tom Sawyer sound is a Moog. But, there's some good pads for sounds from Moving Pictures and Signals in there.

Yeah, the other sounds would be somewhat like those other artists too. If you're a fan of those three you owe it to yourself to have some cool Oberheim samples!

I am doing some work with Rush right now for their upcoming tour interestingly enough. I can't say too much about it yet but I will be able to in June!

[Harry_HH]

Now when the 4th pack waits for choosing and downloading, I'd like to hear
how would you rate different multi sampled instruments?
E.g. World Instrument Collection vs. Hip Hop Instruments?

I've downloaded three of four and I think that the "average quality"
is rather good, not superb but you can't expect that with this price level.
The price-quality -ratio was good even without the group buy.

The only bigger dissapointment for me has been the Vintage Keys Collection.
Comparing to many IK's grets keys, e.g. moogs, trons, OB's and Arps, I didn't find many useful sounds of this pack.

I'd like to get your comments of different packs.

Harry

[fanfarecircuit]

The only bigger dissapointment for me has been the Vintage Keys Collection.
Comparing to many IK's greas keys, e.g. moogs, trons, OB's and Arps, I didn't find many useful sounds of this pack.

really? what didn't you like about it? i love the mellotron sound... certainly this pack has got a few good ones, right?

[Odieman]

I know what I want to do with my fourth pick (Omnisounds), but I am stuck now because I forgot my password, and had it reset yesterday at IK...and I haven't heard anything yet,so I am locked out (not that there is much I could do anyway.

[Squids]

i've just been playing with cinematik. here is the rest of the orchestra. there are some good pads too. however, this has very few orchestral effects. it also has patches where effects which sound synthetic, and a strange woodland sample, are placed over a regular instrument after a delay. this seems pointless, as they are one hit wonders, and it doesn't take a genius to do that kind of layering. there are also one hit wonders where a chord and/or sequence eventually comes in. again, it's something that could easily be done by a user, and we wouldn't be stuck with the one chord/sequence. some of the sounds have such a low volume, they demand complete attention from the listener to discern them. oh, there are some piano and string pads . i haven't checked for overlap with other ik products, but some things sound familiar. i can use the basic orchestral sounds to pad my other samples, but i would have been disappointed if i'd bought this

You're a hard robot to please Android! Some effects are supposed to sound synthetic. This includes both synth pads and orchestral. This library does have some orchestral effects in it that would not be possible to do with just a regular orchestra library that didn't have weaving and evolving full symphonic elements as part of it. Take the Close Encounters patch as an example. That would be very difficult if not impossible to do with a regular orchestral library. There aren't a TON of patches like that but at this price there's enough variety of both effects and other orchestral/synthetic pads to be more than worth it in my opinion. I actually feel the opposite of what you're saying in that I was even questioning whether we should be including it at this price at all... it equates to being $12.50 (in a 4 for 1 at $50). If it's not worth THAT then I think I might jump out the window (luckily I am on the first floor though...)

For relativity, there are people here who bought these "Film Orchestra" sounds in a previous group buy for much more. By and large they were satisfied with it. So, I think this may very well be a case of "you can't please them all".

[barbecutie]

IK Multimedia Xpansion Tank 2 Group Buy

Now 4X1! Currently at 1578 users! Need 2500 users for 5X1!

http://www.ikmultimedia.com/xtgroupbuy

and

http://www.esoundz.com/details.php?ProductID=4293

BBC

esoundz user: BarBeCutie or see epointz referral thread below for other users:

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... ht=epointz

[Squids]

The only bigger dissapointment for me has been the Vintage Keys Collection.
Comparing to many IK's greas keys, e.g. moogs, trons, OB's and Arps, I didn't find many useful sounds of this pack.

really? what didn't you like about it? i love the mellotron sound... certainly this pack has got a few good ones, right?

This one was also part of the Rare & Vintage Group Buy we had and there were very little complaints then at a higher price. I use that one all the time too. Some great sounds in this Vintage pack! It's not perfect or the complete "everything you need in vintage sounds" by no means... but in this series I think it offers some good classic meat and potatoes keys. I'm field testing it right now playing on a rock album (somewhat prog) and it fits the bill! Does the trick. Gets you "there". A worthy addition to one's collection IMO - at least if they like vintage sounds of course!

But if one already has SampleMoog, SampleTron and others (especially Sonik Synth which has loads) then they may already have that area covered. By the way, those are all Sonic Reality sounds, not IK. IK packages them and sells them but the same people made all of the sounds being compared there. So the quality should be consistent, so it is more a matter of one's personal tastes... and there's no way to please everyone - especially 1,500 people!

We hope at least that everyone is pleased with the value they get for their $49.95 This represents YEARS of sound development, recording instruments in studios all over the world and a lot of group buys have helped create additional content for SampleTank that is being offered here at a uniform low price. That's a big deal and not something that can happen everyday. So enjoy it while it lasts!

[Harry_HH]

This one was also part of the Rare & Vintage Group Buy we had and there were very little complaints then at a higher price. I use that one all the time too. Some great sounds in this Vintage pack! It's not perfect or the complete "everything you need in vintage sounds" by no means... but in this series I think it offers some good classic meat and potatoes keys. I'm field testing it right now playing on a rock album (somewhat prog) and it fits the bill! Does the trick. Gets you "there". A worthy addition to one's collection IMO - at least if they like vintage sounds of course!

But if one already has SampleMoog, SampleTron and others (especially Sonik Synth which has loads) then they may already have that area covered. By the way, those are all Sonic Reality sounds, not IK. IK packages them and sells them but the same people made all of the sounds being compared there. So the quality should be consistent, so it is more a matter of one's personal tastes... and there's no way to please everyone - especially 1,500 people!

We hope at least that everyone is pleased with the value they get for their $49.95 This represents YEARS of sound development, recording instruments in studios all over the world and a lot of group buys have helped create additional content for SampleTank that is being offered here at a uniform low price. That's a big deal and not something that can happen everyday. So enjoy it while it lasts!

Don't be that touchy for any critical evaluation. As everyone can read, the
main tone in my comment was very positive! I understand that this Forum is for sharing opinions - I just gave my hones comments, which I hope are useful. And as I wrote, I get other USER OPINIONS especially the products I mentioned. Harry

[Squids]

Can somebody answer this?

I bought the original Piano Collection for Sampletank 1 years ago. I see that the patches in Piano Collection 2 are called the same, so I assume the new lib is based on the same samples as the original. Question is, are the new patches (now made for Sampletank 2) in any way different in terms of quality, dynamics, etc? I.e. can Piano Collection 2 be considered a useful update of Piano Collection 1?

Actually, I wonder the exact same thing about Symphony Strings 2 (which btw I know also adds some solo instruments not available in the original set).

If you own the original Piano Collection 1 and Symphonic Strings 1 I would say that you might want to pick out another title instead. There are some very nice additions to them though if you are a fan of either library and want more... If you consider that each library is normally $50 then at 4 for 1 you are getting another 3 for free. That is really how one should look at it IMO (or that you are getting each one for $12.50). So... whether you look at the others as FREE or as $12.50 cost averaged I think it could be worth getting say Symphonic Strings 2 for the solo strings and any other additions. The Piano Collection has less additions but it does have a nice larger sized grand in it that could be worth the $12.50 (or freeness) alone. I think it is called Big Grand. It's one of my favorites.

But, I'd say, if you already own the predecessor then it is only worth getting if you look at it as "free" or $12.50 I wouldn't suggest someone who owned it previously pay the full $50 for just that pack... hmmm, in some ways you can even look at the $12.50 as your "upgrade price" for the additional content and since we sell individual single sounds for as much as that on www.downloadablesoundz.com it is easy to justify that way as well.

However, if you don't choose to look at it that way then I recommend picking some other titles that you don't already have. It's nice to have 30 titles to select from! The only reason we're able to offer that is because it represents years of sound development for the SampleTank platform. I doubt we'll ever see an offer quite like this again so enjoy! I hope my suggestions were helpful.

[Squids]

This one was also part of the Rare & Vintage Group Buy we had and there were very little complaints then at a higher price. I use that one all the time too. Some great sounds in this Vintage pack! It's not perfect or the complete "everything you need in vintage sounds" by no means... but in this series I think it offers some good classic meat and potatoes keys. I'm field testing it right now playing on a rock album (somewhat prog) and it fits the bill! Does the trick. Gets you "there". A worthy addition to one's collection IMO - at least if they like vintage sounds of course!

But if one already has SampleMoog, SampleTron and others (especially Sonik Synth which has loads) then they may already have that area covered. By the way, those are all Sonic Reality sounds, not IK. IK packages them and sells them but the same people made all of the sounds being compared there. So the quality should be consistent, so it is more a matter of one's personal tastes... and there's no way to please everyone - especially 1,500 people!

We hope at least that everyone is pleased with the value they get for their $49.95 This represents YEARS of sound development, recording instruments in studios all over the world and a lot of group buys have helped create additional content for SampleTank that is being offered here at a uniform low price. That's a big deal and not something that can happen everyday. So enjoy it while it lasts!

Don't be that touchy for any crical evaluation. As everyone can read, the
main tone in my comment was very positive! I understand that this Forum is for sharing opinions - I just gave my hones comments, which I hope are useful. And as I wrote, I get other USER OPINIONS especially the products I mentioned. Harry

Each person is entitled to their opinion. I'm surely entitled to mine. I gave my honest comments back for balance.

Guys, just because I quote you doesn't mean my whole comment is just to you. It's to everyone reading. I don't think I'm being touchy (or at least not any more than I am having responded to thousands of posts over the last 9 years KVR). But if someone is going to be critical of our work we may have something to say back about it is all. Perspectives are good for people to read. They tell a larger story. We don't all have to agree. But the ways to appreciate these sounds philosophically or psychologically is all food for thought.

[Harry_HH]

Don't be that touchy for any critical evaluation. As everyone can read, the
main tone in my comment was very positive! I understand that this Forum is for sharing opinions - I just gave my honest comment, which I hope are useful. And as I wrote, I get other USER OPINIONS especially the products I mentioned. Harry

Each person is entitled to their opinion. I'm surely entitled to mine. I gave my honest comments back for balance.

Guys, just because I quote you doesn't mean my whole comment is just to you. It's to everyone reading. I don't think I'm being touchy (or at least not any more than I am having responded to thousands of posts over the last 9 years KVR). But if someone is going to be critical of our work we may have something to say back about it is all. Perspectives are good for people to read. They tell a larger story. We don't all have to agree. But the ways to appreciate these sounds philosophically or psychologically is all food for thought.

This is all OK. But going back to my original point, where are all the comments and user experience of different libraries I asked for? This thread is already on the page 46 or something and just few of libraries have been evaluated or give ANY comment. One of the add one values of these forums is helping people doing better decisions, so people, stand up.
On my behalf can say that I've choosen so far Vintage Keys, Vocal and Acoustic Drums, I give thumbs up for the last two and I have some reservations for the Vintage Keys for anyone who has some good Rhodes, Moog or Tron sounds already. I've got many IK's products, e.g. different keys, which are great, i.e. I have something to compare with. BTW, this group buy is great, thank you! Harry

[Squids]

Okay, I took the jump. World instruments was a no brainer but I'm stuck on what to do with my other two. I already have samplemoog and sampletron, so I'm I kind of want to stay away from sampleob\samplearp as I'm all synthed out. I have the drums\piano\strings covered so I'm wondering about the others.

I am considering hiphop multi as it seems to have a good mix of instruments, same with omnisynth.

So that leaves cinematik and .... I'm looking for good bang for buck here! Anythoughts?

I was kind of in the same boat as you. The guitars and drums are good, but I have so many.

I picked Cinematik, and let me say...Cinematik is quality...it's unlikely you have anything quite like it. It was my first choice, and I'm pleased with it. Lots of good string effects and...well...unusual stuff. I'd at least consider that one.

For my other two choices I got World Instruments and the Vocal one. These were two areas that I think are generally underrepresented in the world of sound libraries. With all the onboard effects, you can really use the vocal pack for otherwordly and ethereal sounds. A good number of the vocal patches are "beatboxes" which aren't my favorite, but (1) they are sliced along the keyboard which means you can make your own percussive loops with them and (2) the sound of the non-beatbox patches still made it worthwhile for me.

So, I'd say definitely go for Cinematik (dont' forget to get Squids pack of special child patches for it back a few pages in this thread)....and then consider the vocal pack. I've heard good things about the Hip Hop pack as well....lots of variety.

See, I have no bone to pick with you. Just kidding!

Actually that's a great post. Should be helpful to others.

Listen, guys, let me explain a few things from our perspective being not only the ones that created these sounds but also after having done many group buys. If you've joined the group buy, it is to your advantage to focus on the appreciation of what you like as opposed to looking under the rocks for the flaws. I am not saying it isn't good to share both good and bad experience opinions but be careful not to scare others away either!

Consider that every library out there is vulnerable to criticism - especially when getting into the territory of subjective opinions. No one is supposed to like every sound in a library. Each person's tastes are different. What's great about this particular bundle is that there are a ton of ways to justify the value of your purchase... starting with the fact that even if there were NO libraries included in this you still get the full SampleTank 2.5 engine which in the past we've sold on its own in Group Buys for $99 by itself. Or the "free" libraries POV or the $12.50 each POV... no matter how you slice it the deal is great overall and hopefully that is what matters the most. That's mainly what I am saying. But just me saying only counts for so much... of COURSE I am going to say that because we're the ones making it and selling it. But, if that overall message doesn't come from you guys then you'll have a bunch of fence sitters waiting to pushed... and if they don't fall off the fence then you can't hit the 5 for 1!

Long story short... if you're happy with the value you got AND you want even MORE (5 for 1... maybe 6 for 1) then the appreciation posts have to outweigh the complaints. Otherwise some people are at risk of getting the crazy idea that this is somehow not worth it! As absurd as that may be! But, it's true that most people want to see what the users have to say, not the freakin' salesman or protective mother of the sounds. So it's up to you guys to keep the balance. I just get tackled if I say anything... even if I make some good points. It has to come from you, the ones who love this and want more of it. That's the only way to barrel through to 5 for 1, 6 for 1 or 7 for 1 or who knows? That is the beauty of a GROUP buy. It is in the hands of the people so it is up to you. Each person counts in this. Good luck! I can only do what you expect a Squids to do... and it shouldn't surprise anyone that has read my posts before. If you haven't... well I guess you're in for a treat! Just remember to have sense of humor intact... we don't want to all take everything TOO seriously.

[Squids]

Don't be that touchy for any critical evaluation. As everyone can read, the
main tone in my comment was very positive! I understand that this Forum is for sharing opinions - I just gave my honest comment, which I hope are useful. And as I wrote, I get other USER OPINIONS especially the products I mentioned. Harry

Each person is entitled to their opinion. I'm surely entitled to mine. I gave my honest comments back for balance.

Guys, just because I quote you doesn't mean my whole comment is just to you. It's to everyone reading. I don't think I'm being touchy (or at least not any more than I am having responded to thousands of posts over the last 9 years KVR). But if someone is going to be critical of our work we may have something to say back about it is all. Perspectives are good for people to read. They tell a larger story. We don't all have to agree. But the ways to appreciate these sounds philosophically or psychologically is all food for thought.

This is all OK. But going back to my original point, where are all the comments and user experience of different libraries I asked for? This thread is already on the page 46 or something and just few of libraries have been evaluated or give ANY comment. One of the add one values of these forums is helping people doing better decisions, so people, stand up.
On my behalf can say that I've choosen so far Vintage Keys, Vocal and Acoustic Drums, I give thumbs up for the last two and I have some reservations for the Vintage Keys for anyone who has some good Rhodes, Moog or Tron sounds already. I've got many IK's products, e.g. different keys, which are great, i.e. I have something to compare with. BTW, this group buy is great, thank you! Harry

Thanks Harry. Well said. I totally agree (as I just posted) that user opinions are important. I have seen a fair amount of them though in this and the other thread in the SR forum. But you can never have too many. Interestingly, in the spirit of keeping this Group Buy something that inspires new people to join (something everyone in the group buy also wants), what is it that you are particularly enjoying about the Vocal and Acoustic Drums libraries that you got?

[Squids]

I'll make one more (non Squids mega post) clarification for anyone who is wondering about what my role is typically in these group buys. I'm here to help it be a success and to find its way into the hands of people that will appreciate it. The success benefits both the company(companies) and the customer in the "bang for the buck" area. So I simply do my best in the ways I know how. I don't hold back my opinions and I try to be as objective and fair as I can be. But my intentions are to either give a large amount of people some good tips or advice or at least make you smile or laugh... even a minor snicker is worth something or I'd even take a smirk! OR a half-smile...like Ben Affleck... you know the one he does at the end of Good Will Hunting when he (rather slowly) realizes his friend left on a road trip? I do that half-smile sometimes...

Anyway, hopefully that first part made some good sense.

[Reverend Rhythm]

And I think it needs to be pointed out that there are different opinions. If you read the entire thread, there are pro and con comments on the same Xpansion Tanks. One person said they didn't like the strings. Then others said they did. Someone criticised the ARP or Obi Xpansion Tank (can't remember which one), and someone else said that was their favorite. We're all going to look at it differently.