IK/SR VI HOT BUY - GROUP BUY on eSoundz!!! SampleTank Instruments for $99 + more!

[bobbackwards]

Had a quick play with piano collection last night and I am impressed. There are some really good sounds in there. I am a guitar/bass player and not much of a keys player but I felt inspired by several of the instruments. I mainly got in on this GB because I needed some good pianos without spending big $ and I am happy I did. I haven't had the chance to play with vintage keys yet but if it is the same quality as the piano collection I can't wait. Now let's get to 300 so I have to make a choice between the string and hip hop collections. BTW this is my second GB with esoundz and I couldn't be more satisfied...you guys rock.

[torgo]

I bought SS & ST.I have to take four free libraries and probably would be six.

"Plus as a bonus we have these two options (Tron Sounds):
http://www.esoundz.com/details.php?ProductID=2173& refcode=HBGBKVR
http://www.esoundz.com/details.php?ProductID=2144& refcode=HBGBKVR"

This option is not for me,only for those who bought other tron sounds?I have not tested tron sounds from ss2.I know the sound of tron and I like them.I move in these genres that I mentioned.I know that are not frequently used in these generes. Sounds do not have to fit all generes.I ask that they fit more or which ones are better?If I can not select these sounds as a free library, my question is irrelevant.

If something is incomprehensible. Sorry. Dr.google helped me in translation.

Not a problem, sensone. I'll see if I can explain it...

Yes, you are allowed to get those other two options. What we are saying is that you probably don't want them. Other choices on the list would probably be better for you.

You have Sonic Synth 2, so you already have a good Mellotron collection. It's under "B Keyboards" in the section called "D Trons". There are lots of Mellotron strings, flute, choir, organ, and other sounds in that section.

Test them. I think you'll find you already have the Mellotron sounds you want.

[torgo]

Had a quick play with piano collection last night and I am impressed. There are some really good sounds in there. I am a guitar/bass player and not much of a keys player but I felt inspired by several of the instruments. I mainly got in on this GB because I needed some good pianos without spending big $ and I am happy I did. I haven't had the chance to play with vintage keys yet but if it is the same quality as the piano collection I can't wait. Now let's get to 300 so I have to make a choice between the string and hip hop collections. BTW this is my second GB with esoundz and I couldn't be more satisfied...you guys rock.

I think you'll be pleased with Vintage Keys. Think of it as the Electric Piano Collection to go along with the Piano Collection. The CP70 and Rhodes in particular are simply outstanding.

The Hammond B3's are pretty good too, but I'm guessing you already have good organ sounds - they're pretty standard fare. There are other synth and Tron sounds in there too, which are great if you don't already have them in other collections.

[subtlearts]

If something is incomprehensible. Sorry. Dr.google helped me in translation.

... it is a bit tricky, but I'll have a go. You mention that you bought 'SS and ST' - SS seems to be Sonik Synth, and ST could be SampleTank (XL) or SampleTron. If it's the latter, and you still need more Tron sounds, then congrats - you're in obsessive territory (like torgo and, apparently, me). In that case you could get the Squids exclusive freebie which would add the bits from Squids Tron that did not make it into SampleTron.

If ST = SampleTank XL, then you have, as torgo points out, the Sonik Synth Tron set already, which is actually pretty great and covers a lot of bases. If you want to add more, want to use your freebies on it, and don't want anything else on the list, you could try one or both of the Exclusive libraries and you'll add some extra fun - but for the most part, for most purposes, the SS2 Tron set is probably enough for most people.

Again, in terms of the suitability of those sounds for the genres you work in... I'm afraid you'll have to be the judge, as I don't walk in those worlds. Unless someone else more expert in these things wants to chime in...

[dmorrill]

I finally finished downloading Miroslav and SS2 and followed torgo's suggestion on installing things manually for use with the SampleTank 2 Free version. Everything seems to have worked out pretty well, but I did run into one issue which some people might care about.

It appears that if you do not install the package plugin (say for Miroslav or SS2), then you will not have any of the combi's that come with the package. The combi's are installed as part of the base package, not as part of the sample .zip files. In the case of Miroslav, you will be missing 166 combi's, and for SS2, 357 combi's.

What I did to fix this is to:

- Install the Miroslav (or SS2 or ???) package. Make sure to select at least one type of plugin to install (e.g. VSTi or RTAS). I initially turned them all off, but then nothing got installed at all.

- Once the installation completes, go to the application's Presets folder. On my Windows Vista 64 system, this was: C:\Program Files (x86)\IK Multimedia\Miroslav Philharmonik\Presets.

- Now copy all of the files in the Presets directory into your corresponding SampleTank Presets directory. Again, on my system this was: C:\Program Files (x86)\IK Multimedia\SampleTank 2.5\Presets. Note that for organizational purposes, at this point I also added a parent folder (e.g. Miroslav Philharmonik) under Presets, just to make things easier to navigate within the SampleTank GUI later.

- At this point, you don't need the application plugin anymore, so I uninstalled them (i.e. I uninstalled Miroslav and Sonik Synth).

- Now fire up SampleTank and click on the LOAD button/label in the top-middle of the GUI and select "Refresh Combi List" from the menu. At this point, all of the combi files you copied previously should now appear in the menu the next time you click on the LOAD button. Ta Da!

I've tried a few of them just to make sure they work right, and they seem to. A couple of them have popped up a "Preanalyzing" dialog, which seems to never complete, so I had to cancel them, but some others don't. I'm still new to SampleTank, so I'm not sure what the significance of this analysis is. It's probably some type of pre-caching scheme to help things load faster the next time you use the combi?

I'm going to make sure I back-up/copy this Presets directory when installing the VI's on my other systems, to avoid having to install the base package plugins again.

Obviously, if you don't want to use any of the package combi's, you don't need to do this. Combi's are just pre-packaged sample layering/effects setups, and as a total n00b like me, seem like a worthwhile resource to have available. The total size of the Miroslav combi's is 125 MB, and for the SS2 combi's, 268 MB, so it seems like a non-trivial amount of work went into creating them.

Anyway, I hope this helps out anyone else looking to follow the installation procedure torgo outlined earlier...

[sensone]

Not a problem, sensone. I'll see if I can explain it...

Yes, you are allowed to get those other two options. What we are saying is that you probably don't want them. Other choices on the list would probably be better for you.

You have Sonic Synth 2, so you already have a good Mellotron collection. It's under "B Keyboards" in the section called "D Trons". There are lots of Mellotron strings, flute, choir, organ, and other sounds in that section.

Test them. I think you'll find you already have the Mellotron sounds you want.

I wrote earlier that I did not see the option to select the tron sounds as a free sound library.Could you recommend which of these two libraries is better?

What other libraries would you recommend me?
I took HH sound.What do you think about Electronic Drums and Acoustic Drums Collection 2,are good?
Which of the Retank loops have Slice + Midi ?

[sensone]

... it is a bit tricky, but I'll have a go. You mention that you bought 'SS and ST' - SS seems to be Sonik Synth, and ST could be SampleTank (XL) or SampleTron.

Sorry my mistake that I did not associate these acronyms are the same. I bought Sonik Synth and Sample Tank.

[sensone]

I wrote a little wrong before. I'm not a very twisted on the tron to buy samples tron but I love that sound and I would take one free tron library.
Unfortunately I can not hear them. So please help me choose.I bought two products in this promotion and I had a lot of free libraries to choose.
And please confirm. I can pick them up?? Because I did not see that choice as I picked first of free library some time ago.

[Xenobt]

Again, excellent work Torgo! Very nice ADSR tutorial...

I forget that many users have never edited or built their own sounds from scratch, especially the younger ones who never HAD to!

Growing up in the 70's and early 80's, synths didn't have presets, so you programmed EVERYTHING every time you played one. Try THAT on a dark stage after a few cocktails! But you DID learn what every knob or slider did, and got used to starting with a raw oscillator or two and digging in to build something that was truly YOURS.

And Clavs, Rhodes, Wurlys, B3s and most other electronic keyboard instruments of that era relied HEAVILY on the kind of effects that come WITH Sampletank - rotary speakers, distortion, envelope followers, flangers, phasers, chorus and delays got a good work out as these now classic sounds were created for the first time. Again, to make something that sounded like YOU!

Maybe that's the main thing to keep in mind when working with ST. You may need to tweak a few things to get them where you want them, but you'll have that knowledge to apply to ANY synth (software or hardware) the next time you need to. This is a VERY good thing!

Also, "happy accidents" while programming (as Eno calls them), will give you something you'd NEVER expect, but are incredibly COOL and can spark a new idea or bring that track to life!

So subtlearts, while I understand that most current workstations and keyboards go for immediate gratification when you touch the keyboard, I PREFER Sampletanks "parent program" approach for making something unique, AND helps me become a better programmer and sound designer in the process...

Also, don't forget the World Grooves Collection when making your free choices, Really great playing and INCREDIBLE production on these loops that will work in LOTS of contexts...

And glad it all worked out dmorrill! I don't use combis, but maybe now I WILL!

eSoundz: Xenobt

[Reverend Rhythm]

241! Good job everyone!

[DarkStar]

It appears that if you do not install the package plugin (say for Miroslav or SS2), then you will not have any of the combi's that come with the package. The combi's are installed as part of the base package, not as part of the sample .zip files. In the case of Miroslav, you will be missing 166 combi's, and for SS2, 357 combi's.

What I did to fix this is to:

- Install the Miroslav (or SS2 or ???) package. Make sure to select at least one type of plugin to install (e.g. VSTi or RTAS). I initially turned them all off, but then nothing got installed at all.

- Once the installation completes, go to the application's Presets folder. On my Windows Vista 64 system, this was: C:\Program Files (x86)\IK Multimedia\Miroslav Philharmonik\Presets.

- Now copy all of the files in the Presets directory into your corresponding SampleTank Presets directory. Again, on my system this was: C:\Program Files (x86)\IK Multimedia\SampleTank 2.5\Presets. Note that for organizational purposes, at this point I also added a parent folder (e.g. Miroslav Philharmonik) under Presets, just to make things easier to navigate within the SampleTank GUI later.

Good tip

I've tried a few of them just to make sure they work right, and they seem to. A couple of them have popped up a "Preanalyzing" dialog, which seems to never complete, so I had to cancel them, but some others don't. I'm still new to SampleTank, so I'm not sure what the significance of this analysis is. It's probably some type of pre-caching scheme to help things load faster the next time you use the combi?

"Pre -analysis" is the action that the software carries out when the Instrument Synth mode is set to "Stretch" ("SampleTank Time Resynthesis Technology"). Some of the Combis will have those type of instrument in them. it is only carried out once per Instrument but can take some time. Which one(s) are not ending? The result of the analysis is stored in a .stv file alongside the Instrument.

Obviously, if you don't want to use any of the package combi's, you don't need to do this. Combi's are just pre-packaged sample layering/effects setups, and as a total n00b like me, seem like a worthwhile resource to have available. The total size of the Miroslav combi's is 125 MB, and for the SS2 combi's, 268 MB, so it seems like a non-trivial amount of work went into creating them.

Trust me, you do want the Combis. Each one is 775K, as it holds the full state for each of 16 instrument slots (even if the Combi only loads a few).

HTH

[subtlearts]

So subtlearts, while I understand that most current workstations and keyboards go for immediate gratification when you touch the keyboard, I PREFER Sampletanks "parent program" approach for making something unique, AND helps me become a better programmer and sound designer in the process...

I'm not sure what I said to inspire this, but I agree wholeheartedly!

Also, don't forget the World Grooves Collection when making your free choices, Really great playing and INCREDIBLE production on these loops that will work in LOTS of contexts...

Good to hear. I have that one in mind as well.

And glad it all worked out dmorrill! I don't use combis, but maybe now I WILL!

Yeah, I think I might be missing a couple of these as well, and they can also be good starting points for a new/unique sound...

[DarkStar]

Combis RAWK! (they are just like Kontakt's Multis)

[torgo]

I wrote earlier that I did not see the option to select the tron sounds as a free sound library.Could you recommend which of these two libraries is better?

I'm working on it, but it will take some time - what I have are the larger versions, so I need to study which sounds will be in which of these smaller libraries.

I still believe that the best small library for Mellotron is the one you have in Sonik Synth. The other two sets will add more sounds, but many of the sounds will be similar to the ones you already have.

Which of the Retank loops have Slice + Midi ?

I am not 100% certain myself, as the ones I have are the "XT" versions instead of the Retank versions. But Squids said earlier that all of the Retank packages have MIDI as well as the audio loops.

I took HH sound.What do you think about Electronic Drums and Acoustic Drums Collection 2,are good?

Both of those collections are very good. Either of them would be a good choice for drums.

You don't have a time limit for making your choice. It's okay to wait a while and test your other sounds first. Use the electronic drums that you have in HH and see if you need more. That might help you decide between the Acoustic and Electronic Drums collections.

What other libraries would you recommend me?

Vintage Keys has good electric piano. Bass Collection might also be good for your music.

[Squids]

Xenobt was just rewarded $5 in epointz randomly for good participation in the thread. We'll be picking a few people here and there to "gift" just for fun. Allen and I are checking in to see who is keeping things interesting and being helpful so we can show some appreciation especially to new people who might like a taste of what epointz are all about. If you are posting outside of KVR at all to spread the word please post links to that here so we can see.