KVR Audio

musicdoc · Post by **musicdoc** » Mon May 07, 2012 12:57 am

Dated sounds, dated interface... I'm kind of surprised that after all these years IK is still doing "specials" on ST2 and their capsules. With IK it's like you have to go through 20 sounds to find 1 good one and their interface will give you a headache from squinting in no time.

Still, they make great guitar plugins. Just their VSTi department needs a serious update.

Look on the positive side, if they are about to finally release ST3 instead of iPhone apps you'll hopefully get a break on the update.

heffus · Post by **heffus** » Mon May 07, 2012 1:33 am

If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck...

chj · Post by **chj** » Mon May 07, 2012 2:06 am

Used to have freebie versions of Sampletank, Sonic Synth, they didn't last long on my hard drive. The sounds are horribly dated. Just listen to the audio demos on the IK website. Warning, they might cause you to grow a mullet.

JasonSpatola · Post by **JasonSpatola** » Mon May 07, 2012 3:17 am

I love most of the sounds, especially when tweaking the Stretch engine parameters live - really neat, controllable evolutions. It's not a sampler I'd use for a solo piano piece or anything like that due to the lack of round robin, velocity layers, etc....

Hate the SampleTank interface, though.

flugel45 · Post by **flugel45** » Mon May 07, 2012 4:15 am

For those who are calling the sounds "dated".... Perhaps if the bundle made up the only instruments in your toolbox. But as part of a larger arsenal, it's just another palette - and a hugely varied one at that.

And also, I believe all of these "dated" sounds are very editable. If you can't make them sound better, whose fault is that?

To me, all these "sparkly" sounds that seem to be the rage nowadays tend to make my ears bleed. I'll take "dated" any day of the week.

Well, I suppose now I know who's buying the exciter plugins.

Mikelo · Post by **Mikelo** » Mon May 07, 2012 4:24 am

I'm using SampleTank XT which is the full version of tank, minus the 6g content.With this though, I have pretty much most of the Xpansion libraries.
The sound of Sampletank is not hyped, it pretty much has a "live band" feel, which is great for me as I mainly do RnB.
I also find that the "tone" control does make a major difference to the sound.
What I do find annoying though is I find SampleTank very buggy.
For example, I'm currently writing a number where I use strings from the Xpansion Tank Symphony strings 2 library, which fit perfectly into the sound I wanted. A sort of old motown feel to them.
But saying that on play back in Reaper (64bit) bridged and also previously Cubase (32bit), the midi notes "hang". Ie, the strings would play but previous notes would continue playing also.
I also find that some sounds, like the bass part of the track I'm working on, give out a little faint popping sound.
I wish IK would look at updating this, as it looks it hasn't been updated for sometime.
I would also love to buy the group buy bundle, but these problems hold me back from doing so.

quantum7 · Post by **quantum7** » Mon May 07, 2012 4:49 am

I'm not sure which is worse.....that IK still sells Sampletank.....or that people still buy it. Even 5 years ago 90% of its sounds STUNK, but in comparison to what is available today....my God there are no words to describe it. Oh the humanity!!!!

Brian @ IK Multimedia · Mon May 07, 2012 4:52 am

Some sounds do sound dated for sure... like the ones in SampleTron. But that is the point, isn't it?

The overriding design goal of SampleTank was to be a virtual ROMpler and provide a workstation's full sonic palette ready to go out of the box with a minimal footprint at reasonable pricepoint. You can spend more for fewer instruments that take up a lot more space and require a lot of programming. There is definitely a place for those types of sounds, too, just as there is a place for these.

Mikelo · Post by **Mikelo** » Mon May 07, 2012 5:05 am

Brian, as you are here, is there any chance of solving some of my problems? Will there be anymore updates for current users?
Thanks.

braj · Post by **braj** » Mon May 07, 2012 5:17 am

Every time I tried to use Sampletank Free I had problems, so I just gave up. I bought and love Wusikstation, for $50 you get so much and I'm not exactly sure how it compares to Sampletank but it does work. You may want to check it out as it is on sale still in the market.

braj · Post by **braj** » Mon May 07, 2012 5:22 am

IMO this concept isn't limited to U-he, so I don't feel it is misplaced in this forum. I'd love to see other developers do something similar, since everyone is different we would see a different take on the concept with I'd guess some very interesting plugins.

Mikelo · Post by **Mikelo** » Mon May 07, 2012 5:30 am

braj wrote:Every time I tried to use Sampletank Free I had problems, so I just gave up. I bought and love Wusikstation, for $50 you get so much and I'm not exactly sure how it compares to Sampletank but it does work. You may want to check it out as it is on sale still in the market.

Hi braj, I already have Wusikstation 6. I love it!
Sampletank is the only instrument I have that is buggy. I hope someone from IK respond. I've tried emails to IK in the past to no avail.

What problems did you find braj (with Sampletank) by the way?

braj · Post by **braj** » Mon May 07, 2012 5:32 am

Mikelo wrote:
braj wrote:Every time I tried to use Sampletank Free I had problems, so I just gave up. I bought and love Wusikstation, for $50 you get so much and I'm not exactly sure how it compares to Sampletank but it does work. You may want to check it out as it is on sale still in the market.
Hi braj, I already have Wusikstation 6. I love it!
Sampletank is the only instrument I have that is buggy. I hope someone from IK respond. I've tried emails to IK in the past to no avail.
What problems did you find braj (with Sampletank) by the way?

It would crash my hosts (from trying it long time ago in Live till recently in Reaper), and it seemed to have permissions issues as well. I don't exactly recall, since i didn't invest any money in it I didn't see much need to invest more time

and I wasn't very impressed with the sounds when it did run.

GeorgeZ · Post by **GeorgeZ** » Mon May 07, 2012 5:46 am

vaisnava wrote:sounds are super dated and many are thin... BUT there is still a ton of potential.

Yup. None of the IKM instruments ever sat well with me (gave sampletank etc many demo runs, and a good amount of time to prove itself. Always seemed sluggish and just didn't sound good to me... just my 2c of course), but the FX... top shelf. Got Amplitube 3 full (pre CS BS)+ a Stealth Pedal and T-Racks Deluxe (beauty!) and can't fault either (although, I'd love to see dragable modules in T-Racks, kinda like the pedal repositioning in A3).

Mikelo · Post by **Mikelo** » Mon May 07, 2012 6:05 am

I think the sounds in Sampletank are good. They are a little plain, but thats good in a way as you can mold them to how you like.
It's just the constant bugs that I want to see dealt with.
With IK Multimedia it seems buy, buy and buy and once you do, they don't want to know any of your problems or fix them.

Dissappointed in Total Workstation Bundle 2 Purchase