Countdown to Sample Tank 3, with 64 bit support

[HaganeSteel]

Ho-hum.

So SampleTank seems to be one of those synths that has all these secret powers that very few people probably know about.

Miroslav is surprisingly effective for getting a cinematic sound, but I noticed that it's hard to achieve without using a lot of combis, and it shines most when you layer the different staccato and legato sounds together.

The effects section is brilliant too. Tone Control, Compression, the different reverbs and EQs. The Lo-Fi effect is cool too because I like mono sounds.

When I first bought SampleTank, I was maybe a bit disappointed in it. I thought, "How the hell do the Japanese get such a good sound out of this?"

But it occurs to me that you can pretty much engineer your sounds from right within SampleTank itself. I'd still use an external parametric EQ, but things like compression, reverb, merging the stereo channels, the filters - all can be done from inside ST, and that's very useful. I like the Part/Send/Master blocks and the ability to bypass them one by one. It actually amazes me that more synths don't have this.

I think ST gave me a pretty bad first impression, honestly, but it's actually really easy to make it sound very good, and that is its secret power.

It's this ease-of-use that is really drawing me to it right now.

But it is like being in a foreign country. I'm so accustomed to Roland that ST is intimidating and weird to me.

[Peter - IK Multimedia]

But it is like being in a foreign country. I'm so accustomed to Roland that ST is intimidating and weird to me.

And we're about to change it up on you! For the better in both the sound, ease of use, and GUI so at least there's that going for the change.

[Peter - IK Multimedia]

Getting back to SampleTank, on SampleTank 2/2.5, I always loved the sounds of those IK and Sonic Reality drum kits and wish they had the complexity (velocity layers, round robins, etc)...

Well then here's a tweet you might enjoy:

Breaking news! SampleTank 3 sounds will have round robin! #ST3countdown 50 days


http://www.twitter.com/ikmultimedia
http://www.ikmultimedia.com/forum/viewt ... 622#p37622

[jethrobull]

50 Days! Just enough time to get clear from xmas and new year.

[Kevin63101]

Breaking news! SampleTank 3 sounds will have round robin! #ST3countdown 50 days http://www.ikmultimedia.com/forum/viewt ... 622#p37622

Excellent news! Sample Tank 3 will be at 2014 NAMM show. Will that be the anticipated release date for ST3 purchase / upgrades too?

[HaganeSteel]

But it is like being in a foreign country. I'm so accustomed to Roland that ST is intimidating and weird to me.

And we're about to change it up on you! For the better in both the sound, ease of use, and GUI so at least there's that going for the change.

I hope so.

I'll be completely honest here, and I want to talk about my feelings as a new customer who is relatively unbiased for or against ST right now.

There are a lot of sounds here, and I generally find myself having to wade through the less impressive stuff to get to the good stuff.

For example: It took me about 2 days to find the full strings patch in Miroslav that I wanted. The Full Strings category is weirdly buried in the "Orchestral Sections" folder, which is fine, but I sort of expected them to be under "Strings".

Believe it or not, little things like this can create something of a usability barrier for people. ST in a lot of ways seems to put its worst foot forward, but then you dig into the synth, and it's like, ohhhh.

I will say this: You guys have just about ruined Roland for me.

I did direct A/B comparisons between my Roland gear (my XP-30 and Hyper Canvas/TTS-1), and I was shocked that my first reaction to listening to my Roland sounds is that they sound cheesy compared to SampleTank. It was such an instinctual reaction, and that's why it took me by surprise.

This happened because I've been layering different Miroslav articulations to extremely good effect, and it surprised me, and I believe this was maybe Miroslav Vitous' original intention when he made that library.

SampleTank sounds really good. Tone Control is awesome!

ST actually gives you the right tools to layer, which most synths don't do - not since I've used my XP-30 anyway. The Trumpet Staccato and Trumpet 1 sounds, for example, both have unique characteristics that combine to create a very bright sounding, powerful solo trumpet that understandably puts any Roland to shame.

I'm very pleased now, but I wasn't at first, and there's a reason for this.

I think the way you guys marketed Miroslav maybe was shooting yourselves in the foot.

I want to explain my feelings and thought process to you, so as to give you feedback and maybe help you for the future. Feedback's always good, right?

The Miroslav page lists a bunch of sounds, for example:

Ens Trumpets:
10 instruments, 85 variations

What does the word "variations" mean here? I've never really seen any synth/sample manufacturer use this.

As far as I can tell, it seems to be referring to individual samples as they're mapped across the keyboard?

I bought Total Workstation specifically for Miroslav, but I didn't quite know what to expect when going in.

There was a 7gb library, which is massive compared to Garritan's 2gb library.

And all of these big numbers made me think Miroslav had a lot more content than it actually did.

When I first downloaded and installed Miroslav, I thought I was missing parts of the library, but it's all there.

So this page rose my expectations to unrealistic heights.

And as a result, Miroslav seemed underwhelming.

I felt a little cheated, actually.

I don't blame you guys or anything - Miroslav has the best strings and brass I could've asked for, especially for the price!

But still, if I didn't try so hard to like ST and get to know it, I wouldn't have thought so highly of Miroslav.

Because instantly, upon seeing how little content there is in Miroslav when compared to Garritan, I immediately compared it to Garritan in my head and thought, "GPO has a lot more stuff in it."

I think Miroslav is going to work quite well for me, though. I can't imagine myself going back to using Roland, and I can totally understand why some people traded in their hardware for ST.

I'm sure you know that SampleTank and Miroslav are standards in Japan for video game music. SampleTank/Miroslav are used extensively in the Castlevania Judgment and Harmony of Despair soundtracks, used by Naoshi Mizuta in Final Fantasy XI, Yota Kitagami in RPG Maker VX Ace, and I believe Hiroki Kikuta (Concerto Gate) and Yoko Shimomura (Radiant Historia, Xenoblade Chronicles) as well.

It's still very relevant because the ST engine gives you the tools and effects to make these sounds really shine. Tone Control really kicks butt.

So those are my thoughts so far: You guys ruined Roland for me. You really did.

But maybe the Miroslav page is a little unintentionally misleading, and does more harm than good by raising people's expectations unrealistically.

[Kevin63101]

^ You're evaluating some old old ST2 and "powered by ST" interfaces, which were quite progressive when ST2 came out. Many of the samples (eg. Miroslav) are still exceptional. But what do you expect when they give whole lot for a no brainer black friday price? (Which was a killer deal).

I expect ST3 will have many of the features you see in the competition (eg. round robin), if not many new ones unique to ST. Further I expect there will be a major overhaul in the libraries. (Hasn't SR has been relatively quiet this past year?).

It's all speculation until unveiled at 2014 NAMM, but I'm sure there will be some welcomed updates that will bring Sample Tank 3 up to 2014 standards.

[BBFG#]

I guess I came from the other side then. I didn't really expect much from it and it constantly surprises me.

[HaganeSteel]

I guess I came from the other side then. I didn't really expect much from it and it constantly surprises me.

Actually, the brass surprised me!

That was the key to my reaction towards Roland. My beloved Roland trumpets now don't sound as good against a Miroslav trumpet combi.

But I wasn't really criticizing anything, so much as I was giving IK unsolicited and probably unwelcome advice.

I just figured it was worth sharing, because I feel that the Miroslav page talks a lot about how much content it has, but this is also GPO's marketing strategy, and that made me instantly compare the two unfairly, and naturally GPO is going to come out ahead in that regard.

Miroslav being the original cinematic orchestral library, and being able to achieve a bigger and bolder sound than GPO is really why I bought it, and I think it delivers.

[BBFG#]

I think it delivers too. Just a lot more than I was looking for at the time.

[Peter - IK Multimedia]

But I wasn't really criticizing anything, so much as I was giving IK unsolicited and probably unwelcome advice.

I just figured it was worth sharing, because I feel that the Miroslav page talks a lot about how much content it has, but this is also GPO's marketing strategy, and that made me instantly compare the two unfairly, and naturally GPO is going to come out ahead in that regard.

Miroslav being the original cinematic orchestral library, and being able to achieve a bigger and bolder sound than GPO is really why I bought it, and I think it delivers.

Thank you and it is definitely welcome. While SampleTank 3 will definitely have a large amount of content, the important part about the sound content is the quality. IK is VERY proud of the sounds and in a nutshell (I may be repeating myself here, but it is important) feel that they are an exquisite selection of instruments and sounds hand-crafted one-by-one with countless hours of passionate craftsmanship, in the purest "Made in Italy" tradition. This ethic is similar to recent and upcoming releases for other IK flagship products like T-RackS and AmplITube which took or will take many MONTHS of effort from multiple people at the company to bring up to the standard of sound quality that IK requires for their release.

Thanks for the kind words and the suggestions, I believe that you'll be really happy with SampleTank 3 even if it changes your work flow a bit yet again. It will be for the better for many since we've made some changes and will now also put some eye doctors out of business or at least have them adjust their patient profit forecasts for the coming year

[Peter - IK Multimedia]

Also, some more pics of the electric basses (out of the 8 of those in SampleTank 3) were added today:


And more at
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set ... 146&type=3

[HaganeSteel]

Thank you and it is definitely welcome. While SampleTank 3 will definitely have a large amount of content, the important part about the sound content is the quality. IK is VERY proud of the sounds and in a nutshell (I may be repeating myself here, but it is important) feel that they are an exquisite selection of instruments and sounds hand-crafted one-by-one with countless hours of passionate craftsmanship, in the purest "Made in Italy" tradition. This ethic is similar to recent and upcoming releases for other IK flagship products like T-RackS and AmplITube which took or will take many MONTHS of effort from multiple people at the company to bring up to the standard of sound quality that IK requires for their release.

Thanks for the kind words and the suggestions, I believe that you'll be really happy with SampleTank 3 even if it changes your work flow a bit yet again. It will be for the better for many since we've made some changes and will now also put some eye doctors out of business or at least have them adjust their patient profit forecasts for the coming year

Thanks for not thinking I was attacking you guys.

You've been handling this thread like a champ - seriously - and that's why I felt comfortable doing so.

You guys must have over 10 years of experience now, and it's exciting to see what all that experience will result in.

If the price of ST3 is reasonable, and I buy it, I'll probably be very happy with it.

I say this because I've been seeing an evolution in other companies too - Luxonix, DSF - and how their work is gradually improving.

Making a synth or sample set is an artform, and I tend to get attached to my gear in the same way a normal person gets attached to a piece of music.

One of the things ST has done right, that few other synth/sample manufacturers have, is that it gets the attack transients on the samples right. That's kind of a sad statement about the competition (specifically Dimension Pro), but it's true.

SampleTank reminds me the most of my General MIDI synth out of all of my gear - and that's a compliment - because philosophically it functions the same, even right down to achieving an unobtrusive mix quality.

The Sound Canvases were popular because they were quick, usable, they sounded good, and had very complete sound sets for a great price. So far, that's what ST is.

I can say like, the samples in Dimension Pro sound better, but Dimension Pro mixes terribly and has awful attack transients with really shoddy sample editing.

With Dimension Pro, I have to EQ all the worst parts of a sound, but with ST, so far, I've only had to roll off the very high ends and some of the lower mids - nothing big.

That's why I think ST won - better and more usable sample editing. ST isn't worried about impressing anyone, and I've been reading past posts by Squids and stuff, and it seems pretty obvious that you guys were focused squarely on creating a usable sound module.

Edirol Orchestral also uses a cutdown version of the Miroslav sampleset, and the string samples are edited in such a way that the attack transients are too inconsistent to be used for faster arpeggios, even with many of the staccato string sounds.

So I'll end this post by saying ST seems to be the only spiritual successor to the Sound Canvas/Roland JVs. Miroslav is what drew a lot of Roland guys to Roland, and Miroslav seems to be what drew us to ST.

I'll shut up now. Sorry.

[ObsoleteAcc99]

[DELETED]

[jethrobull]

Ok i must admit i am getting really excited about it now

Ditto