KVR Audio

rainguitar · Post by **rainguitar** » Sat Feb 23, 2019 4:02 pm

I'm on a Mac. Sorry, should have said that.

GJK · Post by **GJK** » Sat Feb 23, 2019 4:23 pm

ok.. so I decided to start by just installing and registering the software sampletank 4.001 max before all of the massive amounts of sounds. on a laptop, using windows 10 and attempting to open either the vst2 or vst3 inside of the latest version of flstudio 20 producer, causes a black screen crash. Anyone else have that happen so far? Not sure if I'm going to spend endless hours downloading sound libraries if the plugin itself won't even open.

stardust339 · Post by **stardust339** » Sat Feb 23, 2019 4:29 pm

Here's a review from someone who bought the regular version. I have a good idea of what I missed from Max, so I'll cover that too.

Overall, ST4 is a big step up from ST3. ST3 focuses on wide variety of sounds, while ST4 focuses on quality, and it shows. I went with regular edition mainly due to disk space limitation. The regular edition lacks strings and woodwinds while only has a few types of brass, but my Miroslav 2CE is more than enough to fill in the gap.

Piano: I was really blown away from the quality. The old ST3 piano were adequate but felt short of dedicate piano sounds, but ST4 piano rivals or even surpasses them. The piano on regular version is ~16 gb (12.7 for the one main piano, and 3.3 for lesser SE sounds). Max is kinda overkill given how great what is given out in regular edition for piano.

Guitar: Another storage ogre totaling 17.46 gb. The quality improved massively from ST3, but there are only two guitars, and no nylon. It's sufficient for what it does, but I felt the good stuff are locked behind Max.

Brass/Woodwind: There are only trumpets, trombones and two saxes in this. The quality is very impressive that it makes me regret not getting the missed sounds in Max (solo flute, string ensembles and some brass), but I'm more than happy with what I got.

Drums: There are two acoustic drum sets (acoustic pop and vintage rock) and a dozen electric drums covering a wide range of usage. The quality feels very nice compared to the smaller feel in ST3, but the acoustic drums lack that certain flavor I desire. I wonder if I could've found what I wanted in Max.

Synths: A very nice and wide range of selections of synth sounds that establish themselves compared to Syntronik. For someone who doesn't use synth sounds much or just expect to pop a few in those rare moments, this is more than enough for me. Syntronik still comes above.

Bass/Chromatic/Electric Piano/Organs also sounded great from what I tried. Organs is a bit overkill in the range of sounds available, while chromatic is a bit lacking with the selections.

Voice: Big improvement from ST3, which sounded like a cheap child's keyboard. The new voices sound genuinely real.

Ethnic: My only complaint of the library. It lacks the absurdity and unique offerings in ST3. I ended up saving accordion and temple gongs from my ST3, because I still love those very much.

Overall, it was a very good purchase. A great value of quality sounds for a very good price. There are sounds I wish I had from Max, but what I have is more than enough. I ended up discarding voice and ethnic due to disk space limitation and the fact I won't use them. One tip about the browser is by selecting authorized sounds only on the top left, the drop menu transforms into a very nice and concise version. One complaint about the browser is the genre breakdown feels unnecessary; I'd do better with actual divisions in ST3 like solo strings vs ensemble strings.

rainguitar · Post by **rainguitar** » Sat Feb 23, 2019 5:49 pm

So far this process has not gone well for me. I designated an external HD for the library and while the process is downloading the material to that HD, at the same time it is also downloading the library to my internal HD. The Woodwind samples arrived in an unuseable state with the following error message: "Installation Aborted. Cannot find any sound content to copy." I downloaded them twice. Same error message. Then when I started downloading the older SampleTank3 material the process did an end run around my designated external HD and decided it wanted to install the material here /users/shared/IKMultimedia/SampleTank3 which of course is again on my internal HD. For the record, I never had SampleTank3 so it has to create that pathway while ignoring the one I set for it. So I've stopped downloading the instruments until I get some answers but this is the weekend so I'm not expecting to hear back from support until Monday.

DrumAddict · Post by **DrumAddict** » Sat Feb 23, 2019 6:03 pm

SampleTank 4 (Standalone Test) takes already 2,145 GB RAM without loading any sounds (thats really too much) , it is not good optimized within my opinion .

how you can remove loaded instruments separately from the Part view ? without using and loading the initialize settings to remove all ?

Gamma-UT · Post by **Gamma-UT** » Sat Feb 23, 2019 6:33 pm

rainguitar wrote: ↑Sat Feb 23, 2019 5:49 pm The Woodwind samples arrived in an unuseable state with the following error message: "Installation Aborted. Cannot find any sound content to copy."

I got the same. I copied the contents of Woodwinds in each of the content folders that form part of the installer package into [ST4 Destination]/Samples/Woodwinds.

All the installer really does is copy those folders across. I haven't tested all the instruments but they seem to work.

jcgam · Post by **jcgam** » Sat Feb 23, 2019 6:40 pm

I purchased ST3 MAX and received ST4 MAX free. The download/install process IS very tedious and time consuming. I had to keep notes to help me keep track of everything. After installation the product is a real joy to use due to the redesigned GUI. I found it to be intuitive for the most part, except the new Strummer. I had to refer to the manual to understand how it works. It sounds great with the new guitar samples, and I'm looking forward to many hours of playful creativity with this one tool.

There are so many sounds between the two products it's going to take a long time to go through all of them. I've been impressed with what I've heard so far.

Saukar30 · Post by **Saukar30** » Sat Feb 23, 2019 6:41 pm

Hint for anyone who is first now downloading the samples:

You dont have to use the installers. You can drag all of info, folders & content from the zip files over to your designated folder in your hard drive.

rainguitar · Post by **rainguitar** » Sat Feb 23, 2019 6:46 pm

Does that work for the SampleTank3 content as well? Can I put that where I'm putting the ST4 content?

mrsugmad · Post by **mrsugmad** » Sat Feb 23, 2019 6:51 pm

Waiting for my ST4 standard USB drive.

NO strings, NO violins or violas.
I bought ST2 XL in 2003 and I liked (at the time) the strings.
Very disappointing that they left strings out completely .......

Saukar30 · Post by **Saukar30** » Sat Feb 23, 2019 7:33 pm

rainguitar wrote: ↑Sat Feb 23, 2019 6:46 pm Does that work for the SampleTank3 content as well? Can I put that where I'm putting the ST4 content?

Im oretty sue you can. You might want to have them in separate folders though. Just good practice

rainguitar · Post by **rainguitar** » Sat Feb 23, 2019 7:43 pm

I'll probably wait until I hear back from IK support. There's a lot of downloads. If I put them in the wrong place, that's a lot to undo.

jcgam · Post by **jcgam** » Sat Feb 23, 2019 7:45 pm

PSA if you get the error 'Installation Aborted Cannot find any Sound Content to Copy':

MacOS: Right click on the installer, Show package contents, Click Contents, MacOS, Then click the sample tank installer. Terminal will open, then you should be able to use the installer.

Burillo · Post by **Burillo** » Sat Feb 23, 2019 8:11 pm

Strings part 3 and 4 are corrupt. i've redownloaded them twice, no luck.

jcgam · Post by **jcgam** » Sat Feb 23, 2019 8:16 pm

Burillo wrote: ↑Sat Feb 23, 2019 8:11 pm Strings part 3 and 4 are corrupt. i've redownloaded them twice, no luck.

Are you on Windows? I had no trouble with the Mac version.

SampleTank 4 on the way