KVR Audio

ferez21 · Post by **ferez21** » Sun Jul 11, 2021 9:39 am

Hi,
I have Sampletank 2.5XL and i imported its sounds to Sampletank 3 CS, will getting the full version of Sampletank 3 make sense? Are the sounds considerably better quality than those in 2.5 XL?

Cheers

courtjestr · Post by **courtjestr** » Mon Jul 12, 2021 4:40 am

Welcome to 2021. SampleTank 2.5XL was released in 2009, SampleTank 3 in 2014, and SampleTank 4 over two years ago. SampleTank 2.5XL came with over 2,000 sounds (for over 6.5GB of samples). SampleTank 4 SE also comes with over 2000 sounds but is 30 GB in size. I would say the sound quality is bound to be much better.
BTW ST3 is no longer available for purchase.

ferez21 · Post by **ferez21** » Mon Jul 12, 2021 4:49 am

courtjestr wrote: Mon Jul 12, 2021 4:40 am Welcome to 2021. SampleTank 2.5XL was released in 2009, SampleTank 3 in 2014, and SampleTank 4 over two years ago. SampleTank 2.5XL came with over 2,000 sounds (for over 6.5GB of samples). SampleTank 4 SE also comes with over 2000 sounds but is 30 GB in size. I would say the sound quality is bound to be much better.
BTW ST3 is no longer available for purchase.

Thanks,
I've mentioned ST3 and not 4 because it's being sold on the market sub-forum for very cheap, and that's not a purchase i have planned to make, but very tempting at around 30 dollars, and was wondering if the improvement over 2.5 will be big enough to justify an unplanned purchase

jrides · Post by **jrides** » Wed Jul 14, 2021 12:26 pm

Depends. If you only have around $30 to spare, and you want more sound, it’s probably worth it. However, my guess is that you would be able to find ST4 SE… under $100. maybe around $60? Double the money, but probably a much bigger leap of quality.

gaggle of hermits · Post by **gaggle of hermits** » Sun Jul 18, 2021 7:47 pm

a lot depends on what you want. 2XL's sounds have a lot of ROMpler-like charm. Since v3, IK has shifted to doing a lot more conventional sampled instruments: pianos, bass, guitar and all that. but it's the kind of stuff you might already have or not need. in v3, they're mostly ok but not spectacular, though you get a lot for the money. the v4 additions are pretty well-sampled. unfortunately, the sound design that made 2Xl a nice option isn't really there.

however, if you do like 2XL, going to v4 probably isn't that great unless you need the larger plugin window: it's even harder to find the imported 2XL sounds than it is in v3.

ferez21 · Post by **ferez21** » Mon Jul 19, 2021 1:16 am

gaggle of hermits wrote: Sun Jul 18, 2021 7:47 pm a lot depends on what you want. 2XL's sounds have a lot of ROMpler-like charm. Since v3, IK has shifted to doing a lot more conventional sampled instruments: pianos, bass, guitar and all that. but it's the kind of stuff you might already have or not need. in v3, they're mostly ok but not spectacular, though you get a lot for the money. the v4 additions are pretty well-sampled. unfortunately, the sound design that made 2Xl a nice option isn't really there.

however, if you do like 2XL, going to v4 probably isn't that great unless you need the larger plugin window: it's even harder to find the imported 2XL sounds than it is in v3.

Thanks,

Honestly, i dont like 4, i mean the plugin itself rather than the sounds. It looks too big on my screen and by my measurements it uses up more CPU than 2 or 3.
I mostly use the bass guitars from 2XL (especially the slap) and love their articulations, and sometimes strings and world grooves. Does 3 or 4 offer any improvement on these?

planetearth · Post by **planetearth** » Mon Jul 19, 2021 2:07 am

ferez21 wrote: Mon Jul 19, 2021 1:16 am
gaggle of hermits wrote: Sun Jul 18, 2021 7:47 pm a lot depends on what you want. 2XL's sounds have a lot of ROMpler-like charm. Since v3, IK has shifted to doing a lot more conventional sampled instruments: pianos, bass, guitar and all that. but it's the kind of stuff you might already have or not need. in v3, they're mostly ok but not spectacular, though you get a lot for the money. the v4 additions are pretty well-sampled. unfortunately, the sound design that made 2Xl a nice option isn't really there.

however, if you do like 2XL, going to v4 probably isn't that great unless you need the larger plugin window: it's even harder to find the imported 2XL sounds than it is in v3.
Thanks,

Honestly, i dont like 4, i mean the plugin itself rather than the sounds. It looks too big on my screen and by my measurements it uses up more CPU than 2 or 3.
I mostly use the bass guitars from 2XL (especially the slap) and love their articulations, and sometimes strings and world grooves. Does 3 or 4 offer any improvement on these?

I always had trouble with ST3 (VST2.x and VST3 versions) in Sonar and Cakewalk by BandLab, if I had the guitars or basses loaded. It just wasn't stable. That said, these were the "new" (for ST3) guitars and basses. The old ones from ST 2.54 XL worked fine, they just didn't have the same articulations or sounds, necessarily. ST3 came with new clean guitar and bass sounds (though the bass samples had levels all over the place), and the new keyswitched or MW-switched acoustic guitars are pretty nice. I also like the saxes a lot.

On a side note, the strings in some of the older ST 2.54 libraries aren't necessarily in tune. In some cases, IKMM set ST 2.5x to adjust the fine tuning within the ROMpler. But if you didn't see that and adjusted the fine tuning yourself to layer strings, you'd end up setting them out of tune inadvertently. It was only certain libraries though, and I'm not sure it affected too many people.

SampleTank 3 offered round-robin options for some of the new sounds that came with it, but I didn't see too many of the new sounds taking advantage of that. But that's one advantage it had over ST 2.54 XL (which I loved and used for years). Another is the improved effects, and from what I've read, improved sample-stretching algorithms for loops. The newer effects aren't night-and-day better than the old ones, but they're a bit better and there are more of them. I can't speak to the sample-stretching algorithm, because I rarely used the loops.

ST4 works great for me, and I was able to get it for $24 new from IKMM a couple of months ago. It comes with new pianos and other instruments (as does ST3), and loads the ST3 stuff just fine. I'd recommend it if you can determine if (or how) it's using more resources on your system. It's still being developed and updated by IKMM, and if you can get used to the GUI size, it should be better in the long run.

One thing you might want to consider if you do decide to go to ST4 is that it can't load the ST2.54 libraries directly. You'll need ST3 to import those libraries (which takes a little while). ST4 will then import that library from ST3, and then you'll have all your ST2.54 XL stuff in ST4.

I find it fairly easy to find my ST2.54 XL libraries in ST4, though your mileage may vary, of course.

Steve

jrides · Post by **jrides** » Mon Jul 19, 2021 5:22 pm

That’s a good point. If the OP ever wants to move to a more recent version of the software, ultimately 2.5 Instruments have to be converted with ST3.

Another thing to consider… You probably won’t find ST3 for any lower because the transfer fee is $19. One day you will have to probably upgrade to a 64-bit plug-in. ST3 is probably the only way to do that and still maintain the 2.5 content. It might be wise to buy it just so you have it for when the day comes. Or who knows, it seems like people are always selling something from IKaM. Maybe in a couple of years you can find ST3 max for the same $30.

Sampletank 2.5XL vs Sampletank 3