IKMultimedia Support (or lack thereof)

[CapnLockheed]

I went through the multi-hour process yesterday of uninstalling every single piece of IKM software on my PC. Even though this requires manually running the original installers (to uninstall) about a thousand separate components, I must say that the end result was worth it. No more CPU hog T-Racks, no more bug-ridden SampleTank taking up GB upon GB of storage, no more abandonware MixBox, etc. etc. Today I woke up with a spring in my step, truly the best cleanse I’ve had in quite some time. Highly recommended and perhaps the most rewarding experience I’ve had as a long-time IKM customer.

Hrmn....maybe I should give that a try. I can honestly say that NO interaction I've had with IK, (and there's been MANY over MANY years), has been anywhere near "rewarding".

And I can also say that when I'd heard that inMusic was absorbing ReValver I had some trepidation. But, thus far, the relationship has been quite positive. They got rid of the horrible USB key protection system, integrated Headrush Amps into ReValver and now some their Headrush pedalboards interact with ReValver. All this was very welcome after Peavey let Revalver whither on the vine for so many years. I wish I could say the same about the bean counters that own Fender buying up Presonus.....things have NOT been going well in that marriage. But hey, that's just my opinion......YMMV.

[Bombadil]

My experience has been mixed. I haven't experienced the horrors with support that others have, and someone did help me get Sampletank 4 going properly, which was crashing Logic everytime I tried to load an instrument. The tech went into my computer and fixed all the installation paths (!?) and S4 then worked.
When I moved to an M1 processor, I couldn't open S2 or S3 dmg files. I decided then to leave it off my M1 mini.
I never found it terribly inspiring anyway.
The downloading process is torturous, I agree. Very poorly thought out and executed.
I got a lot of their stuff in their 2021 group buy, but all that's left on my computer are the B3X , Sampletron 2, and T-rackS 5.
I feel for everyone who puts their money down and then has to deal with the stonewalling and censorship vis Support. It is unacceptable, and IK's reputation on these issues is getting worse.
I'll only go to Tracks 6 when forced by macos to do so. Or, since I only use a handful of its processors, I'll find alternatives.
I'll never buy any of their hardware. Too many stories like the ones above.
IK and NI are both on my 'avoid' list, now.

[bmanic]

I've been warning people about IK Multimedia for years now. Finally it seems to be reaching critical mass as I've heard from several people that they've uninstalled the IK plugins and will never be purchasing anything from them again. I suspect IKM doesn't realize themselves how much this slow but steady flow of negative customer satisfaction will bite them in the future. This is exactly how large companies die out.. slowly but surely.

[zerocrossing]

I've been warning people about IK Multimedia for years now. Finally it seems to be reaching critical mass as I've heard from several people that they've uninstalled the IK plugins and will never be purchasing anything from them again. I suspect IKM doesn't realize themselves how much this slow but steady flow of negative customer satisfaction will bite them in the future. This is exactly how large companies die out.. slowly but surely.

The problem for me is, there’s just not a good substitute for Amplitube that does everything it does and does it as well. It’s buggy, but nothing is a deal breaker. It’s annoying to have to click off the input/output gain sliders when they get stuck. It’s annoying that oversampling is off on the Mark IIC+ model, but there are many other good Mesa models. It’s annoying that the multi-tap delay freezes in some cases. It’s stable, and sounds better than most other options and has more functionality. Maybe there is a better option, but for the money? It’s the best.

[bmanic]

Oh I totally get it if you are into Amplitude. I was mainly talking about mixing effects. Personally I haven't used Amplitude in almost a decade now. I never liked the sound of it.. to me it's always sounded "wrong" somehow. There's something off with it to my ears and I can not explain what.

The thing is, IK Multimedia does have some really high quality and good sounding things in a lot of different product categories (I've heard great things about the whole Modo series of stuff) but it's become like Acustica Audio.. all the hassle of it all and the horrendous support and arrogant attitude just doesn't cut it. It's simply not worth it.

[Bombadil]

I'd be happy with just Scuffham Amps, tbh. Any fx not included in that can easily be substituted on the channel.
My main one Tonex, though.

[bill45]

Maybe forget the Jampoints and buy from sweatwater for better tech support.

[Bristow]

Never buy from Ikmultimedia. I’ve learned the hard way with expensive hardware that’s useless after a few hours use. They have a warranty period but it doesn’t mean they’ll help you

[havran]

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[Scoops]

After holding back on the group buy, I decided to purchase Total studio Max 5 recently. Wasn't much in there that I needed, but I did want some of the newer items. A single license key for everything was more attractive to me anyway. I was really curious about piano verse as well.

So I went to load things up. Everything was fine and dandy, until I looked at my drives to see how I was doing on storage. Yikes. My c drive is almost full. Now this came as a shock because I thought I was loading things onto a much larger D drive. Nope, Piano verse loaded everything onto my C drive. As it was, Piano verse didn't ask the question where would like to install, it just installed the stuff where ever it wanted. All my other IK stuff loaded on the D drive. So I halted the downloads, put the libraries on the D Drive, and re pointed piano verse to download to the D drive. After that, I did do a complete re-install of all of my IK libraries with no issues

This was the worst of my ordeal with IK. Not really even an ordeal, just a slight PITA.

I understand the frustration some have with Companies like IK, but I can't say I share the same frustrations. I do have issue with NI!

Just my $0.02 ... Err ... $0.05. They quit making pennies.

[adash123]

I'd agree with previous comments. Software can be good but everything elese makes it just not worth it. Uninstall and move on.

[surferman]

I have to wonder if most of the complaints are from Windows users. Please tell me if I am wrong. I have been using Ik software since Amplitube SE in ( takes no time to research) 2003? Got a free version in a Macintosh magazine. Got T-racks and some other stuff over the years. Got tons of their stuff in group buys and sales and other than in later versions that it installed all available stuff, I have had minimal problems. At this point I own almost all and most of it was acquired at discount prices. Got in to the last group buy at $40 bucks buying something I already owned but it got me the rest of the stuff I didn't own. I love the pianos, the organs, the amps and the T-racks stuff. I understand if your computer has limited storage. It is a bit of a pain to move the large files to an external drive but it does work if you set it up correctly. YMMV.
I've only used there software on my Macs and it has been mostly flawless over the 20+ years I have used it. Limited need for support but I have gotten some help successfully.

[thievedletter]

For what it's worth IK-Peter has always been helpful to me.
I think the reality is these companies just don't have some huge call centre of experts waiting for your call.