IK Multimedia group buy 2025

[I_Am_Become_KVR]

IK confirmed a second time that the AmpliTube 5 deal is working again

Confirmed where? I haven't seen any official statement that it works anywhere.

[oobesan]

IK confirmed a second time that the AmpliTube 5 deal is working again

Confirmed where? I haven't seen any official statement that it works anywhere.

First of all, the loophole deal (buying Amplitube 5 on Plugin Boutique for $29.99) is not going to work anymore, because it’s Nov 1, and that deal expired Oct 31. Second, here is the full story on this loophole deal and what happened to IK Multimedia’s servers. IKM started their All-Group Buy on 9/25. It ran until Oct 31, so it is now over. In the middle of that promotion, Plugin Boutique created a deeply discounted sale on Amplitube 5 for $29.99, which normally retails for $199.99. Amplitube 5, which was not on sale on IKM’s website, was a qualifying purchase for the All-In Group Buy promotion. So, users found a back door, an exploit. The number of All-In Group Buy registrants quickly swelled to the maximum, so now people could exploit the $29.99 loophole to get 49 IKM plugins that retail for $199.99 for free. It is not known whether or not IKM knew about Plugin Boutique’s sale, but they definitely did not know about the loophole, and they were not prepared for the influx of server traffic. As such, IKM’s web and download servers were brought to their knees, and registrants had a hard time accessing the Promotions area on IKM’s website, selecting and registering their free products on IKM’s web site, or downloading their products using IKM’s product installer. IKM’s server IT specialists went to work on the servers last weekend, and they discovered the loophole. They shut down the loophole, which meant the removed the option to redeem any redemptions that registrants hadn’t claimed yet. But, that is actually illegal. So, on last Monday, IKM restored access for people who had used the loophole to register for the All-In Group Buy prior to Monday, but blocked access for anyone that tried to purchase the loophole on Plugin Boutique after the weekend. The servers were still not fixed, and things remained a disaster. And then, for some reason, the loophole started working again for people who bought Amplitube 5 on Plugin Boutique for $29.99 (even though they had a new disclaimer saying it would not qualify) starting on Oct 29. And that’s the way it stayed until today, Nov 1, when both the All-In Group Buy promotion ended and Plugin Boutique’s sale of Amplitube 5 ended.

[Stirner]

I don't think those "glitches" that IKM constantly does and repeats, are real glitches. IKM is very smart at generating money and knows a lot about consumer behaviour. There is a naive-customer group that buys bundle/plugin X- for example for 100$ and they buy very fast. Then there is another customer group that is ready to pay 50$ for the same plugin, so this price comes also later and it goes further down till even the not-very-interested group is ready to buy the same plugin for 5$. They don't really need it, but they are dictated by the "it's a glitch, so buy fast, it's a no brainer" slogan. It generates a lot of media public noise, increases the customer base further and then IKM says of course, this price was a big mistake, so the first group is not too worried, and all are happy. They will of course repeat the same procedure next year. Very smart - they take money from very different customers, with different behaviour. If their developers were as clever as their marketing gurus, they would take over the whole audio market.

[I_Am_Become_KVR]

--

[oobesan]

I don't think those "glitches" that IKM constantly does and repeats, are real glitches. IKM is very smart at generating money and knows a lot about consumer behaviour. There is a naive-customer group that buys bundle/plugin X- for example for 100$ and they buy very fast. Then there is another customer group that is ready to pay 50$ for the same plugin, so this price comes also later and it goes further down till even the not-very-interested group is ready to buy the same plugin for 5$. They don't really need it, but they are dictated by the "it's a glitch, so buy fast, it's a no brainer" slogan. It generates a lot of media public noise, increases the customer base further and then IKM says of course, this price was a big mistake, so the first group is not too worried, and all are happy. They will of course repeat the same procedure next year. Very smart - they take money from very different customers, with different behaviour. If their developers were as clever as their marketing gurus, they would take over the whole audio market.

True. Honesty, I wouldn't put it past IKM to have throttled their servers on purpose.

[jens]

It ran until Oct 31, so it is now over.

The current Group-Buy status is "ends soon".

[Touch The Universe]

[oceanxxsounds]

IK confirmed a second time that the AmpliTube 5 deal is working again

Confirmed where? I haven't seen any official statement that it works anywhere.

First of all, the loophole deal (buying Amplitube 5 on Plugin Boutique for $29.99) is not going to work anymore, because it’s Nov 1, and that deal expired Oct 31. Second, here is the full story on this loophole deal and what happened to IK Multimedia’s servers. IKM started their All-Group Buy on 9/25. It ran until Oct 31, so it is now over. In the middle of that promotion, Plugin Boutique created a deeply discounted sale on Amplitube 5 for $29.99, which normally retails for $199.99. Amplitube 5, which was not on sale on IKM’s website, was a qualifying purchase for the All-In Group Buy promotion. So, users found a back door, an exploit. The number of All-In Group Buy registrants quickly swelled to the maximum, so now people could exploit the $29.99 loophole to get 49 IKM plugins that retail for $199.99 for free. It is not known whether or not IKM knew about Plugin Boutique’s sale, but they definitely did not know about the loophole, and they were not prepared for the influx of server traffic. As such, IKM’s web and download servers were brought to their knees, and registrants had a hard time accessing the Promotions area on IKM’s website, selecting and registering their free products on IKM’s web site, or downloading their products using IKM’s product installer. IKM’s server IT specialists went to work on the servers last weekend, and they discovered the loophole. They shut down the loophole, which meant the removed the option to redeem any redemptions that registrants hadn’t claimed yet. But, that is actually illegal. So, on last Monday, IKM restored access for people who had used the loophole to register for the All-In Group Buy prior to Monday, but blocked access for anyone that tried to purchase the loophole on Plugin Boutique after the weekend. The servers were still not fixed, and things remained a disaster. And then, for some reason, the loophole started working again for people who bought Amplitube 5 on Plugin Boutique for $29.99 (even though they had a new disclaimer saying it would not qualify) starting on Oct 29. And that’s the way it stayed until today, Nov 1, when both the All-In Group Buy promotion ended and Plugin Boutique’s sale of Amplitube 5 ended.

Now this is beyond hilarious like when Wall Street Bankers scramble when their stocks starts dropping drastically LOL that was their IT people

[skyman88882002]

IKM appears to be putting on a master class in marketing psychology. Yes, the system issues are annoying but in the end everybody that registered is going to get their 49 freebies. There is going to be a lot of whining and threats of "I'll never use IKM again" but IKM will have snagged thousands of users onto their platform with this promo.

And now the new users are gonna spend hours with downloads and testing/previewing all the free products. And every hour spent is a sunk cost that is going to make it harder to just walk away from IKM. Then, when the next incremental promo comes out the old user is more likely to buy it (even if it adds no value) because they have all the other stuff and it won't seem like too much additional money to just have a more 'complete' collection (especially if they look at the value of their collection based on IKM's own silly MSRPs). Yes, the old user will still be royally annoyed that the upgrade price for them is the same as the price for a new user (but remember that's because it's more important for IKM to get new users locked in). IKM's marketing strategy has ALWAYS been about getting the new user, not keeping existing users.

And on it goes. IKM will keep pulling $49 to $99 off each user every year. The products can't be easily resold so an old user who is in the IKM ecosystem has to decide whether they're just going to walk away or stay engaged. And based on all the time they have invested, they will most likely stick around (but they will be grumpy).

The most important thing for IKM is to lock in new users and wow! did they ever do that with this promo!

Could IKM achieve the same result by just switching to a subscription model which pulls $99 a year from every user? I don't know, IKM seems to think the promo model works better at this point though.

Of course, the last thing to consider is whether these products are worth it. I like their TRacks and I use them a lot. So I keep getting pulled back with each promo.

[bmanic]

While IK Multimedia itself is a company not worth believing/investing in, the plugins themselves are definitely of a very high quality. I'm sure even the naysayers and haters (I'd be one of the haters) can't deny the usefulness and high quality of the plugins. Thus this group buy was most likely a massive win to IK, no matter how "exploited" it was.

I _promised_ to never buy any more IK Multimedia stuff.. and here I am now, feeling guilty as sin having paid 20 something euros (got VAT removed from that PB thing + some PB earnings).

[oobesan]

T-RackS Pro has so many dynamics plugins, it makes your head spin. They all look very pretty, and some are very easy to understand what they do and why you would use them (White 2A, Black 76, etc.). I have no idea if they're any good. Do you have any favorites?

[Cuauhtli]

While IK Multimedia itself is a company not worth believing/investing in, the plugins themselves are definitely of a very high quality. I'm sure even the naysayers and haters (I'd be one of the haters) can't deny the usefulness and high quality of the plugins. Thus this group buy was most likely a massive win to IK, no matter how "exploited" it was.

I _promised_ to never buy any more IK Multimedia stuff.. and here I am now, feeling guilty as sin having paid 20 something euros (got VAT removed from that PB thing + some PB earnings).

Yeah, I had deleted everything from IK years ago. Then I saw the $30 deals for Amplitube and Tonex. Gave them a quick demo and decided they were worth it. Then I saw at bedroom producer's blog that they qualified for the group buy at $199.99. Now I need a new SSDrive to fit everything.

[bmanic]

T-RackS Pro has so many dynamics plugins, it makes your head spin. They all look very pretty, and some are very easy to understand what they do and why you would use them (White 2A, Black 76, etc.). I have no idea if they're any good. Do you have any favorites?

Pretty much all of them are up there with the competition. I have a soft spot for the White Channel dynamics and it's gate. Their distressor emulation is also a really good workhorse. Also the red opto compressor is super nice.

Haven't used the 1176 nor La2a enough to comment on those but I'm sure they do what they are supposed to be doing. Even considering the age of some of the plugins, they are still very useful.

[sjm]

T-RackS Pro has so many dynamics plugins, it makes your head spin. They all look very pretty, and some are very easy to understand what they do and why you would use them (White 2A, Black 76, etc.). I have no idea if they're any good. Do you have any favorites?

IME, they are all decent. To what extent you will use different plugins probably depends on what you already have. I don't use the 1176 and LA-2A clones that much simply because I have multiple clones of each and tend to rotate through them/mix and match.

I pretty much always use the Stealth Limiter at the end of my mastering chain, and quite like the Fairchild for subtle/gentle compression. The tapes are all good too.

But we all have different approaches to making music and different tastes; given that they all seem pretty decent, I'd suggest you go for whatever fills a niche in your collection and you think you'll get a decent amount of use out of.

[Proteinshake]

While IK Multimedia itself is a company not worth believing/investing in ..

Agreed, 100%

I _promised_ to never buy any more IK Multimedia stuff.. and here I am now, feeling guilty as sin having paid 20 something euros (got VAT removed from that PB thing + some PB earnings).

It's always worth keeping some freebies from the past around, so entering the Group Buy with that was a no-brainer. Ditched my previous account and started fresh, more times than not it just won't update right anyways .. too many threads of that happening.

The T-RackS module manager is appreciated and it's definitely a huge step up from the previous mess. Anybody noticed how IK went from 10 activations back to 5?