IKM SampleTank 3 (ST3) Now Available

[neverenoughfunk]

question... since sonik synth, sample moog, sample tron patches will not be included in the ST 3... and... if 1 + 1 = 2... dont you think that the sonik synth, sample moog, sample tron patches will be sold in a ST 3 format? you talk of "something to bitch about"... well, i currently own sonik synth, sample moog, sample tron but there is a fee to update those sounds to the ST 3 format...

for some who have been with ik multimedia for years... i.e. 7 to 10 years... "this something to bitch about"!!!!

No i dont think.. You obviously (want to) miss this: Compatible with all previous “Powered by SampleTank” sound modules and sounds (can import all previous sounds and Combis).

again... if you know the history of ik multimedia you would know what i am talking about... YES!!! i know about the compatible with all previous "Powered by SampleTank"... how about the individual that do not own "Powered by SampleTank" libraries... i.e. sonik synth, sample moog, etc... they are going to be able to purchase those same libraries but the only differences will be they are going to be Sampletank 3 format... yes... you will be able to program your "Powered by SampleTank" libraries in ST 3... i.e. the IMPORT function... what i am saying is that those same "Powered by SampleTank" libraries are going to come out in a ST 3 format for a fee... question... do you think the avg ST user is going to be able to program their Powered by SampleTank libraries sounds on the same level as Sonic Reality can in ST 3? i do not think so...

[basslinemaster]

As I said, they are losing money because they won't release an ST3 player, and one wonders what they think they are achieving by this. Or maybe they aren't losing money, and I am completely wrong. Who knows?

Indeed. It's worth entertaining the idea that not selling the player separately *is* the way for them to maximize revenue (and profit).

Due to IK's size, they no doubt have a number of people (in accounting, marketing, product managing, etc.) whose job it is to make these sort of decisions. They must run these sort of scenarios ("Should we have a free player, sell a player only version, or just sell the player/samples all in one unit?"). It doesn't mean they always make the right call, but many propose "obvious" ways for IK to make more money as if their team hasn't probably discussed this all ad nauseum. It reminds me of the posts at KVR where someone says, "Why sell this for $150? You could sell way more if you charged $10!!" Plus, IK isn't required to divulge their reasoning to anyone about it. Virtually no company will do that. Go ask NI about their marketing and pricing strategies and see how far you get.

I don't wish to sound rude, but 'appeal to authority fallacy'.
Look at Windows 8. How many people do you think actually made the decision to use the new, terrible interface? Presumably you work? In my company, the boss makes a stupid decision, the idiot below him forces it on the rest of us, and nobody is allowed to disagree with it, even though we all know it's wrong.

So again, I was just hoping that IKM would show us their projected figures, so they can show us that if they had released an ST3 player for $30 or less, they would lose money, rather than gaining money.
The customer knows more about the way a product should be sold than the company producing it.
You should realise that there are people's egos at work here: somebody at IKM decides to charge 15 Euros to re-download a 1GB file, and thinks it will somehow make them more money. Clearly it does not. But they would then have to admit they are wrong, so they will never change it. I've seen this scores of times in my company: some idiot higher up copies the latest 'business fad', forces it on the entire workforce, then in a few years' time, they come up with another fad, which completely replaces the original one. No explanation is given for why we are now using a new methodology, or whatever it is, but the fact that we are no longer using the old one, proves it was wrong, as we all said in the first place (to each other, not to 'the boss', of course, because his precious ego can't take being told he is wrong).

Again, just look at Microsoft and Windows 8, an absolutely astounding failure, which cost them billions of dollars!
It's no skin off my nose, I will wait until the value of ST3 drops to practically nothing, just as the value of ST2 has, and buy it then IF it's had good reviews.

You'll notice that Peter didn't address anything I'd written previously, just ignored it all.
I'm sure most current ST2 users would buy an ST3 player for $30 as a 'no-brainer', and would then be far more susceptible to upgrading to the full ST3 sample set later on, especially if IKM sold it to them for the current discount price, seeing as they were previous ST2 owners. THAT is how you make money.
Far too many people on here seem to believe the human population is static, and doesn't age. In reality, every year there are tens of millions of potential new customers for VSTs and DAWs (just as there are for thousands of other products, as children grow up, get jobs, get spare money, and become interested in music making, etc.). Yet we always seem to hear (on here) this presumption that 'the market is finite', as if everybody who is interested in VSTs right now is the entire market forever into the future. People give up making music all the time, due to other commitments, lack of time, lack of money, etc. but every year there are tens of millions of new people who become interested in making music.

Also, why aren't there complete pieces of music (with multiple parts) created with ST3, demoed yet? Jordan Rudess just isn't very good at demoing certain sounds, despite his technical skills. Other (tiny) companies create fantastic demo tracks for something as simple as a Sylenth preset pack, how come IKM haven't managed to do anything like this? They sure don't know how to sell their own product.

[Ben H]

Maybe they don't have enough faith in their own product that people would WANT to upgrade after trying the player version.

[basslinemaster]

Maybe they don't have enough faith in their own product that people would WANT to upgrade after trying the player version.

You may well be right...

[bigcat1969]

Did you just post three almost but not quite identical posts including one's quoting yourself each the size of a short story?* Clearly the guy with this kind of organizational skill needs to create Windows 9 himself and save Microsoft from itself. After that please, get NI to allow all third party instruments to play for an unlimited period in the free Kontakt Player, cause I sure would like that, so it has to be the correct decision.

*mod edit - the two almost but not quite identical posts have been deleted

[jsp1979]

As I said, they are losing money because they won't release an ST3 player, and one wonders what they think they are achieving by this. Or maybe they aren't losing money, and I am completely wrong. Who knows?

Indeed. It's worth entertaining the idea that not selling the player separately *is* the way for them to maximize revenue (and profit).

Due to IK's size, they no doubt have a number of people (in accounting, marketing, product managing, etc.) whose job it is to make these sort of decisions. They must run these sort of scenarios ("Should we have a free player, sell a player only version, or just sell the player/samples all in one unit?"). It doesn't mean they always make the right call, but many propose "obvious" ways for IK to make more money as if their team hasn't probably discussed this all ad nauseum. It reminds me of the posts at KVR where someone says, "Why sell this for $150? You could sell way more if you charged $10!!"

I don't wish to sound rude, but 'appeal to authority fallacy'.

Huh? I said right in my post: "it doesn't mean they always make the right call." I never said this decision was without a doubt the right way to go. Big companies make dumb decisions all the time. I never said they didn't. So, I guess that makes that a "strawman argument" on your part--since we're pointing out logical fallacies.

Continuing in that vein, my original post was about how your post declaring the "truth" that selling the player only would make them more money had absolutely no support. It's just your guess, but you declared it as obvious truth. It may be right, but it may be wrong. I just pointed out that I'm sure they at least considered the idea and for whatever reason, nixed it. That could be a horrible mistake....but it could actually be the smart thing to do. I don't know. You don't know either. It's worth noting the pile of complaints for NI to sell Kontakt without its library, but they've never wavered on that point. For Kontakt, I'm guessing the library allows them to have a higher MSRP. If you generate enough demand for the player, then enough people will "bite the bullet" and buy the higher priced product just to get the player.

Oh, and there's no way *any* company will run their projected figures by some random person on a music forum. To ask or demand that is just flat-out ridiculous.

At this point, Peter usually posts a link to the job openings at IK. Yes, it's snarky, but I do find it amusing.

[bigcat1969]

Out of curiosity does anyone sell a player with no instruments included? NI gives away Player with a sprinking of instruments to entice potential customers and of course to allow companies to not need full Kontakt for their instruments if they pay the fees. Sampletank 2 had a free teaser as does Indy Pro, Alchemy and UVI, but all were purposed to generate customers by demonstrating the available instruments I believe. The concept of divorcing a company's instruments from their player is new and not particularly desirable. Lol, I can imagine EastWest pushing their empty player, much loved as it is by all.
IKM selling a player essentially intended to play ST 2 sounds would be like NI putting out a player to play K1, 2 and 3 sounds. Why would they, what would they accomplish other than muddling the waters? Its a completely backwards looking move.

[kbaccki]

IKM selling a player essentially intended to play ST 2 sounds would be like NI putting out a player to play K1, 2 and 3 sounds. Why would they, what would they accomplish other than muddling the waters? Its a completely backwards looking move.

IK already made the strategic decision to produce a player that plays all ST2 content just fine (ST2 XL, Miro, Moog, SS, etc.) -- it's called SampleTank FREE.

The problem people have always goes back to the lack of 64-bit in SampleTank FREE... and to a slightly lesser (but important) extent the teensy weensy GUI (well, the text at least). Now, IK have reversed strategic direction wrt. free player with ST3 engine, at least at this point, and that picks at that ST2 FREE 64bit/GUI overhaul scab.

Their strategy is likely to change at some point in the future as it did with ST2, after all of the early adopters pay their upgrade and pre-purchase fees, a swath of brand new customers jump on board, some time goes by to not piss off the people who actually paid money for ST3, and sales slow down… ST3 FREE will be released to generate interest, sell standalone expansions, etc. But that's likely a few years down the road, at the earliest.

Remember, the idea behind a free player is to not to give away something for free -- it's to generate revenue through 3rd party libs, expansion packs, sound libs, etc. NI always had a "free" player, but the only way to get K2 Player is with purchase of a 3rd party protected library. As it is, the current, free NI Player is a glorified demo for Kontakt, which also acts as a singular install so that you don't have to have separate player installs for each 3rd party library. But feature wise, it's a glorified Kontakt demo.

When/if esoundz and the like produce more expansion content, there will eventually be ST3 Player for those that balk at shelling out for the full ST3, as many do with full Kontakt, etc. But even that doesn't mean ST3 Player will be able to import old ST2 libs… for that you need a legitimate free ST3 engine that can do import etc… and thats several years down the road, if you project out a typical sales and marketing curve for these types of products...

[bigcat1969]

Interesting, but I'm bored with that argument already. I have more advice since they clearly should follow the advice of folks on forums.
Delay the release. Offer anyone who paid the original full price for ST2, an early two month testing period for only a $1000 when no one else will have access to ST3. Sell ST2 at retro pricing for full price so those people will be eligible to pay the $1000 for early access. After two months offer early access to everyone for $500. Release a month later for $300. After a month have a sale for $200. Three months later have a sale for $150.
Count money will early access people write glowing reviews and put up demos that make everyone else jealous.

[Bombadil]

It seems to me that, given that the current IKM VIs will be playable in ST3, that the creation of a ST 2.5x 64 bit shell for them to be used wouldn't have been a huge issue. I don't care about having all the compressors from TrackS or all of the sims from A3. If IKM had done this before launching ST3, there would be no sturm and drang over this whole farce. But no, in their wisdom they've done this, and are paying a price for it. My other plugs that were only 32 bit but were upgraded gratis, with no bullschite. Not the case, here.

[kbaccki]

Interesting, but I'm bored with that argument already.

Bored with what? Reality? Not following. Please search the history... then prepare yourself for a number of very angry threads from people who feel duped that they bought a bunch of old ST content repackaged in a new engine format…. whatever percentage that turns out to be. You think 80+ pages on this thread is a bit over the top? Just wait...

[Peter - IK Multimedia]

Only ST 2.5 XL content and some Miroslav reprogrammed sounds (as stated already and quoted once again in this thread afterward) are not new in ST3. A hair under 25GB is completely new sampled content and available on the preorder special for as low as $99.99 for a few more days at http://www.ikmultimedia.com/sampletank3

[Dmitry Petrenko]

I think everything is fair. We can use an array of sound in all previous versions of the updated 64-bit shell. Moreover, high quality sound libraries, despite the issue for quite a while, not inferior quality contemporary examples romplers! (I do not take into account individual libraries contacted several gigabytes, the price of which the cost is higher ST3). If you added the ability to complete the sampler with extended editing capabilities - all prices would not it The result: a definite plus for the manufacturer! The choice of pricing policy - the right producer. Question of consumer demand - buyer choice!

[Kraznet]

This is a massive thread so I don't have time to go through it all. A couple of questions.
1 - Can you load your own samples and create your own sound sets? All promotion seems to be about the factory library.
2 Is the GUI resizeable? Is it bigger than V2.5.I always felt that GUI was too small. I have 4K monitor now and many virtual instrument GUIs look even smaller. One advantage of Kontakt is that you can resize the GUI.

Regards
Kraznet

[Teksonik]

Another question or two if I may. Will we be able to download the ST 3 engine on the 24th ? Then download the sample content later after the servers cool down. Do you anticipate the IK servers being able to handle the traffic in the first few days ?