KVR Audio

Bippo · Post by **Bippo** » Fri Mar 01, 2019 3:11 am

Hello everyone, apologize for my english (thats my second language).

I've created an account in this forum for the sole purpose of sharing my insufferable expirence with sampletank 4 so far.

First of all, I'm not some kind of vst newbie who doesn't know how to install plugins and use daws etc
I've got a lots of vsts that I use daily, I'm very tech savy, I actually know a thing or two about computer programming, and I really think I'm being a fair customer here.

I've used sampletank 3 mainly to sketch ideas in the last couple of years, I really digged the fast workflow and gui so when I saw sampletank 4 is on the way, I decided to give it a try and pre ordered. Who knows, maybe it wil be my next go to tool!

It's over a week since this plugin was released: so far the amount of work I done with it is ZERO.

Took me 3 days to download the whole zip files (why on earth there isn't an automated download manager for this? why I need to babysit 60 download links?), then I saw a lot of people complaining about bugs so I decided to wait. Then I saw that "SampleTank_4_MAX_Instruments_Installer_Part2" no longer exists on the web, which caused some confusions.

When I found out that the installion of the sounds is basically another sisyphean, manual task that requires you to go over 60 zip files one by one (this is 2019!!! why can't you automate such a simple task with just one main setup file? omfg!) I was shocked, but decided to take a deep breath and begin.

During the middle, found out that 2 zips files were corrupted.
Redownload.
Still corrupted.

Had to google a solution for that problem (apparenlty a quick task with winrar fixed the problem, but why on earth its exists on the first place?) and then, 4 hours later after I clicked the first zip file and babysitted 60 files again, I finished installing all the sounds.

Hallelujah!

Turned up my daw, started to test this plugin a little bit.
Played a bit with classical and electric piano, sounds quite good.
Then I loaded an acoustic guitar patch...gets stucks on 25 percent loading.
Sampletank freezes, can' t abort the loading, had to remove the instance of st4 and open new one.
Again loading acoustic guitar patch, again stuck on loading, can't abort loading and must remove instance.

My question is: why in 2019 we need to suffer like this? Why a simple task of installing a program should require the user to sit in front of the screen for more than 3 hours, clicking over 60 zip files one by one and then, still have bugs? And why can't you provide direct links for the files so I can put it in some download manager and let it download on its own? Why I need to babysit such a trivial task for such a long time? And why on earth you don't do a reasonable quality assurance before releasing your product?

I've never ever had such an insufferable expirence at downloading and installing any sort of product.
I don't see any reason why IK Multimedia can't provide automated downloading and installing process for their plugins. If native instruments, spectrasonics, roland and dozens of other players in the vsts market can do it, I'm sure you can too.

To sum it up: I've wasted way too many hours in this torture and I''ve given up.
It's a gigantic failure that you released versions 0.0 0.1 and 0.2 in one week.
Where are your beta testers?
It's ridiculous that you make your customers spend so many hours clicking on dozens of zip files for installing your product.
That's just embarrassing to release such a product in 2019.

Right now I don't have any more will to engage with this plugin.
I'll stick to kontakt for my acoustic samples provider.
Maybe I will check in some weeks from now if there is a more stable version, but I've learned my lesson with IK multimedia. I honestly regret about this purchase and the huge amount of hours I've wasted for a product that's just not ready.

Dillinger · Post by **Dillinger** » Fri Mar 01, 2019 4:20 am

Hi Bippo, welcome to the show

Sell your nightmare.

layzer · Post by **layzer** » Fri Mar 01, 2019 4:37 am

you would have to put a gun to my head to force me to use
sample based instruments that take up gigs upon gigs of HD
space and complicated install BS just to make a stinkin song.......
but others will gladly use them. freedom of choice! yay!

Bombadil · Post by **Bombadil** » Fri Mar 01, 2019 4:51 am

Glad I sat this one out.

Distorted Horizon · Post by **Distorted Horizon** » Fri Mar 01, 2019 5:15 am

Sampletank 2 was great. V3 and v4? Well... Glad we have Kontakt.

VitaminD · Post by **VitaminD** » Fri Mar 01, 2019 5:47 am

Distorted Horizon wrote: Fri Mar 01, 2019 5:15 am Sampletank 2 was great. V3 and v4? Well... Glad we have Kontakt.

V4 looks like it could have been V3.5 -- I don't see anything ground breaking that couldn't have simply been added or included in v3. The least being GUI resizing....

That seems to be the IKM status quo lately.. introduce GUI resizing as a whole version feature. They did the same thing with T-Racks..

But anyway, I'm glad they are still developing it. And there will almost certainly be a sale on it in the next year or two. At which point it likely will be a lot more stable and hopefully the download mechanism more refined. It is always better to wait with IKM software.

I do hope Kontakt eventually gets a GUI rework.. It appears to have been designed for computer displays from almost 2 decades ago. Same thing with Propellerheads Reason. They designed that sucker for 1024x768px or something but screen resolution has increased dramatically.

Astralv · Post by **Astralv** » Fri Mar 01, 2019 6:07 am

I don't understand IK pricing policy. They have full price, and then they have upgrade price from anything of $100 value. If you have almost entire collection and spent hundreds of dollars, this does not counts and you can only upgrade with others who only spent $100. This is why I quit buying their products.

Bippo · Post by **Bippo** » Fri Mar 01, 2019 10:27 am

layzer wrote: Fri Mar 01, 2019 4:37 am you would have to put a gun to my head to force me to use
sample based instruments that take up gigs upon gigs of HD
space and complicated install BS just to make a stinkin song.......
but others will gladly use them. freedom of choice! yay!

Well, what is the alternative if you are software based?

Because I've never found a high quality acoustic sounds rompler vst that doesn't require at least a double digits amount of gigabytes.

The only vsts I found that were low on HD space were never as detailed as kontakt.
Xpand!2 is very lofi (altough it has a perfect workflow imo), korg m1 and roland cloud jv-1080 are very nice and easy on HD space, but you can wipe them on the floor with kontakt.
Seems like companies these days prefer to go for exaggerated amount of HD space for marketing purposes, instead of better scripting and compressed size.

Examigan · Post by **Examigan** » Fri Mar 01, 2019 10:50 am

Bippo wrote: Fri Mar 01, 2019 10:27 am
layzer wrote: Fri Mar 01, 2019 4:37 am you would have to put a gun to my head to force me to use
sample based instruments that take up gigs upon gigs of HD
space and complicated install BS just to make a stinkin song.......
but others will gladly use them. freedom of choice! yay!
Well, what is the alternative if you are software based?

Because I've never found a high quality acoustic sounds rompler vst that doesn't require at least a double digits amount of gigabytes.

The only vsts I found that were low on HD space were never as detailed as kontakt.
Xpand!2 is very lofi (altough it has a perfect workflow imo), korg m1 and roland cloud jv-1080 are very nice and easy on HD space, but you can wipe them on the floor with kontakt.
Seems like companies these days prefer to go for exaggerated amount of HD space for marketing purposes, instead of better scripting and compressed size.

Have you checked out UVI?
https://www.uvi.net/soundware-overview

They do take up a good deal of disk space (depending on which library is installed), but they work well. I never have issues with any of their products.

I just noticed this is the 5th thread about Sampletank 4 just on this page alone.

samsam · Post by **samsam** » Fri Mar 01, 2019 10:53 am

Welcome!

Kvr needs more folk to join in order to slag off a company!

topaz · Post by **topaz** » Fri Mar 01, 2019 10:55 am

ATS · Post by **ATS** » Fri Mar 01, 2019 11:05 am

samsam wrote: Fri Mar 01, 2019 10:53 am Welcome!

Kvr needs more folk to join in order to slag off a company!

especially if it is deserved

samsam · Post by **samsam** » Fri Mar 01, 2019 11:08 am

ATS wrote: Fri Mar 01, 2019 11:05 am
samsam wrote: Fri Mar 01, 2019 10:53 am Welcome!

Kvr needs more folk to join in order to slag off a company!
especially if it is deserved

Oh yes, especially if it's deserved. That'll teach them a lesson. DESERVEDLY.

What kvr needs is a moan zone like GS has.

samsam · Post by **samsam** » Fri Mar 01, 2019 11:11 am

Bippo wrote: Fri Mar 01, 2019 3:11 am
Maybe I will check in some weeks from now

That's the spirit!

Teksonik · Post by **Teksonik** » Fri Mar 01, 2019 11:59 am

Sampletank 4 has to be the worst product release in VST history. I can't remember anything close to this train wreck.

If you mess something up this badly people will complain. It's human nature. Letting a company know what they've done wrong will help them to prevent such a cluster feck from happening again.

Obviously ST4 was rushed to market and very poorly tested. Then we only get interaction from the Sales and Promotions department while we get no one from Tech Support who is in a position to actually help beyond telling everyone to "open a ticket".

This would be excusable if IK were a new company and this was their first product release but obviously this isn't their first rodeo.

Sure all software has bugs that slip by testing but I've never seen anything as poorly handled as this release. There are so many problems that one is tempted to call this an Alpha release. It simply was not properly tested and not ready for release.

I feel embarrassed for IK. This is not how a company who considers itself to be a major player in the market should perform.

Ik makes some great products like TRacks but they need to refocus on releasing solid products that perform as expected instead of constantly trying to milk the buying public for more and more money. You get the feeling that the accountants are driving the bus at IK rather than the people who write the code.

The list of products in my IK account numbers over 50 so I've been a loyal customer for many years. I was all set to purchase the "upgrade", had the money already on the spreadsheet. But I can't imagine anyone would buy into this mess now. I certainly can't justify the purchase now and thankfully was savvy enough not to fall into the Pre-Order.

Thanks to all who did the pre-order and posted the issues and problems there are having with ST4. Their posts have saved me money and from what I've read several days of headaches.

(Peter if you won't answer posts where I have asked legitimate product questions then don't bother responding to this post. I feel sorry for you that you have to swallow your pride an tow the company line. It must leave quite a foul taste in your mouth).

I will not revisit this thread so flame away if you will sheeple of KVR.

sampletank 4: a new type of nightmare?