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Good God -SampleTank 3!


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I didn't actually expect to see it in my lifetime, but it's finally coming out soon. http://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/sampletank3/

You have to really dig into the page to hear the audio demos, but they're there and most of them are a considerable improvement over SampleTank 2. Won't please VST elitists by any stretch of the imagination, but for a dedicated ROMpler, I really like what I'm hearing.

$300 though... $200 would've near guaranteed a purchase from me.

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Yeah, but I never make snap decisions for sound gear more than $20.

I would've liked to hear more choir/vocal stuff in the demos. It's apparently also going to add all of SampleTank 2 in it, which sounds a bit weird to me as ROMplers tend to be designed for consistency, but I've never had a full version of ST2, so I won't know until I get a chance to really try it.

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A lot of the ST2 stuff is still usable, even by today's standards, for backing parts that aren't as exposed.

ST3 is like the Duke Nukem Forever of sample/romple plugindom... nothing they can do could possibly make it worth the wait, but I'm still kinda psyched regardless. Hopefully it fares better than Duke did!

hahaha I think I made that comparison on kvr audio a year or two ago.

Honestly, what I've heard sounds a lot like ST2. I will be passing on it. ST2 always had some really nice instruments, and some things you think, wtf were they smoking when they signed off on this?

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From listening to a lot of the examples, they're still using a fairly dated library of sounds. Some are good and quite usable while others sound worse than some of the free sound fonts out there. I don't think Sampletank itself is the problem but more the libraries that come with it. With that being said, I have a couple premium Sampletank libraries that I use now and again that sound pretty decent. They just really need to do something about the stock sounds it comes with.

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I just checked for that as well, you can chill:

"SampleTank 3 will be available for download in July. From now until its release, it can be purchased at these special pre-order prices*:..."

btw, reading through the blurbs...god i hate marketing. just from that i can see why some might feel a bit jaded about IK, lol.

Edited by Nase
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Obviously scanning Google for forums with question concerning the release. He's on many other forums doing the same thing ;P That company has an incredible customer service btw

Definitely, we like to keep track of any questions that arise all over the internet. If there isn't something I can do directly, I at least point them in the right direction to get them help or answer their questions. :) Thanks for the kind words!

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  • 1 month later...

mini-review:

the sounds i've tried so far are mostly good stuff.

the basses really stand out, they're excellent.

drums are good, keys seem decent as well, though i haven't sequenced/played them that much yet.

some very cool brass patches, big improvement over ST2 there.

strings are what they are, and miroslav that is. they seem well FX-ed and patched together though.

the ethnic department is nice as well, though you notice that most of the patches are rather small there.

which brings me to one point of critique: i wish the detail of sampling had been spread more evenly.

i can see why you'd want to include one really detailed gigabyte piano. there are a couple extensively sampled ones though.

then, for comparison, the only new accordeon sound in ST3 is 1,20 MB, just for example. well, it sounds decent for that size.

in the end, it's all about good patches, and some really good patches are very small. but still, i was hoping for some more expressive velocity layers, esp. in the ethnic domain.

but owell. talking about good patches, as i said, most of what i tried is serviceable to excellent.

the big exception isn't important to me, but it may be to some: the synth sounds suck. i just deleted them.

final point of criticism: too much cpu. i don't know if ST1 had the same issue at release, but efficient programming this is not.

it might have to do with the fx carried over from other IK products...good sounding stuff no doubt, but could have used some optimization, or some kind of eco mode.

Interface is nice. not a real beauty, but nice layout.

anyway, overall i'm happy. completely worth the upgrade price. it's a bit of a downer that i won't be able to really max it out until i get a new computer in a couple years. running it on a consumer level laptop bought this year.

it's workable, but adding new sounds isn't a carefree process like it was with ST2 when i got it.

______________

just initial impressions though. gotta do some more tunes with it now.

Edited by Nase
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I haven't installed yet because I'm bogged down in other things right now (and the download will take a couple days with my connection), but your analysis of the sounds seems consistent with my impressions of the demos. I really liked the bread-and-butter sounds -- pianos, basses, drums, etc. -- but not so much the more obscure instruments.

Part of the reason I upgraded is that I use Miroslav as a supplement to my primary orchestra libraries (for layering and such) and Miroslav's ST2-based player is a bit squirrely on my system. I think part of it is that ST2 is 32-bit and I'm bridging it into a 64-bit host, which will be resolved with ST3 being native 64-bit.

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yeah, though i wanna stress sample size ain't always important.

there are a couple excellent patches in the ethnic library, and some of them are at 40 MB, some at 4.

for comparison, the large pianos sound good, but they have eco variations at just over 50 MB, and those sound pretty good as well.

so it's very much about a good balance, and most of all careful sample selection. i've seen enough huge multisamples that don't make a huge difference because the velocity layers don't add a lot of expression to the instrument.

so, some of the world patches could've gone from decent to great if they just added a couple megs of evocative high or low velocity layers, for example.

another example: i'm sure i could get a good lead guitar sound out of ST3, but i expect i'll often just return to Ultimate Guitar Kit. 60 mb soundfont, but just the right layers for an expressive lead sound.

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yeah, though i wanna stress sample size ain't always important.

there are a couple excellent patches in the ethnic library, and some of them are at 40 MB, some at 4.

for comparison, the large pianos sound good, but they have eco variations at just over 50 MB, and those sound pretty good as well.

so it's very much about a good balance, and most of all careful sample selection. i've seen enough huge multisamples that don't make a huge difference because the velocity layers don't add a lot of expression to the instrument.

so, some of the world patches could've gone from decent to great if they just added a couple megs of evocative high or low velocity layers, for example.

another example: i'm sure i could get a good lead guitar sound out of ST3, but i expect i'll often just return to Ultimate Guitar Kit. 60 mb soundfont, but just the right layers for an expressive lead sound.

Hmm..can't seem to find a workable link to Ultimate Guitar Kit 2 =( Is there any chance you could host it for us Nase? =D

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