IK Multimedia emails

[musicman691]

I'm sure there's a few users of plugins from IK Multimedia (Sampletank, Amplitube, etc.) on here. Not having a problem with the plugins but with getting emails from them (newsletters, etc.). It gets disheartening (sp?) to get info from forums or resellers about new stuff and not directly from IK even though I'm signed up for their email newsletters. What I'm asking is is anybody here signed up to get their newsletters, have you gotten anything from them this year yet, and is your ISP Verizon? I'm trying to work through their tech support on this but it's frustrating as they won't even say what newsletter email blasts have gone out. Nothing shows up in Verizon's spam trap folder.

One of the reasons I'm asking this is Amplitube 4 is due for release on October 29 and we're told we should get an email that it's available in our user area. I did the pre-order and am anxiously awaiting the new version.

[mhschmieder]

It isn't even close to 29 October yet, so I don't understand the concern. Are you expecting a daily countdown email? I think my last reminder was a few days ago. If anything, I get annoyed by reminders for stuff I've already bought, as I then have to check to make sure my payment really went through.

I will say, however, that I was a bit annoyed that their most recent paid upgrade (a few months ago; I forget which product as I own them all except ARC) did NOT get accompanied by an email about availability in our user area until almost a week after it was. It was only due to seeing something in a forum that I manually checked and found it was available.

The more expedient approach might be to check your Custom Shop app on the day (or the day after; time zone might matter) of AmpliTube 4's release -- it may need to update itself to gain knowledge of new product codes. Then "Restore My Gear" after logging in. I think this is how I took care of my last upgrade.

It's much less involved than when we had to manually take care of everything directly on the website, but I still go there to find installers as I don't think those can happen through the Custom Shop -- yet it might work out better to restore your gear before installing the upgrade and again afterwards, in case of a particular dependency order.

The user area can be confusing due to overlap. I bought products a la carte as they were released, then the suite licenses once available, but ALL show up in my user area still. At least now they are properly sorted in descending chronological order, so it's easier to ignore the redundancies. For awhile though, it wasn't clear whether you needed to install more than one "product" in order for the bass plugin, Hendrix, Fender, etc. to all load.

So, just to reiterate, you seem to only need one installer for each product "group" now -- though maybe a separate one for the SampleTank FREE version -- and then "Restore My Gear" (separate for each product "group" e.g. Amplitude vs. T-RackS) will make the purchased products available within the main skin for that product "group".

Rinse, wash, repeat. Sometimes I have to "Restore My Gear" multiple times, or reboot, for all the new licenses to show up as available presets in any of their products. It all works out after a few iterations, at worst. Overall, it's smoother than when everything had to be deal with a la carte.

[musicman691]

It isn't even close to 29 October yet, so I don't understand the concern. Are you expecting a daily countdown email? I think my last reminder was a few days ago. If anything, I get annoyed by reminders for stuff I've already bought, as I then have to check to make sure my payment really went through.

I will say, however, that I was a bit annoyed that their most recent paid upgrade (a few months ago; I forget which product as I own them all except ARC) did NOT get accompanied by an email about availability in our user area until almost a week after it was. It was only due to seeing something in a forum that I manually checked and found it was available.

The more expedient approach might be to check your Custom Shop app on the day (or the day after; time zone might matter) of AmpliTube 4's release -- it may need to update itself to gain knowledge of new product codes. Then "Restore My Gear" after logging in. I think this is how I took care of my last upgrade.

It's much less involved than when we had to manually take care of everything directly on the website, but I still go there to find installers as I don't think those can happen through the Custom Shop -- yet it might work out better to restore your gear before installing the upgrade and again afterwards, in case of a particular dependency order.

The user area can be confusing due to overlap. I bought products a la carte as they were released, then the suite licenses once available, but ALL show up in my user area still. At least now they are properly sorted in descending chronological order, so it's easier to ignore the redundancies. For awhile though, it wasn't clear whether you needed to install more than one "product" in order for the bass plugin, Hendrix, Fender, etc. to all load.

So, just to reiterate, you seem to only need one installer for each product "group" now -- though maybe a separate one for the SampleTank FREE version -- and then "Restore My Gear" (separate for each product "group" e.g. Amplitude vs. T-RackS) will make the purchased products available within the main skin for that product "group".

Rinse, wash, repeat. Sometimes I have to "Restore My Gear" multiple times, or reboot, for all the new licenses to show up as available presets in any of their products. It all works out after a few iterations, at worst. Overall, it's smoother than when everything had to be deal with a la carte.

You are so missing the point it isn't even funny. It just happens the AT4 upgrade is the latest in a very long line of not hearing anything from IK on their product. I have NEVER gotten email newsletters from IK on anything. The only way I found out about AT4 being available was via the DUC; ditto for their Stealth Limiter and many other plugins. Being a registered AT3 (and earlier) owner I should have gotten something from IK saying 'hey - we got this new version of Amplitube coming out and would you like to pre-order it?' The only way I find out about new libraries for Sampletank from IK is via resellers and NOT from IK. They do a poor to inconsistent job of getting the word out to customers about new stuff.

And I'm supposed to wait for an email from IK saying AT4 is available for download with their track record? The alternative is to check my user account on a regular basis and I ain't got the time or patience for that malarkey.

What I asked for was anybody else having an issue getting info emails from IK and not paragraphs on how to deal with this. BTW the AT4 upgrade at this point in time is not coming through the Custom Shop was the word I got from IK; of course that may well change.

[David Polich]

I hate to advise making a trip over to Gearslutz.com, but that is where you can post on the Amplitube4 thread and get a reply from iK. Post about this email thing on that thread and the iK guy will answer it. Not saying it's right, just sayin' that's how it is.

[musicman691]

I hate to advise making a trip over to Gearslutz.com, but that is where you can post on the Amplitube4 thread and get a reply from iK. Post about this email thing on that thread and the iK guy will answer it. Not saying it's right, just sayin' that's how it is.

IK Peter and I (as well as IK support) have gone round and round about this over on the IK forums; I'm trying to find out if others are having the same problem or not. An answer one way or the other would give me a path to follow for better success. Trying to cast as wide a net as I possibly can.

I would sooner go through a safari park in a meat suit than post on GS.

[mhschmieder]

I never received an email, but proactively checked my account tonight now that JavaOne/OracleWorld is over (14 hours a day for a week, plus transit each day), and there was AmpliTube 4 waiting to be downloaded, and with the usual confusion over having THREE products showing up with updates and new serial numbers even though all result in the same unified download.

As before, the right one to register is the S/N for AmpliTube 4 vs. Custom Shop or Mesa. Then, once logged in at Custom Shop (which updates alongside the AmpliTube update, but no longer seems available or clickable from within AT4 itself -- though I didn't spend long looking), "Restore My Gear" makes all authorizations available in one fell swoop and also imports all of your AT3 libs into AT4 (though they aren't guaranteed to sound exactly the same).

[musicman691]

I never received an email, but proactively checked my account tonight now that JavaOne/OracleWorld is over (14 hours a day for a week, plus transit each day), and there was AmpliTube 4 waiting to be downloaded, and with the usual confusion over having THREE products showing up with updates and new serial numbers even though all result in the same unified download.

As before, the right one to register is the S/N for AmpliTube 4 vs. Custom Shop or Mesa. Then, once logged in at Custom Shop (which updates alongside the AmpliTube update, but no longer seems available or clickable from within AT4 itself -- though I didn't spend long looking), "Restore My Gear" makes all authorizations available in one fell swoop and also imports all of your AT3 libs into AT4 (though they aren't guaranteed to sound exactly the same).

And don't forget to import your old presets. The AT3 stuff is now called 'legacy'. The only new thing for me was AT4 as I have all the other collections except for Slash. It was neat that I could do the download from Custom Shop instead of going to my account. BTW I never received an email from IK so don't feel bad. Their email system has issues they can't seem to iron out.