Armageddon wrote:I love and own almost all of the SampleTank instruments, and I've got quite a few expansion sets for SampleTank. However ... all of my high-end sample collections are on Kontakt. There's really just no comparison. Unless SampleTank 3 has the ability to load and use keyswitches, velocity switches and extensive scripting, it's still going to be a niche instrument that's dependent on how good its included samples and various sample packs are, but it's still not going to have the ability to load up sets like Symphobia or Electri6ity and will have limited usability. Don't get me wrong, I find plenty of uses for SampleTank, Sonik Synth 2 and Philharmonik, but I think, at this point, there's a wide margin of difference between those and Kontakt that IK probably won't be able to bridge.
Now that I have the full version of Miroslav installed, along with Sonik Synth, I can more ably assess the virtues of Sampletank and its spawn. I don't think I'll be proclaiming either as the best of anything, but I find both to be useful. The thing that's been missing from my collection has been a "grab-bag" of spare parts. I could consider GPO in that way, but it's really good enough to use on the front lines if I'm careful, but on the other hand it's limited only to mainstream orchestral instruments. The Jazz library has more variety, but is still quite limited. Not the kind of grab-bag I would want. MSI simply lacks too much. Nice instruments, but not enough control over their sound, attacks, etc, and the ranges of the instruments are nearly all truncated for
no apparent reason. Maybe they saved a few megabytes by doing that. Who knows? But shaving off the top 10% of the range of so many instruments is inexcusable and renders MSI almost useless, even as a spare-parts bag.
I think Sonik Synth gives me some nice keyboards -- a Rhodes, Mellotron, Clavinet, and many others that do not appear in libraries as often as they should. I'm thankful to have those even if they may not (or may) be among the best out there. The Rhodes I've already used. It's ok. It's brighter than I remember them sounding, but you never actually hear a "Rhodes," but a "Rhodes through a Fender Amp," and so on. The sound of Sonik Synth's Rhodes is bright but useful as is. I can probably EQ it and get more out of it. Better a little extra brightness to cut than too dark, where adding volume to certain frequencies just doesn't quite do the job. In Sonik Synth I find a really useful box of spare parts - there are so many odd sounds and mainstream sounds. I can work with these when I imagine a sound that might fit somewhere.
Miroslav's usefulness I've already written about in this thread. It certainly could be better. I wish the ability to assign controllers could be global rather than part-by-part. But the fact that it responds to Breath Control at all, and in a fairly intelligent way, makes it instantly useful to me whether for mockups or final products. When the sound is "good enough," expression pushes it over the hill to make the performance great. You can definitely express in the Miroslav Philharmonik. I'm glad to have it.
Keep in mind that I have VSL, GPO, Garritan Jazz, and of course the amazing Wallander Instruments "WIVI" plugin. Plus I have the Thommasini/Lucato Stradivari Solo Violin and Gofriller Cello, which are amazing solo instruments (Garritan versions). Really and truly amazing. All the Garritan stuff runs in Kontakt 4 Player; I don't have his Aria engine yet. But the point is that I'm not hurting for good sounds. Always looking for useful ones, though. It's strange how your favorite sounds don't always go well in a certain piece of music.
If someone had a very low budget and wanted a wide variety of sounds for all kinds of music, they could do
no better than to have caught these two (Miroslav and Sonik Synth) on sale. Careful MIDI performance will make these sound excellent in most situations. The two combined -- full versions of each -- came to only $150. Maybe they'll repeat this sale again.
Shooshie
