SampleTank4

[bayswater]

SampleTank 4 arrived without much fanfare. I had a quick look at it yesterday. The list of new features is very short, and the upgrade from V3 is about 200 Euros. It doesn't look like it's worth it, but IK did such a great job on MODO, I'm wondering if there's something I'm missing.

Did anyone upgrade? What do you think?

[Michael Canavan]

I'm not tempted by it, I've got enough 'decent' stock sampler sounds between IK, NI, and UVI already, but there is a current sale on the Fender collections I'm going to take advantage of.
Fender collection 1 is great, so I would guess that 2 is as well.

[mhschmieder]

I hope to know more tonight -- I have been working crazy hours and gigging constantly, alongside many studio sessions, and this was at the bottom of my list of things to do. But I need to do it this weekend, so I can finalize some tracks for good, where the huge latin percussion contribution by ST4 may make a difference (way more articulations than any competitors).

[mhschmieder]

I definitely don't like the new browser though -- I have yet to find a way to get it to present a streamlined file system based view of what a specific library offers. I find the categorization schemes too confusing, when it comes to straightforward stuff like percussion and orchestral instruments; I know what I want already and am not aimlessly looking for something that has specific sound characteristics, as one might do with synth patches.

You can highlight just one library on the left, but it barely indicates that it is highlighted and selected, so it's hard to have confidence that one is just looking at the patches offered by ST4 itself for example.

The other thing is that I haven't yet figured out how to do detailed editing. maybe it isn't supported? If I want to use Phiharmonik 2, I seem way better off using its ST3-based interface, as those same instruments loaded into ST4 seem to have minimal if any editing capacity. And yes I have read the user manual several times, but of course it sometimes takes time to get a grasp of unexpected terminology.

If I find that I don't have a use for anything in ST4 (and I paid for the MAX upgrade as it wasn't much more at my end due to about-to-expire JamPoints), I may just put the whole shebang up on vi-c, as I did with a bunch of other stuff lately. I'm switching to all-SSD's as soon as I can, so a house cleaning has been underway since the holidays. ST4 is kind of like the "last chance" for this product at my end. The specs looked great so it was worth a chance; some deep stuff that others rarely bother with. We'll see when I do my shootouts tonight.

[mhschmieder]

I got around to fully annotating ST4 and was surprised by the articulation count and sample size for all things percussion, as well as the guitars and basses (which I don't need as I use Orange Tree Samples guitars and MODO Bass at the mock-up stage and never keep those tracks once I have time to record the real thing). Also several Brasilian percussion instruments that no one else has covered yet, and a few random arbitrary choices that are unique, such as a Vietnamese Bamboo Xylophone.

I didn't have a chance to audition anything yet, as I also finally got around to annotating Spitfire Percussion, which is old by now and which I never really investigated after buying it as part of a package deal. Much to my surprise, it is likewise extremely deep on the whole, even for stuff like chromatic percussion where you wouldn't expect that out of a catch-all library. And there's almost no overlap with ST4.

Spitfire has already risen to the top for Anvils, which rarely get covered and especially with any variety vs. one pitch and articulation (e.g. the otherwise-excellent Hans Zimmer Pro Percussion from Spitfire). Worth the price of admission alone, as I use Anvils a lot now in place of tired old 80's synth drum "trash" sounds. Once I go through more of the library, I may find it the top choice for quite a bit.

It might be a bit longer before I thoroughly review ST4, as its main purpose in my own life will be Latin Percussion, and right now I'm back to focusing on my symphonic stuff.

[bayswater]

Editing appears to be pretty extensive if their promo video on the software is realistic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Vkpi39W9g4

The main point seems to be the size and variety of the sample library. Where V3 might have had a couple of dozen samples of a particular instrument, V4 might have a few hundred, with endless subtle variations in articulation. But you need the Max version to get this level of variety, and some entire sections are missing from the basic version, making it a pretty expensive upgrade.

[mhschmieder]

I wonder if I didn't get the MAX version downloaded then? Their site has always been confusing when it comes to downloads, currency of a version, etc. I thought MAX just meant they threw in all the extra packs from ST3, many of which I already owned anyway.

[bayswater]

I wonder if I didn't get the MAX version downloaded then? Their site has always been confusing when it comes to downloads, currency of a version, etc. I thought MAX just meant they threw in all the extra packs from ST3, many of which I already owned anyway.

If it's like other IKM downloads, you get the entire thing, then the authorization activates what you paid for. The rest lurks there and pops up if you get near it, like the Red Dwarf toaster.

[mhschmieder]

I'm still a bit behind on reviewing the new stuff in ST4 as mostly it's about Brasilian Percussion and some other world instruments that are rarely if ever covered, and at the moment I have just completed a super-steep learning curve on getting truly expert on Vienna Synchron Player and thus focusing more on Orchestral Percussion choices for final rendering on a lot of almost-done album tracks.

I've been tossing a lot of stuff aside lately via vi-control forum's want ads, and may come to regret my investment in the IK stuff (across-the-board, as so much other stuff has come along even for mixer effects, and amp modeling), but I always consider learning to have a cost and thus have very few purchases that I truly regret (the biggest case in point is most of the EWQL stuff, which can't be re-sold either -- in fact, I notice there's an interesting "confidence" relationship regarding such policies ).

Having gone through my annotation list again tonight, I was surprised at how little Syntronik covers compared to UVI Synths Anthology etc. But maybe it's deeper. And some of that now seems pulled into ST4, but I don't have the patience or interest to really compare thoroughly as my overall use of synths has gone down to near-zero now that I'm once again getting back to more use of acoustic sounds and real instruments.

It's also a bit hard for me to tell how much of Miroslav Philharmonik was pulled into the "Core Library" of ST4. Part of this has to do with the horrible new browser that is touchy-feely instead of structured. So it's really hard to browse by library vs. by "sound characteristics" and "moods".

[mhschmieder]

I finally got around to reviewing the huge new Yamaha C7 samples in SampleTank 4 MAX (apparently only the close mics are included in the standard edition). I lost a LOT of time due to horrible user workflow (also true of ST3; it might not even have changed in ST4), and not being able to find much of the new content, then discovered last night that I simply had downloaded too soon upon release and that there were updates from this past week that include the extra content for MAX owners.

Well, it made little difference in my C7 evaluation. I still haven't found any real editing controls in ST4 MAX, or rather anything approaching what I'm used to in Kontakt or Falcon/UVI (not so much ENGINE, which is a bit quirky when it comes to editing). Nor a way to control the mic mix, so I suspect one has to do that by layering three patches (one for each mic pair) and setting their overall mix ratios. Not cool, as that can introduce bad frequency stacking issues vs. having TRUE direct control overt the mics.

At any rate, it's well-recorded as things go in that regard, but not to my liking as the mics all sound almost the same, a bit too bright and not very characterful or dark in the low end. And though orange Tree Samples Evolution Rosewood is my brightest quality (vs. crap) C7 library, it has character, is well-balanced across the registers, good editability, and sits well in the mix.

I have only casually tried the percussion selection in ST4 MAX so far, with no direct comparisons, but the same GUI workflow critique holds, as IK seem geared towards electronica folks who may occasionally add natural instruments to their mix. Most presets have gimmicky names and it is extremely hard to just quickly browse for normal-sounding instrument presets.

Anyway, I forgot that I recently bought UVI Percussion Store, which also covers a lot of rarely-recorded percussion (especially from South America) and seems fairly deeply sampled, so I suspect that when I finally find time to do a thorough shootout, that I will be quickly looking for IK's policies on licenses as I am trying to go all-SSD and am thus slimming down where possible at the moment (via vi-control forum).

I've really been overwhelmed of late though, as new products and updates have been coming fast and furious, and I'm also gigging non-stop plus working overtime and desperately trying to find more studio time. So I get frustrated more easily than usual, when a product has a non-intuitive GUI and workflow and its user manual doesn't seem to guide me where I need to go, making me wonder if the product itself is just not a fit for my work style. I am very much a composer who already knows what they want and need, vs. someone who randomly explores every possibility and seeks inspiration.

[mhschmieder]

I am only gradually getting around to reviewing sub-groupings of new patches a few at a time here and there, and need to get to the latin percussion soon as that was my primary reason for doing the upgrade, but in general I am shocked by the miking choices made and the pre-mix baked-in sound that seems impossible to dial out, as well as the atrocious patch selection system that doesn't seem to let you find something that you already know is there -- it is oriented around people searching for exciting new sounds (mostly synthetic of course) and doesn't offer another approach for people who deal mostly with acoustic instruments and genres.

Even though the sample sets are quite large in some cases, ST4 never makes it (so far) above the middle of the list for anything I've done a shootout for, so far (including Tubular Bells and the like). There's this commonality of a compressed sound, lack of depth, low-mid timbral humps and lack of clarity or crispness or even closeness when using the close mic only, and I also have yet to find an acceptable way to combine mics (I do not consider layering patches in a multi to be acceptable due to the frequency stacking issue and other stuff that doesn't happen when you can dial in an actual mic balance within a single patch).

[mhschmieder]

Much to my astonishment, the huge new Latin Percussion collection has nothing in common with the rest of SampleTank4.

These are super-super-dry samples, with mostly good choices of actual instruments, and players who know the idiom. It's a little strange that they chose Pearl's rather inauthentic models in a few cases, but mostly it seems that they used Brasilian brands and top end stuff like Gon Bops (from what I can tell).

Unlike the entire rest of ST4, it is easy to find patches because they are simply named and not gimmicky in labeling or in sound. Only a few have weird variation patches. Mostly, this is a very natural and super-deep collection of rarely-sampled Latin American percussion -- especially Brasilian, which almost everyone overlooks -- and several instruments have never been sampled by anyone else as far as I know.

In most cases, the instruments in this set placed in top three, and often in top two or the actual top slot -- bearing in mind that I rarely have just one library I depend on for any specific instrument as different projects have different needs.

The pitches are universally different from any other choice out there -- sometimes lower, sometimes higher, but rarely "weird" -- the one mind-blowing exception being the Hembra Timbale, which is way too low-pitched relative to the Macho Timbale. It's strange because it is by far the deepest sampled Timbales set ever. Maybe there's some pitching available that I haven't found yet.

The Bongos are the first good ones ever, from any source. I've been using EZDrummer Latin Percussion as a placeholder. Flying Hand Drums doesn't include Bongos, unfortunately; just a Bongo Cajon. These are miles beyond what anyone else has done, and they also chose a very authentic tapered small set more like the early Cuban models.

Congas are a trio, after putting so much work into switching my three-conga MIDI for two-conga with extra articulations! High-pitched, which I prefer, but I hate to give up the "legato mode" natural hand modeling of Flying Hand Percussion, so the jury's still out. Nice to have a Tumba, Conga, and Quinto though. Evolution Series made theirs less useful by including super-tumba but no tumba, and super-requinto, with all the higher voicings pitched too far from the lower pitches.

Some of the chromatic percussion is pretty good, but not likely to end up as my first choice as Spitfire and a few others have covered that ground so well.

Even when comparing to Muletone Audio, who are local to Brasil and fairly new, some of these instruments either are different enough to still be useful, or actually a bit deeper, but I think the Muletone stuff ends up having a bit more of the natural articulations available, even though the overall sample size is smaller.

The Cuica is low-pitched, which I usually prefer and which is rare in libraries (except VSL; still my top choice even for latin music). I think it's likely to come in handy.

The Surdos are wood vs. aluminum, so they may be the first to have done that. Muletone Audio has also chosen wood for a few percussion elements that are more often (historically at least) aluminum. I think there may be a trend towards wood though -- especially for indoors music.

[mhschmieder]

I am sad to report that I find nothing in ST4 useful for my work.

As good as the latin percussion stuff looked on paper, with huge sample size and coverage of instruments rarely or never done, the reality is that there is a weirdness to the miking technique as well as the players and the articulations, to where I just don't think I can get any of this stuff to work in a mix.

In isolation, some of the big sample sets sound sort of OK, such as the massive bongos, but even my top choice of Toontrack Latin Percussion EZX has more realistic sounding articulations and a more natural sound from the miking. So it remains the case that there are not yet any truly great bongos in the sampling world, even though congas have some good choices.

The timbales have a super-weird interval between the hembra and the macho drum. I don't really see a way to tighten that up and sound natural.

I suspect that part of the problem is that they likely didn't use any close mics at all. That works for certain stuff like vibraslap, but for hand percussion, you need a mixture of mics in order to capture the warmth and naturalness of how the hands sound slapping the instrument. That's where HandHeld Sound did such a remarkable job with their congas, and why it remains a mystery to me why they didn't include bongos in Flying Hand Percussion.

I find that most vendors don't understand percussion. That's OK in terms of background, but if you're going to release an actual library, there's no excuse for not boning up on the topic; it strikes me as a cavalier attitude, such as is projected quite strongly by some vendors in how they classify certain percussion items (such as castanets) as "Toys".

I will put some more time into the smaller percussion items soon, but the ones I was hoping would save me, such as the bongos and timbales, were a huge disappointment once examined in more depth and put through some real world trials.

That may be a moot point though, as I should replace all of my MIDI mockup tracks with live percussion anyway -- it's just so time-consuming, and each item requires separate investigations into best mic choices and miking techniques. And it slows down getting stuff out for public consumption. But probably I shouldn't care so much how good the mock-up tracks sound.

[bayswater]

So aside from a huge library, there doesn't seem to me a good reason to update.

[mikehalloran]

So aside from a huge library, there doesn't seem to me a good reason to update.

Thinking the same thing.

I had passed on Total Studio 2 because it does not include ST4 Max–that upgrade would be another $299 for me. Looking like it’s a good thing not. I already have ST3 Max, PH2 and Modo Bass.