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Husker has pretty well summed up my experience (over MANY years) with IK, and my analysis of IK is well known in this forum! While the products are great, the business model is abismal at best. The HUGE saving grace for IK is.... THE GROUP BUYS... If not for the Group Buys, and the fact that the products are decent, they would have already been ditched! THAT being said, my hat is REALLY, TRULY, off to Pete, who has been a STELLAR representative of IK! I can't begin to applaud him enough for his help to MANY of us here on this forum! He truly is ANOTHER of the reasons that I continue to buy IK Products, and I say that will all sincerity!

I have never been an IK Multimedia customer, but I have watched them from afar. Some of their practices don’t have the best reputation around here, which has also kept me away from IK. However, I started following the thread, and got a bit interested when I found I could get into the $200 tier for around $112. I have recently started to learn guitar (and failing miserably), so I was most interested in Amplitude. I’m a synth guy, and though I don’t need them, I had been eyeing SampleTank and Syntronik as well. I don’t have too much interest in TRacks, as I have more effects than anyone could ever use - much like everyone else around here. I decided to buy into the group buy, and I thought I would put my thoughts down for anyone who is thinking about it, but has never had any dealings with IK. Their purchase process is extremely convoluted to me. Jam Points, Gear Credits, Custom Shop – it all seems needlessly complex. IK should really streamline this process. I purchased 200 gear credits, and was able to join the Group Buy successfully. I purchased Amplitude 5, chose SampleTank, Modo Bass, Modo Drums, and Syntronik Deluxe as my freebies. Special thanks to @abacab and @cclarry for their guidance. The installation and authorization programs are simply abysmal. There is no reason it should be this difficult. I “computer” for a living, so I’m very familiar with these processes. The disparate installation and authorization routines (oh, you have to use “this” authorization app for this, and the “other”authorization app for that) are just simply “dumb.” The inconsistencies are extremely frustrating. IK should really take a good, hard look at this. Modo Drums and Modo Bass were simple; everything else thus far has been a pain, and very confusing. In practice, the plugins work very well, and sound great. No real complaints at all about the actual plugins. They really are outstanding. Support – during my authorization and installation saga, I decided I would try out their support. In real life, I am an IT Director for a large corporation that has locations in 20 US states, as well as Mexico and Canada. We run a large Heldesk (and I’m ultimately responsible for it), so I am aware of the of the issues surrounding support. I filled out the ticket with all the required information and screenshots, as I know how important that is. The next day, I received a simple “boilerplate” response asking for the information and screenshots – it was clear no one had even bothered to read what I wrote. Again, a big “fail” to support – I’ve fired HelpDesk technicians for doing something similar. “Support” like that drives people away. Again, these are just my thoughts on my experiences as a new IK Customer. I really do appreciate the help of @abacab and @cclarry during my ordeals.

Until recently I had no idea people posted in other forums on this site. For me this one is enough. I don’t have enough deals or comedy material for more than a couple threads on this forum a week anyway hahah

Sadly, any math ability I have goes out the window when money is involved. Stick one dollar sign in a spreadsheet and logic goes higgledy-piggledy and it's all 2+2=7, up is down, black is white and WUP makes perfect sense. Okay, not the last one. Let's not be ridiculous.

My nerdy datasheet has evolved into its (hopefully) final form, which looks like this: I'm looking only at the time since the "race to 10k" announcement, which jumped the rate of signups quite a bit -- but there's a lag of about a day before that happened, so we started out "behind" the rate of ~23/hour needed to get from 7075 to 10k in 126 hours. We haven't hit that rate yet, though the numbers are steadily creeping up. The "ideal count" shows how many signups we'd have if we smoothly got the ~23 signups per hour -- by that metric, we're about 140 people "behind", and the rate we need to catch up is now ~26/hour. That's the bad news. There is some good news, though. I'm assuming a GMT deadline, so if it's later (likely EST, if so), then we've got another 5 hours to play with, give or take. Also, we've hit the 25+ rate and more in quite a few hours/spans, so it wouldn't take a huge surge to get there consistently. The final column shows where the current rate would get us, and that number creeps closer to 10k nearly every update, with a gap of around 250 now for the first time. So we're not home and dry at this point, nor quite home and vigorously toweling off. But we're headed in the right direction, while the clock ticks away. That's a thing, right?

The suspense is killing me! 😛 Even my wife is asking where the group buy is at! 😲 But that's probably sarcastic and probably means: "Hey, did you just refresh that Group Buy counter page yet again!" 😒

Fixed for you Ed.

Husker, I think most of us have a love/hate relationship with IK. But please save these honest reviews until after the group buy is over hehe 🤣

https://www.spifftire.com/

Consumer market or not, there is simply no excuse to not even bother to read the detailed ticket I filled out.

+1 x 3! I HATE the IK eco-system but LOVE the plugins. My entry was a GB 3 years ago. So yeah, love-hate here too. I'm on the fence on this GB. My disdain for the whole convoluted setup has kept me out the last couple of years. But the new Amplitude stuff has me curious and I've been eyeing the Arc System for a quite a while now. I also just finished a track and fell in love with the Tape Echo plugin... Then again, my wife will kill me if I do go in - and rightly so, as we're driving our daughter down to college ($$$!) any day now. $o that make$ 2 college aged kid$... 🤪 PS. And don't get me started on charging $10 for expired downloads. That's WUP territory right there...

Sorry about that forgot about that... Lol.. https://www.orchestraltools.com/store/get-sine

Aha Young Jedi you must open your mind and expand your horizons. There is much comic material to be had by visiting the other parts of this forum

So this is the reason They probably hired him

You got the right idea. Instead of fleer going in at $299 he should have gone in @ $59 x 5 = $299 to count as 5 new entries. Remember it’s not what YOU need but what WE need hahah

Added yet another entry, the $299.99 tier this time.

@Peter - IK Multimedia Do you see the four sideways laughing until I cry faces? Those emojis are typically meant to mean "I'm joking" or "I make myself laugh at my own joke". I have nothing against you or your company and I truly know how group buys work. You're a top notch guy and you seem to joke with the best of them, so methinks you misunderstood or ignored my use of those emojis.

If anyone is on the fence to join or double dip, let me tell you it’s best thing I’ve done all year. The intensity of checking and rechecking what I own/don’t own/did the counter move/etc has given me purpose. Even at work people ask why I’m so focused, little do they know I’m just looking at the counter and not really completing my TPS report. I think mr lumbergh, my boss, is catching on. Luckily this other guy, Milton, is keeping the heat off me. So please join the group buy or double dip. Will change your life. As a friend of mine says, it’s all about the flair and opening custom shop and seeing all those green arrows bring happy tears to my eyes.

… and Resonator.

And that is the best part about this forum. Those members (like the aforementioned abacab and cclarry) that give up there time, energy, and efforts to help others. It was actually because of this forum that I ended up joining the GB.

I am glad you didn't give up! In the other thread when you said you had given up I felt bad, honestly. This forum should not deter anyone from a good sale. I hear what you are saying about the complication of gear credits, jam points etc. and respect yours and everyone else's opinion on this. But, like I responded to you in the group thread, buying at the shown price is fine and would still yield a great group buy deal. Going the convulated way is just to get the best possible deal, nothing else. Save a few bucks. Its akin to shopping around for the best price possible for say a TV and then searching for coupons for the store, if they exist, to bring a price even lower. Some like to spend the time doing these research, some simply don't care to spend the time and pay retail is fine for them. This forum has been a great source of info on this, and many other deals, and it did make my head hurt trying to figure this one out at first. 😏 When I did understand it, I was glad for the knowledge it gave to save me a few bucks. But it's this forum, and other forums, that are raking our brains with how this deal works! Which btw I am very grateful for, not complaining. Lets be honest, IK never made it mandatory to use these methodes of bringing down the price! They just offer deals, like many other businesses, and its up to us to use them or not. And be ready to understand how they work. We may agree or disagree on how they setup their business model, but we always have the choice of foregoing the deals if it does not suit us. As for the support experience you have gotten, its not ideal I agree. Maybe they are overwelmed with this GB, but its not an excuse. And its not only a waste of time for you, but for them also. If it helps, from this forum I have seen many positive post about IK's support. I never had to deal with support yet so I can't offer personal experience and hope you have better luck next time.

Yes, but you have to know the password and be dressed in 90% leather.

To me the Coffee House is the Penthouse Suite.

Most of us here never go upstairs or downstairs...we stay here...so that's why

I honestly think that this GB plus 8dio's never-ending anniversary sale have broken my dopamine receptors.

I see 354...that counter is IKRAZY

Sine Player New FREE Instruments.. Church Organ and Guitars. Comment below if you have used these and what you think about them. I really like that they keep adding more instruments to this I remember when it was just the Layers. Now they have Piano.. Brass . Strings... Percussion... Church Organ and Guitars very nice.

is that our Kings CB-Handle?

I'll "buy in" for a second time if Resonator is a buy in! @Peter - IK Multimediahint, hint! t

I would like to add my little experience about IK Multimedia. Recently I came across this promotion and decided to order iLoud MTM using my jampoints: https://www.ikmultimedia.com/news/?item_id=11101 At first I did not understand how to add monitors to the cart. When I press "Buy Now" button, I am being redirected to a common page with all monitors. When I choose "iLoud MTM - Pair" and press "Buy Now" button, I am being redirected to a common page again and again! Thanks to tech support, who explained to me that I need to click on the price tag in order to to add a product to the cart (a thing that is not quite obvious to me). Then I found that the price in dollars and euro is the same. I live in Russia, so my currency at IKM website is euro and I can't change it. In conversion to russian rubles, if I would pay in dollars instead of euro, it would be almost $100 cheaper. This means that the price will be less for everyone who pays in dollars than for those who pays in euro. Tech support replied that the currency depends on the region and that they cannot change it, so I decided not to buy these monitors just out of principle 😒

Will we see some flash sales soon, to give a final push towards that 10K line?

ROFLMAO!!!

Thanks for this Marc and especially for using the larger font. I like big butts and I cannot lie, you other brothers can’t deny….

This is a song about abandonment. When you go through hard times, it is said you find out who your friends are. When you go through lengthy hard times, you may find you don’t have any friends anymore. I am not happy with my voice at all due to allergies etc, and I think I did the best I could with it. If anyone has any suggestions besides singing better ha, I would appreciate feedback. I sang it quite a few times using different mics and this was the “best”. I worked about as long on trying to not hate the lead vocal as I did on the entire song, there are two lead vocal tracks handled differently. I have a few eqs and some ozone and some nectar and some light reverb on a bus on one only. This version is the mix stage, won’t go further in case I get some suggestions. It’s called Walk A Mile, for the saying walk a mile in my shoes. I used some sounds from the free Proclethya, vital, and some AAS bass. I used Rast Drums to make the drum parts, my first time trying it. A little nod to Lee Scratch Perry whose death was announced today for the delay and a bit of the weirdness in it. Thanks for listening and any feedback.

Looks like 30+ each hour since noon today. That'd boogie us up the proverbial mesa in a hurry, if it sticks:

That's right @kevin H. I have it, and it is safe and sound.... FOR NOW. You will get it back after you complete one more buy in for the GB. Any level is fine- I'm not a monster!

Just added another juanita.

Found the Amplitude comparisons... https://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/amplitube5/index.php?p=versions PDF here: https://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/include/at5/gear_list_pdf/AmpliTube_5_comparison.pdf

There are browsers extensions that do an auto refresh every x minutes... Just saying..

Thank you! Thank you! for posting this. Whoever did that bless their heart and good humor!

What a fun experience to walk through this library, so much to see and experience. You can check out the replay below. Albion NEO is 40% off until August 31st. https://www.spitfireaudio.com/shop/a-z/albion-neo/

My Liege would work too

You forgot the leopardskin print budgie smugglers. You won't get into Bapu's secret cave without them.

Get the gimp!!

756 to go to 8 free products!!!

Agreed! I have also spent my entire adult life doing "computer", and can totally relate to this opinion! IK products are among the best in the business, but they really need to reassess their delivery and support model. Although the new Product Manager is a step in the right direction! But the Group Buy rocks, and I would rather save any other negative comments until the end of the promotion!

That was funny - I suspect the Spitfire guys would find it amusing - except for the bit about support which to be fair was excellent the only time I have needed it! They told me to turn it off and back on again 😉

Another good reason is the KLANG series from Cinematique Instruments https://klang.cologne/klang21_free.php

have another, Boney M - Rasputin on Electronic Devices