Brian Walton

While the Professor is a legend, I think they picked arguably the best possible choice. Anika is a complete monster on drums and very entertaining to watch. The 73 years olds in the band are going to have to try to keep up is my prediction.

When they were released I didn't really even glance at them expecting more of a specialized Sampletank type of ordeal or simply not worth the drive space as the size of the collection is a bit out of hand (thankfully they can be loaded on an external SSD - otherwise I wouldn't have installed them). Honestly I never know with IKM what to expect with quality as the release MSRP pricing tends to be ostentatious and not necessarily in line with value. Therefore I was pleasantly surprised these (like TONEX) are class leading. Did you get Master EQ with your T-Racks 6 purchase? When I get the newish T-Rack6 it was before that came out, so nice to grab that as part of the group buy here.

Prior to this group buy, I already had the vast majority of IKM products (in part thanks to multiple group buy ins in previous years). As a massive TONEX fan, I was glad to grab the new signature collections that I didn't have yet - even if EVH and Engl isn't my thing. But the biggest surprise for me is how much I like the Pianoverse options. Yes, they are pretty large libraries, but they seem to be recorded RAW and close mic'd so there is a lot of freedom in how to process them - and they are extremely dynamic and responsive. Easily among the best piano VSTs overall that I've tried.

Plugin Alliance also has a free rat bx_blackdist2 I have both but never use them. Best in the box option is a tonex capture of a boutique rat. But I prefer using an actual RAT based circuit as I think the in the box options fall short, and there are inexpensive pedals that get you there. The RAT is one of the best guitar dirt circuits as it is really versatile. Setting the gain really low and pushing the output for boost/OD is great and at higher gain settings can get fuzzy enough to get fuzz tones that can actually cut in a mix.

Nice deal for those that don't have the Melda and United Plugins offered here. (Vox ducker can also be used on non vocal sources so depending on ones use case might be worth a demo to see if it adds value to your productions).

We all have different experiences. I've got at least a couple dozen plugin brands installed (over 1k plugins) and have used more that are not installed. The list of makers that had a show stopping bug are maybe 5 that I've come across and WAVES was one of those and two plugins never worked again and required re buying the plugin (WUP) to make it work again. (V9 and v12 - so not limited to a single timeframe and different plugins). I'm having issues with Supertone Clear but appears related to Sonar by bandlab as it works on Cake By Bandlab. WA I don't take very seriously based on similar experiences. Others I'm thinking of have a reputation for mistakes on release but are committed to fixing them over time without additional charges.

According to the marketing write up, what ever you were using before isn't designed for modern music so you need this Today's music is "more dynamic" - are they serious?

Unfortunate the TC electronic Plethora x1 is missing a real Leslie simulation as it covers so many other mod areas quite well in a very compact easy to change preset package (have been on sale for $99 new a couple times this year). Runs in stereo too. I would suggest downloading IKM Tonex the free version and mess around with it and the effects. That will give you an idea if the effects would work for you. Granted the amps that comes with are not representative of how good it can be, though you can download some great ones for free off ToneNet you are limited to how many you can grab so choose wisely. One you go paid, tons of options, paid and free. Tone Junkie just dropped a free Fender Deluxe reverb pack yesterday that has a clean fender preset that might be a decent keyboard amp option. I wouldn't load all of them on the free model though.

How much did you spend, you need to be at the $150 tier for Amp SE according to the free selection page even if you can purchase that software for less. https://www.ikmultimedia.com/allingb2025/ I expect that is your issue.

Yes, you can load any Tonex amp / cab/IR model in there. No, you cannot load any Amplitube gear at all. However, TONEX does have some effects (and some of them as good or better than the Amplitube algos). For a keyboard player, you could load for example a fender clean amp tone, add the Rotary effect and some reverb. Now the problem with a ToneX one would be limited Realtime control of the effects. You can load between two patches and A/B between them. Say one with the Rotary on and one without a Rotary at all for a base tone. But changing rotary speed on the fly would be problematic. You could setup A to be slow rotary and B to be fast rotary but that would also mean rotary always on. There is a way to cycle through 3 presets that would give you clean, rotary slow and rotary off but that also involves some gap / fast pressing to "skip" the slot you don't want. Now the full Leslie IKM has does sound better than the Rotary in Tonex. But Things like the Tremolo, Phaser, Reverb, Delay are on par or potentially better than Amplitube's (or at least some of them. You will notice below the delay and reverb options are more limited in types). You can bypass both the Amp and or Cab and use it as "effect only" if you want to as well. If you buy the big tonex pedal and use midi, there is quite a bit you can do in terms of switching things on and off and amp switching. I've seen an option for the small Tonex One pedal to use some midi via USB-C but I do not have one of those controllers so I won't comment on what it can and can't do Here are the effect you can load (Tremolo and Rotary would be some go-to for keyboard)

That pedal is worth the $126. It is the ultimate portable quick jam rig. You can plug studio headphones directly into it and it can also be powered by a battery bank (ie for cell phones) with a USBC or USBa to USBC cable. So you can literally take and play anywhere. Can also be powered by a regular pedal 9v supply but not everyone knows that truly portable option. Amazing for when the power goes out at home too. This doesn't even get into the fact you can place on a pedal board and run your rig into it and then go direct to PA, etc And if you only play 1/4 inch instruments like guitar, bass...it can also serve as a portable recording interface with asio drivers. (Though I haven't really tested that)

Yeah I read that too but I can tell you as someone that already had 2 big tonex pedals, tonex one, the tonex cab, and had purchased the tonex software before the pedals came out....there was not an option for free collections I didn't already own. I had to register yet another pedal to get them.

I think they posted this close to the start. With SE being a $99 product that means buying it adds you to the GB. Given the signature collections are individually $99 or lower you could select as many of them as the GB gets up to.

Well it is modeled after a couple of 5150 style block letters (one with a tube screamer out front) so it might be an accurate representation. (I didn't install that one as I heard the demo of it and knew it wouldn't be my cup of tea - if it was Ennio soundtrack inspired western, I'd be interested)

I also noticed this earlier today right around the time they got to the 4500 mark. This is also documented in the marketing emails they have been sending out. Even just 4 hours ago: It think it was pretty clear they might hit the goal pretty quickly - then moved the goal post Note they also updated this: For comparison for the 25th anniversary GB the goal was 25K participants. I'm not complaining though as adding in the hardware to qualify makes this a nice deal at numbers I think we can reasonably expect to get to.