Your favorite Sample Tank 4 stock sounds

[kitekrazy1]

 I never hear anyone talk about them.  I still use ST4 SE.   I've considered the upgrade to ST4 but it's pretty large.   Has anyone ever auditioned all of them and used them.  I am referring to the stock library.   I've rarely used ST even though I've had a license since its birth.   I forget its there.

[bitflipper]

I seem to recall that there was a usable P-Bass in there. That's about it.

I was so disappointed with ST4 that when I replaced my computer I never even bothered to re-install it. Plus they had the audacity to want to charge me ten bucks to re-download it. Said no thanks.

[Bajan Blue]

I never got past ST3 -  it really was a bit of a let down after all the years of waiting !! As the saying goes - Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Nigel

 

 

[Jesse Screed]

On 2/7/2020 at 9:56 PM, bitflipper said:

I was so disappointed with ST4 that when I replaced my computer I never even bothered to re-install it. Plus they had the audacity to want to charge me ten bucks to re-download it. Said no thanks.

A good reason to be disenchanted.

 

2 hours ago, Bajan Blue said:

never got past ST3 -  it really was a bit of a let down after all the years of waiting !! As the saying goes - Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Nigel

I have to agree to a degree.

For me, I never made it past ST3 either, but I did get it at a crossgrade price that I felt was reasonable, $99 when it first came out.  There are 4000 different instruments in ST3, and some are quite good if I dig through the library (4000 takes a long time to audition.) 

There are also several thousand midi patterns, and the set of effects are nice.

So for me I feel I got my value out of ST3.

When ST4 came out I didn't upgrade.  I looked through the new instruments and didn't really see any added value for me in relation to the price I would have to pay.

I see that ST4 SE has over 2000 instruments, and surely there are some usable ones in that library. 

If I were still interested I would go to the IK site and look at the list of instruments in the upgrade to ST4 and see if there is anything you absolutely can't live without and wait for a great price to upgrade, otherwise, search the library you already have and look for the gems within it.

For the longest time I thought it was the toys I had in my VSTi folder that would make me a PRO artist, but then I realized being an artist had to do more with my talent, creativity, and passion.   I have curtailed the purchase of new libraries and effects to focus on the shit pot of trinkets I purchased at the world wide flea market.  Inside that box is a few undiscovered keepers that I paid little for, while there are just as many or more plastic knockoffs that I paid way to much for.

Did I answer your question, or did I just slobber some more benign drivel into the vast waste land of online collective schizoid babble?

 

Edited February 9, 2020 by Jesse Screed

[bitflipper]

I loved ST3. You could always dig up something inspirational in there. Need a didgeridoo or a hurdy-gurdy? They were in there.

Totally agree about the toys-to-talent ratio, which I reckon to be about .01%. When I reinstalled all my sample libraries I was shocked at how many of them I'd forgotten I even had . That's when I realized I probably had enough of them. Running out of space on a 1TB drive should've been the first clue, I suppose.

[Starise]

This is all very timely because I received an email that I can upgrade my ST4 SE for  what I think is a decent price. I wouldn't go to the MAX edition . The middle edition has 100gb of sounds in it. ST4 is a grand improvement over ST3 IMO. I have both. 

As was noted in other posts on the subject I had some "growing pains" with ST4 crashing Cakewalk. This was because I had an older build of it. When I updated I haven't had these issues. 

For the asking price of upgrade this is  tough one for me to turn down, especially since I recently dug up a few gems in the SE version. I have been mostly a Kontakt user, but I'm more than willing to venture outside of that realm to get what I want. Look at the included effects on offer. Nice! Not sure if I can use the shell as a multi similar to Kontakt. If I can that's another point for me.

JMHO. I'm about ready to jump. 139 quid to upgrade to the version under MAX. In the world of sound libraries this is a pittance for 100gb of just about anything you can imagine.

Maybe I'm looking at the whole thing wrong. Somebody talk me down 

Edited February 10, 2020 by Starise

[Jesse Screed]

11 hours ago, Starise said:

This is all very timely because I received an email that I can upgrade my ST4 SE for  what I think is a decent price. I wouldn't go to the MAX edition . The middle edition has 100gb of sounds in it. ST4 is a grand improvement over ST3 IMO. I have both. 

As was noted in other posts on the subject I had some "growing pains" with ST4 crashing Cakewalk. This was because I had an older build of it. When I updated I haven't had these issues. 

For the asking price of upgrade this is  tough one for me to turn down, especially since I recently dug up a few gems in the SE version. I have been mostly a Kontakt user, but I'm more than willing to venture outside of that realm to get what I want. Look at the included effects on offer. Nice! Not sure if I can use the shell as a multi similar to Kontakt. If I can that's another point for me.

JMHO. I'm about ready to jump. 139 quid to upgrade to the version under MAX. In the world of sound libraries this is a pittance for 100gb of just about anything you can imagine.

Maybe I'm looking at the whole thing wrong. Somebody talk me down 

talking you down would only lead to confusion later

this is not life or death

if you have the jack

and ST4 is on point

fire away

you'll find your way

there's gold in them thar hills

 

you should never listen to what I say

[craigb]

Unbelievable

simply unbelievable.

[craigb]

?

[Vernon Barnes]

On 2/10/2020 at 5:31 AM, bitflipper said:

I loved ST3. You could always dig up something inspirational in there. Need a didgeridoo or a hurdy-gurdy? They were in there

Are you sure you are not talking about ST2 as I recall your experience being similar to mine. ST2 was getting dated but it had a lot of useful stuff that was low on resources. ST3 I found very disappointing and I have never used it in anger. In its defence I has some nice "workstation" features that would make it easy to use live.

I never bothered with ST4.

[ZincT]

20 hours ago, Starise said:

JMHO. I'm about ready to jump. 139 quid to upgrade to the version under MAX. In the world of sound libraries this is a pittance for 100gb of just about anything you can imagine.

Maybe I'm looking at the whole thing wrong. Somebody talk me down 

Here's my twopenneth Starise...my biggest mistake was going for ST4 (the version just below MAX like you are considering) when it first came out (pre-order) which I did mainly due to the storage considerations (100Gb vs 260Gb). Also, because I got it when it first came out there was the usual raft of bugs that needed fixing which caused me quite a few problems.  In terms of content I didn't find it very useful and soon realised that I should have gone for MAX or not bothered. YMMV.

I upgraded to MAX on a killer deal after an SSD upgrade and never looked back. The original bugs in ST4 seem to be ironed out nowadays and some of the MAX instruments are excellent (brass, woodwind, piano, guitar, voices).  There's a lot to like as well as a lot that I will probably never use but that's true of most libraries.

I can also still use all of my ST3 MAX libraries (still love that  American Acoustic) and even some old esoundz ST2 libraries.

Here's a page comparing versions..

https://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/st4/index.php?p=versions 

...and a list of instruments in each version.

https://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/include/st4/soundlist/SampleTank_4_comparison.pdf 

 

[Starise]

Jesse I need to rephrase that "talking down". When a person has GAS  they can think some crazy things. I knew better than to ask if someone could talk me out of it. Everyone else here has GAS too. I looked over all of the sound lists . You probably have had the same experience online in looking at demos for a product. First you get the 2 minute company Wow!! video. It basically tells you- A. Yes it plays lots of sounds. B. The actor that was in the video made it look like he was using it. Next I watch an older Jordan Rudess  ST4 demo video...ole spider fingers himself. He could make a toaster sound great. Wailed on a few key sounds. Made a few of his own. I was impressed with the 5  sounds and multis I heard him play on it..........but that's the thing, none of that tells me how the library itself holds up against the competition. The only way to know that is to check with those who have owned it, played through the sounds etc......that's why this is such a great place! 

Simeon can play! In one of his videos he walks through the multi setup of ST4 in Cakewalk as a multi . This confirmed for me that ST4 is easy to use as a multi with different midi channels. 

ZincT Thanks for your opinions! I can upgrade to MAX. Originally I thought MAX was  overkill for me. That was mainly because of the 1000 drum kits sounds I know I'll never use. One of my biggest questions would be how realistic are the included orchestral instruments? Can they hold their own against other more expensive libraries like Vienna Symphonic instruments or similar? I have Spitfire Albion 1 and I like it, but I think I expected more individual control of the instruments. The GUI in it isn't the most slick.Seems a bit clunky to me. The description of sounds in it from soft to loud and up front would be "tame". Nothing in it jumps out and bites you. In these compositions you want something that can have lots of dynamics if needed and sound real if put in a solo position. What about choir samples? Are they realistic?

Keys and guitars are always important and it seems they have that down pretty well, though for serious electric guitar none of those large sample library all-in-one packages ever seem to get quite there unless you know how to dress those samples up. I heard the acoustics and they sounded good.

 

Edited February 11, 2020 by Starise

[ZincT]

1 hour ago, Starise said:

ZincT Thanks for your opinions! I can upgrade to MAX. Originally I thought MAX was  overkill for me. That was mainly because of the 1000 drum kits sounds I know I'll never use. One of my biggest questions would be how realistic are the included orchestral instruments? Can they hold their own against other more expensive libraries like Vienna Symphonic instruments or similar? I have Spitfire Albion 1 and I like it, but I think I expected more individual control of the instruments. The GUI in it isn't the most slick. Seems a bit clunky to me. The description of sounds in it from soft to loud and up front would be "tame". Nothing in it jumps out and bites you. In these compositions you want something that can have lots of dynamics if needed and sound real if put in a solo position. What about choir samples? Are they realistic?

Keys and guitars are always important and it seems they have that down pretty well, though for serious electric guitar none of those large sample library all-in-one packages ever seem to get quite there unless you know how to dress those samples up. I heard the acoustics and they sounded good.

 

Hope it helps a bit with your decision Starise.

To my ears the Strings in ST4 MAX sound better than their equivalent in Miroslav Philharmonic both having lots of articulations. I have quite a few other orchestral libraries but no Spitfire apart from what's in LABS so cannot compare with say Albion 1.

If it would help and you have any "orchestral MIDI" you would like to audition using ST4 MAX instruments then you can send it to me and I will try to make a CbB project out of it using the relevant ST4 MAX Orchestral instruments. Articulations might be tricky as ST4 uses keyswitches (or separate instruments) which would have to be added to the MIDI data although if you have the score I could use that to set them up (or just tell me which instruments/articulations/bars etc). 

There are no orchestral choir samples within ST4 MAX, relying instead on those included in ST3 which vary from awful to quite good.   ST4 MAX does have 6-voice vocal ensembles which are excellent but not really orchestral and more intended for various genres of popular music (Soul, Brazilian, Pop etc) along with shouts, Uhhs, Ooos, Ahhs etc.

As you say, Keys and Guitars are well catered for, sound great and there's even a decent strummer engine, but you don't have the level of detailed manipulation compared to libraries by OTS, Indiginus etc.  

[Starise]

ZincT I appreciate your offer to do this. I know that involves a lot of time and trouble. You statement about Microslav is enough to give me decent feel for where  these sounds are in relation to a few others. Post processing often makes a huge difference for me.

I'll send out a PM to give you a few more thoughts on this without writing a book here

[kitekrazy1]

I should have changed it to ST Sounds.   So what are your favorite ST sounds.

I remember back when there was a thing for ST called Sonic Synth. It was decent.

[Michael Vogel]

I didn’t go past SampleTank 3 either. Only IKM product I updated was T-Racks 5 and that’s only been through their buy 1 get a bunch free promos.

[InstrEd]

I got Sample Tank 4 Max free with the promo buying the iRig Keys I/O 49. Haven't had time to install it yet. Why does life get in the way of our hobbies

Mainly haven't done it yet because I want to install it on a new HD which I have to go out and buy!