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SampleTank 4 is out


ZincT

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45 minutes ago, gigasonar said:

Can you load these big guitars, Parlor and Black LP without problems ?

I have had issues with some of the big guitars while using the ST4 plugin in Cakewalk. They  have a lot of sample content.

The "Parlor L Pick Full Keyswitch" crashes Cakewalk with an unhandled exception upon loading. On the other hand, the "Parlor L Fingered Full Keyswitch" loads and plays fine, but after a while it will crash.

The "Black LP Full Keyswitch" will load and play.

And the "Red Strat Full Keyswitch" in MAX goes boom here too, but sometimes not until I try to load a different instrument into the same slot in ST4.

Still trying to sort things out here with Cakewalk and ST4. Considered that maybe I need more RAM, as I currently only have 8GB. But if you are having issues with 16GB, that implies that Cakewalk may be struggling with memory demands from the plugin, rather than physical memory limits. I don't have any issues with running ST4 standalone.

 

Edited by abacab
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2 hours ago, abacab said:

I have had issues with some of the big guitars while using the ST4 plugin in Cakewalk. They  have a lot of sample content.

The "Parlor L Pick Full Keyswitch" crashes Cakewalk with an unhandled exception upon loading. On the other hand, the "Parlor L Fingered Full Keyswitch" loads and plays fine, but after a while it will crash.

The "Black LP Full Keyswitch" will load and play.

And the "Red Strat Full Keyswitch" in MAX goes boom here too, but sometimes not until I try to load a different instrument into the same slot in ST4.

Still trying to sort things out here with Cakewalk and ST4. Considered that maybe I need more RAM, as I currently only have 8GB. But if you are having issues with 16GB, that implies that Cakewalk may be struggling with memory demands from the plugin, rather than physical memory limits. I don't have any issues with running ST4 standalone.

 

Ok , thanks for information

I think ST4 works  better in Reaper and standalone, but still sometimes it goes Pooof and vanish suddenly!! 

Edited by gigasonar
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PC specs for SampleTank 4:

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

Windows® (64-bits)

Minimal: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo or AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 (Intel Core i5 suggested), 4 GB of RAM (8 GB suggested), Windows® 7 or later. 40 GB (SampleTank 4 SE), 128 GB (SampleTank 4), 300 GB (SampleTank 4 MAX) of hard drive space.
Requires an ASIO compatible sound card.
Requires an OpenGL 2 compatible graphics adapter.
Supported Plug-in formats (64-bit): VST 2, VST 3, AAX

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22 hours ago, abacab said:

Audio Engine on/off button is show here in the Transport Module,  figure 216-L.

http://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=Cakewalk&language=3&help=ControlBar.06.html

Thanks for this information. I have totally forgotten where is is!!?

Now I can restart after dropouts and it worked well with C7 grand  and Black LP too!

Black Lp  is huuge file; memory allocation was 4,5 Gb in task manager!!!?

But CbB loaded fine  files, some with dropouts but no crashing!

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3 hours ago, gigasonar said:

I still wonder  where are keyswitches , especially for woodwind and brass!

There are very many articulations for trumpets and saxes, sometimes nearly 20 different

but no keyswitches!!!???

First, make sure that you have clicked the keyboard icon button on the lower far right  of the plugin window to display the ST4 "In-App Keyboard" in the lower bar. The 3 display modes for the lower bar are "Macro" knobs, "In-App Keyboard", and "Virtual Pads" (User Manual, p.22).

Then any available keyswitches will be highlighted at the left side of the keyboard, beginning at around the "C0" key. Not many instruments in the new ST4 content have keyswitch presets. Most that do have "KS" in front of their names. I don't see any KS for the new brass,  woodwinds, or strings.  The guitars all appear to have KS versions.

However the included ST3 library has keyswitches for all of the major instruments in the brass, woodwinds, and strings categories, and they indicate that their source was the Miroslav Philharmonik.

The selected keyswitch name will also appear directly under the instrument name on the "Parts View".

 

 

Edited by abacab
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Yes, definitely  I want more keyswitches !!!?

Sampletank 4 needs memory and diskstreaming improvements and optimizations !

Diskstreaming is very bad.?

ST4 memory allocation is quite inefficient.
I'll give one example:
-ST3 loads Grand Piano 1 (1,2 Gb) fully to RAM and total memory allocation
in task manager is 1,8 GB.
-ST4 uses diskstreaming when loading same piano and total is 2,5 GB !!!  
So not very efficient disk streaming engine; 500 Mb for 1 Gb file ! ?

 

 

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Joined: Mon Dec 20, 2010 7:55 pm

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Agree that it needs memory and disk streaming improvements. The plugin itself takes up about 2.1GB empty on my system.

Then loading an instrument with full keyswitch articulations takes way too long. Where is the disk streaming?

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I was thinking about swapping my 7200 rpm sample drive with a SSD to get things to load quicker. I do like the sound of the new instruments, as they are excellent, but the sample files are humongous.

ST3 is running very stable on my system, but ST4 may need a few more updates before it is ready for prime time, and they are currently prepping the 3rd update. ST4 mostly works well, but it's not perfect. 

In spite of a few minor issues, the sounds are very good, and it almost makes it worthwhile to be an early adopter!  ;)

Most of the criticism recently directed at IK was related to the manual download and install process of a very large sample collection for the MAX edition. There are 60 content installers that have to be manually downloaded, unzipped, and run to install just the new content (that's 200GB+).  In addition there are another 36 content installers for the included Sample Tank 3 MAX collection. The good thing there is that if you already have ST3 installed, you don't need to install that part again.

I have heard that IK has realized that they need a better content delivery system, so they are looking into other options now. Many other companies have already implemented online installer apps, so I would expect IK to begin developing a solution soon. The current process leaves a lot of room for user error, for example overlooking sample content installers, or installing them in the wrong path, etc.

Edited by abacab
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12 hours ago, Skyline_UK said:

Sounds like the designers have focussed on the interesting, sexy bits, i.e. the sounds and UI cosmetics, and badly neglected fundamentals like usability. I'm hanging fire on this upgrade for now.

I think that's about it in a nutshell. ;)

The newly produced instrument sample content is excellent! The new instruments have very clear and present sounds, with an excellent on-board FX rack to complement them!

The scalable UI is here at last! And the browser improvements are very nice.  The various new UI features will make  workflow much more efficient.

But there seem to be a few issues with usability, that IMHO may relate to the increased memory footprint and the large instrument samples. Hopefully IK will jump right into optimizing ST4 a bit more ASAP, as I feel that they may have rushed this out the door to make the delivery date. I think it will ultimately become a very useful product, once it performs without issues across the board.

I have a system that exceeds the IK published minimum specs, and I can crash 3 different DAWs with ST4. :D

But I will say there is still a lot that it can do well without crashing, if I stay away from the memory hog presets.

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