IK Multimedia SampleTank 2 XL

I have been laying since I was six, gigging since I was 8 and making a living at music since i was 20 years old. I am using sampletank 2.5 and I am running it in PT 7.4 on an intel dual core 2.16 Macbook Pro using tiger (because PT 7.4 wasn't compatible with leopard when i got it).
I record daily. Though i am concentrating on writing, i still record Cds of my own material, demos of all kinds for myself and others, and I do some jingle work as well. i monitored this material through my crusty but trusty NS 10s.

For some reason at first, i have great difficulty understanding the interface, I must have needed some coffee because once i "got it" everything was easy.

I have only used Sampletank on a few projects so far. I find myself needing to tweak many of the presets. fortunately, this is VERY easy and the effects are VERY good. that is lucky because the sounds are very hit and miss, ranging from "pretty damn good" to "why would someone bother to keymap that crap?"

Sampletank supports stereo and I think, higher resolutions (than 16 and 24 bit), but i think that using some of these sounds at a higher resolution would be like taking a grainy, low res pic in photoshop and upping the pixel count. It still wouldn't improve the picture. I think many of these sounds are of no better quality than my old Roland S550 (12 bit) sampler. Sounds are very meat and potatoes and nothing really hip or modern (and some of the taters are missing - ONE wurly sound?????)

I should not even say anything about this product since the people at IK let me have a free copy because I was considering repping for them a couple years ago (but i didn't have a laptop and my computer at home was way too slow) and they were kind enough to upgrade me for free to the latest version so that makes me kind of a jerk (but an honest one). I rely on user reviews at HC to help me decide on purchases, so i wish all people would do the same.

i have heard complaints that it is a CPU hog. That CAN be true. Since there are a max of 5 effects for each sound (of 16 sounds per instance). if you pick effect intensive sounds for all 16, you could end up running 80 plugins within Sampletank alone. I was sure that nothing could slow my PB Pro down, but having "Strike," "Structure," and 16 channels of sampletank open plus a few plugins for audio tracks, i could really feel everything going into bullet time. if you have sampletank and are experiencing this, take off some of the plugins from the sounds. Many need nothing or just 1 or 2.

I have been making music for the last 15 years. Nowadays, I use a P4 3.2 dual threading, with 1 g ram, dual screen ( well 3 but my third is a copy of the second screen set up on edit windows in pro tools on my workstation (ease of use less traveling)). I use Pro tools le 7.1, routed thought a mackie 1604 (no effects no eq no nothing) with a pair of mackie hr824 mk 2. And a pair of audio technica studio headphones... ( will stop thee cause I could fill a web page with my stuff)

Its pretty straight forward, but I really hate the authorization codes. I am giving it a very low mark due to that. There is also some instance of the note staying on until you reload the instrument, distortion and the analyzing window now do not display if its working or not and have to abort the process to be able to continue working. This happens with Pro tools. the not staying on for ever and the distortion happened with cubase and pro tolls.

I have found no solution for this, these happened on all computers I have installed the software, so it is not computer related. And so I am giving it a very low mark again.

Some of the instruments sounds good. But since I am multi versed in many instruments, piano, guitar (classical, electric) bass, trumpets, drums, violins ( what can I say, I come from a musical family where each of them showed me how to play the instruments they learned) I can say that I am let down by most of the sounds.

The piano are nice, some violins to. Most drums I would actually throw away and I always have to go through the entire selections to get the sounds I want for toms, snare etc (even though I have some preferences for different styles). The trombones lack presence and the tremolo you hear from the lfo on sustained notes is unnatural.

Legato? what legato. You can only use legato on monophonic instruments... Piano uses a lot of legato, which means I can never use legato. The sustain pedal is non existent.. well actually yes it is, but its either full on or full off, there is no control on how much you want.

I could go on and yes I am very picky.. I do this for living.

I have heard and used better programs and sounding material for lower price tags.

I had read reviews, and heard samples that seemed interesting and I needed an broader vst instrument for orchestration.

On its own, its not that cpu hungry, but if you are like me, in the composition stage I can come up with 30 to 40 tracks of instruments at times (which usually means i will be having 3 to 4 sT2 working at the same time 16 channels used on all of them) It gets to be very cpu hungry and ram hungry at that stage (not even mixing yet).

It has crashed many times and have undesired sound effects many times as specified before

A decade ago... seriously . I play guitars, piano, synths, flute...

I have the v. 2.11

I use it in Traktion and standalone.

I do avant-garde jazz

I use Imac G4. osx 10.2.8

I use headphones, AKG.

Tedious. Not intuitive. Very little letters interface...

I can??t use it now, because the Autorization Code is generated for each new installation you do with it, and now it isn??t recogniced...

I used it very little, just enough, but the bugs in the re-installation mode, and others make me ignore the good -if it??s- of it.

when the instruments are charged, it??s easy to do sound with it, but now I can??t charge any instrument... The application dont respond...

It??s not very good

The sound really is good, with the Stretch function, but not very good at all, specially if you don??t use that function . There is not comparation with others samplers soft like Kontak , this is only normal sound, decent sound to do proofs with midi or live instruments in a sequencer, but nothing professional ...

the price it??s fine -because I have the L version- , but the results are cheaps too ...

I have been a musician for about 3 years, and a studio owner songwriter for the last 20.
I purchased the XL2 for the library of sounds that come with.

I am primarily a guitar player and songwriter, and was looking for an all around tone engine, besides my Alesis unit that I used for years , the S4 Plus.
I run it in a P4 1.7 right now but are looking to upgrade soon.

I monitor in JBL 4411's and Soundcraft Absolute 2's, and AKG Studio Headphones.
I run everthing through the Mackie 2408.

I think its an incredibley easy interface, if you know anything at all about software. I think those that complain, are not adept on the PC.
No problems installing, but I think that they should give real buyers a better break and not limit installs. If you use your PC as much as I do, somethimes you do a good cleaning and even reformats. This will spend your reinstall codes, and that's crap. The sounds are tweakable enough to be unique if you want. I am giving an 8 simply because of the Paranoia and limited install codes.

There isn't a program out there that doesn't have some dogs. Overall I love the sounds.

Again, because of the coed limits, but I did get a bonus of a free Amplitube package.

I have been playing keyboards for about 35 years. This is the first softsynth that I have purchased- primarily because of the quality of some of the free synths (Crystal, Synth 1). These free synths excel at synthetic sounds, however. I own an Alesis QS7, and was thinking of upgrading to a Triton or Motif rompler. I read some reviews of Sampletank and decided to go for it.

In addition to the QS7 and softsynths, I have a Yamaha TX81Z, Yamaha AN1X, Casio CZ-3000, Moog Satellite, acoustic piano.
I make a variety of music- jazz, classical influences. Been dabbling a lot in DnB recently.

I bought Sampletank 2L. I have upgraded to revision 2.0.9 (see below).

I have a Windows XP PC w/ an Athlon Processor (2GHZ), 512mB Ram. I run Sonar 2.2 primarily, but also use SoundForge, Tracktion. I use an M-Audio Delta 44 soundcard. I monitor through a Mackie 1604 mixer, JBL monitors.

I think that the interface is pretty good, easy to use. I do wish that the printing was bigger- I have a hard time reading it with my bifocals (I'm an old guy).

Installing the software went OK. Oddly, IK Multimedia did not include any installation instructions. Sampletank L comes with one disk (with the program, manuals) and 4 disks with sounds. For some reason, some disks did not autorun and I had to manually move files to the system.

Once I installed it, (as a VST because i was told that Sample tank did not implement the DX correctly), It crashed quite a bit. It then occured to me that it would crash when I was loading certain sounds. After two days of frustration, I solved the problem by loading the latest updates. This solved all of the problems. Here's my question for IK Multimedia- after making me go through the authorization process and the web signup, etc, why didn't you tell me that I should immediately load updates. Also, the website, said that the update was for XL version, I own the L version. In addition, the FAQ section of the website didn't mention any of the problems that the updates fix.

Other than the installation, the manual is very good.

This thing sounds great. In fact, I wish I would have bought the XL version to get the extra sounds. I am really impressed by the orchestral instruments, acoustic pianos (way better than my Alesis board), electric pianos(although there are not enough of them in the L version). This is the first time that I have been able to get decent electric guitars out of a synth, also. They are really great.

For specs, your best bet is to go to the website.

I think that it is worth the price tag. If I had more hardware synths, I would probably sell them.

I chose this plugin based on the Craig Anderton review in Keyboard magagzine. He was correct.

On my system, I have had six different channels going at once, and the CPU meter hovers around 25%. I have not tried to see if I can have all 16 running at once. I have yet to have the Sonar Audio Engine crash with Sampletank running.

I have been doing music since 1980. Started learning organ then went to piano and accordion. I'm running a Mac G4 based system with a Digidesign 001 (Protools LE 6.4) and Logic Pro 7.01. I must say I'm bloody impressed with the new version of Logic Pro and all the synths, fx and presets available right out of the box! I also have other plugs from Waves, Antares, IK Multimedia and Bias. I'm using Sampletank 2 XL as a virtual replacement for my old Roland and Korg modules most of which were sold last year and I've not regretted going this way although I was apprehensive at first! Thanks to the Sonnet dual 1.3gig CPU upgrade in my Mac and 1.25gig of Ram and some new big hard drives, the system is working really nicely! I currently run Mac OSX 10.3.5. I run everything through the 001 into my Yamaha O3D mixer (via ADAT lightpipe) and out through my Alesis Monitor 2's which are in need of some new tweeters!!!!

I think that the interface is quite well done. I do have a visual impairment thought and would have appreciated a GUI with larger characters. They are extremely small even for a normal sighted person! I also didn't like the red background but thankfully you can change the background colour- mine is now light grey! Installation was very straighforward although initially it was a bit tricky to get ST2 to locate the disk directory where all the sound library is! Once that was sorted out everything was fine! :). Yes the plug in is fully automated It is easy to get some great musical results but the plug in is very CPU intensive. A helpful hint is to make sure the each part you use has the minimum amount of polyphony you need assigned to it- for example- dont use more than 1 or 2 notes for a bass part. This helps to reduce CPU usage in a major way IMHO! The manual is not bad and the support online at the IK Multimedia website is also very good.

I must say that the sound of this plug in compares very nicely with the best hardware synths and modules out there when it's being used in a system thats powerful enough. My Mac was a G4 466MHZ before I upgraded it and honestly I couldn't get more than about 4-5 instruments out of that without having to freeze tracks in Logic or converting those sounds to proper audio tracks. You do need a decent computer. IMHO the presets are a mixed bag in the quality department. The drums, basses and guitars are mostly very good to excellent. The choir presets are also nice. Piano's are also acceptable and sound similar to those in my Roland XV3080 and Korg Triton. I'm less thrilled by the strings and orchestral sounds and honestly the world/ethnic section is quite a joke (although there are a couple of nice accordion presets there which gave me quite a pleasant surprise!). If I can say anything, the sound library is not entirely consistent IMHO. Yeah, brass sounds are also not that great and the same applies for alot of the woodwinds- although some of the saxes are decent. I have read online that IK are bringing out Sampletank 2.1XL later this year that will have a larger and better library than the 4.5gig's that come with ST2XL. That's not to say that what comes with ST2 is 'bad'! There are literally thousands of great presets to work with and the great one's can more or less make up for the less than steller ones! Yeah and there is an absolutely fantastic sound library out there from IK and Sonic Reality that you can tap into. Ive also purchased Sonic Synth 2 which IMHO has a vastly superior sound library (8GB of sounds) compared to ST2XL. The great thing is that I can use all these SS2 sounds directly from within ST2XL!!!! And I also have the 'Groove' Capsule' and some other extra sounds I purchased when I bought Sonic Synth 1 (pianos, guitars, drums, bass, strings). These sounds are a mixed bag IMHO and some of them actually crashed my system before I went in and got rid of those 30 or so presets!!!!!!! I'm very dissapointed that the library doesn't make more use of controller routings such as creative use of modulation from different hardware controllers etc. Oh well this is where the user must get creative. I must however mention the absolutely fantastic effects built into Sampletank 2!!!!!! You can use up to 5 fx at once for each part and their quality can't be under estimated!!!! I love the amp simulations and the reverbs as well as the delays and modulation effects. I honestly hope the IK decide to allow users in a software update to use ST2 just as an fx plug in within their host sequencer! These fx are just sooo musical sounding even if the reverbs don't cry out Lexicon or TC Electronics!!!! ST2XL operates in mono, stereo and as a multichannel plug in. I use it in stereo most of the time. Each instance of the plug in has up to 256 notes of polyphony depending on the computer being used and up to 16 multi timbral parts. My rating for overall sound library is 7 out of 10. The fx are 11 out of 10!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:).

I bought the IK Multimedia Studio Bundle which came with Sampletank 2XL, Amplitube and T Racks. This bundle is well worth what I paid for it and I got a great deal. I initially was seriously looking at Steinbergs Hypersonic but after comparing demos of both this and ST2, I came to the conclusion that Sampletank has the edge in overall quality- although Hypersonic is very CPU efficient. Hypersonic is not very expandable and I don't think Steinberg have done much to improve it's weaker areas so far. Also I hate its dongle protection which IK don't have! :). Now that I have Logic Pro 7, I use the ESX24 sampler (built in with Logic) and it's fantastic 3gig sound library alot. I also use alot of Garageband instrument and loops (I own all 4 Jampacks). These sounds are very comparable in in some cases superior to Sampletank! However I must say that the Sonic Synth presets are marvellous also! I believe that IK, whilst being generous in giving us 4.5 gig of sounds, should make their ST2 library more consistent in terms of overall quality. Lets hope this happens in the next version! Saying this, I think that ST2XL is a great plug in that I haven't regretted buying and use very often. It takes a while to load but thats because I have such a sound libary for it stored on another partition of my system drive. I can't say I hate anything in particular about this plug in. I treat it as a virtual replacement for my now sold Roland JV1080's with EXP boards, Korg TR Rack, Korg Wavestation SR and Roland Dance module. ST2 crashed only when I selected a few 'fantom' presets that came with Sonic Synth 1! This was really bloody annoying and Sonic Reality told me that they new about the problems. Thankfully SS2 seems much much better in this department!!!! Many bemoan the fact that ST2 is not a true 'sampler' like Halion, Kontakt, Mach 5 and ESX24. However IMHO this is not the point of this plug in. The point here is that you have easy multitimbral access to a huge number of great presets that can be easily selected from within you choice sequencer. Here ST2 performs admirably! If you want a virtual sampler, get anything that is listed above! For me, I'll be a happy Sampletank user for many years to come! :).

I guess you could say I've been on the bleeding edge of technology for a few years now. I dont normally review stuff on HC but saw a lot of people butchering this plugin, and since I've had really good luck with it, I thought I would share my experiences. I use it on both a dual 2ghz G5 and a 1 ghz powerbook G4. The G5 has a fully blown Pro Tools HD system, and the powerbook uses a Digi002 Rack. I use both Pro Tools and Logic (different tools for different jobs, right?), mackie HR824 monitors, m-audio controllers.

The interface is far far far more intuitive than my motif was! And no, I havent had any problems with ST being "buggy" or "causing blue screens". Read between the lines below and figure out everyone who can't get ST to run right is using a PC (and the one guy using mac OS 9). Runs just fine with all my host software in OSX. Installation was breeze!

Simply put, it sounds great. Not every preset is great but the vast majority of them are usable. Sounds all sit well in a mix, and the categories are especially convenient for working on a quick arrangement. I wouldnt hesitate to use most of this stuff on a project. I could see how you might need better orchestral sounds if you were say, composing symphonies for big budget hollywood films, but for the rest of us, all of the "real" sounds do their countepart well.

Show me something better at this price level. Period.

Windows xp, soundcard : Audigy 2 , 750 MHZ , 256 of RAM (POOR SETUP).

Sampletank 2 is very easy to use. You start it and you work with it. All easy to control.

Features 7

I will compare this product with others and make a fair overall. Solid 7 is my overall to this product.
When you compare it with synth like yamaha motif es or roland fantom it would be 5 but since this is
a software and when I compare it with the best Native Instrument KONTAKT ( Still best in features )
overall is 7 (NI KONTAKT 9). New feature is STRECH but you can use STRECH only with some of the
sounds like some brass and some orchestral. I dont use STRECH it is a computer crusher.
You must have 500 of RAM and 1500 GHZ minimum to work serious with sampletank 2.

Sound overall is fair when I compare it with other great products. Still issue like on sampletank 1 - NO SPECTACULAR SOUND ON THIS SYNTH. ONLY SOME BASSES AND SOME ORCHESTRAL ENSEMBLES ( SOME ! ).
I will compare it with the original Sampletank and I see NOOOO STEP UP ON SOUND CATEGORY.
I can say that sampletank 2 is sampletank 1 with STRECH ( CRAP ) , few FX and some of the good new sounds ( SOME OF THEM ! ). You can say that some of the sampletank 1 sounds sound better on the sampletank 1 than on
sampletank 2.
Like chello, violas or some guitars. On the ST 2 they sound too quite. This is my big issue: Some sounds are too quite when some of them are to laud. More work on the sounds that you get from other disagners IK MULTIMEDIA !!!!!
Only thing better on the ST 2 when you talk about sounds are some brass, piano and some of the orchestral but all the best sounds (add few more like exspresion saxes, some orchestral ensembles ) that you can found on the sampletank 2 are the sounds from original sampletank. There, I telling you all when I saing that.

OK LETS SEE ...

BASS 9 - Best sounds on Sampletank top quality . Again almost all sounds from the original.

PIANO 7- solid pianos but you can found crapy sounds in this category too. Not spectaciular sounding piano here. almost all useful but not very good only good , so 7.

BRASS 6- more than solid brass sounds. I especially like exspresion tenor,soprano and alto sax.
And trumbet falls are prity cool. Still NOOOOOO REALISTIC TENOR SAXOPHONE ON THIS SINTH.
Exspresion tenor sax is cool but not that sax that we usualy hear on pro records. Because
of that ( tenor sax is one of my favorite instrument sounds ) I give it 6. STILL NOT SPECTACULAR SOUNDS IN
BRASS CATEGORY FROM IK MULTIMEDIA ONLY BASSES ARE SPECTACULAR.

GUITAR 7- Still no realistic acoustic guitars. They give me some FINGERED SHITS not someting nice.
I would say only realistic guitar is 12 string, banjo (in their leaguage ban jo he he)
and maybe nylon guitar.
Some cool electric gutars but then again TOOOO MUCH CRAP ON THIS AREA THAT YOU CAN FIND.

ORCHESTRAL 8- You can hear when orchestral is made in the studio or on the stage and when it
is on the special designed hall.
In this area sampletank 2 and synth like Yamaha motif or any other, they lose in
this area because they have been recorded in the studio or on the stage. So you can
not get that authenticy like VIENNA SYMPHONIC LIBARY or EW SYMPHINIC LIBARY. Their sound was recorded in special halls to get natural sound. And I will say that
you can`t make natural orchestral sound with studio and stage recording! Sorry MOTIF, SAMPLETANK 2 ....
AGAIN I SAY TOO MUCH SOUNDS FROM SAMPLETANK 1 NOT BETTER SOUNDING SAMPLETANK 1
SOUNDS.

ORGAN 7- Good organ sounds but NATIVE INSTRUMENT are better producers in this department by far.

DRUMS 8 - again you can find crapy sounds here especialy electric drums. That is why I give it 8 not 9.Very Good drums.

LOOPS 7- better loops on sampletank 1 or you can say THE SAME LOOPS ON Sample tank 2 but they
sound better on the original sampletank.

Accordion 8- good stuff

Ethlic 8 - NICE

Percussion 9- very good and natural sounding.

synth 3- NO Interesting synth sounds. Unusable pathes.

Vocals 8- good vocals but limited.

Woods 7- good sounding but too small libary.

Overall 7
As I say before no big step on sound disagne - to much sampletank 1 sounds and what is worse
sampletank 1 sounds are the best sounds on the sampletank 2 and some of the new good NEW sounds.
Good sounds for serious work but I have better stuff at home in many categories but I use sampletank 1 and 2
all the time. And when it comes to featuries I think that Native instrument KONTAKT IS still NO 1.

I have been writing music for approx 21 years. I play guitar, drums, bass, and keyboards. I use Sampletank 2 XL with Sonar 3.1 studio edition on a P4 3.0 ghz 1 gig ram(DELL COMPUTER) w/ Windows XP Home edition. M-Audio omni studio. HERES SOMETHING RARE.!!!! I PLAY ON A DDRUM4 ELECTRONIC DRUM SET TRIGGERING DRUM SAMPLES FROM SAMPLETANK(the ddrum module allows me to perform drum rolls flawlessly)AND I USE A ROLAND MIDI CONVERTER FOR MY FENDER STRAT GUITAR.

INTERFACE IS EASY TO DEAL WITH AND ALLOWS FOR QUICK THINKING WHEN WRITING MUSIC.
INSTALLATION SUCKED BECAUSE IT WAS LENGTHY.
IM NOT INTO AUTOMATION CAN'T HELP YOU THERE.
I USE THE DDRUM4 BRAIN AND ROLAND GUITAR MIDI CONVERTER TO TRIGGER THE SOUNDS. WORKS AWESOME!!!!!
I USE SAMPLETANK PRIMARILY FOR THE DRUM SAMPLES BECAUSE I PLAY THEM IN REAL TIME W/ MY DDRUM SET.
THE MANUAL NEEDS IMPROVEMENT.

The sounds are pretty damn good. When playing guitar,i use amplitube in conjunction w/ sampletank to create some excellent tone. I do not use the guitar samples. Heres how it works folks. I have a midi pickup on my strat going into a Roland guitar to midi converter. The Roland unit also has a guitar direct out to that I may simultaneously plug into an input to my omni studio instrument pickup. I can play tones from sampletank and amplitube at the same time. I don't use keyboards much at all.

I will say. DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES USE THE DXi VERSION. FOLKS IT DON'T WORK. USE THE VST VERSION. IT WORKS LIKE A CHARM ALTHOUGH IT IS A CPU HOG. I RARELY GET CRASHES. I WISH I HAD THE ABILITY TO PERFORM INDIVIDUAL MIXES OF INDIVIDUAL DRUM SOUNDS ON THE KITS. THE HIGH HATS AND CYMBALS ARE A LITTLE TO LOUD AND THE TOMS ARE TO SOFT IN VOLUME. ALSO I WOULD LIKE TO BE ABLE TO EQ THEM SEPERATELY.

Slapping keys since 1959
Slapping "soft"keys for 3 years.
Compose symphonic electronica style for fun, at home.
PIV-2,4gigs, 1 Gig RAM, Win XP
M-audio 24/96
Cubase VST32/5.1
Previous pruchase XPhraze, been using SampleTank2 XL for 2 months now.

Nice looking interface, I like looking at it while wondering what to load up or tweak, makes me think I have something modern. I like the basic color of the "tank" and the redoable colors available on the library screen.

All sounds are fairly good for a workstation. The ease of tweaking and multiple effects makes most quite nice.
All except the synths sounds, this remains a dissapointment.
I like the drum kits and loops.
Voices are fun but limited.
Too many of the "sounds" are simply the previous sound tweaked for me. How nice of them to do that, ehh??? Well, I thought there were 1500 "sounds" not 1500 "patches".,....
I particularly like the trombone, and bass guitar sounds.
I use the pianos, but am not in heaven about it.
I particualrly dislike the pads.

Too expensive for tweaked patches to be "silently" included without admitting such.
Although I'm using it all the time now as a source of real-like instruments, it remains a matter of opinion as to its worth in a particualr situation.
Has crashed occasionally but mostly when I'm impatient searching sounds and load a sample while Cubase is playing my song.... don't do that at home kids.

Would I buy it had I used it first? Maybe only the L version not the XL, and save money while getting a nice ROMpler anyways.

Updates helped a lot and am looking forward to more to come.