IK Multimedia Sonic Synth

I have recently gone very software based and purchased a whole suite of new plugs including stuff from Waves, IK Multimedia and Antares etc. I have a Mac G4 with an upgraded Sonnet Dual 1.3 gig upgrade board (which is fabulous by the way!!!) and 1.5 gig or RAM and 2x120 GIG HD's. I have Sampletank 2XL and also purchased Sonic Synthe 1 for extra sounds that work fully within Sampletank. I use Logic Pro and Protools LE under OSX with a Digi 001 and Alesis Monitor 2's (in desperate need of new tweeters!!! LOL). I do backing tracks, demos, radio preproduction etc in my project studio and love it!!!!:).

You get a hell of alot of sounds for the money thats for sure! And the big bonus was all the extra sounds that usually cost quite a bit just on their own (like the piano,guitar,bass,acoustic drums,synphonic strings bundles and extra sound disk). I love the guitars, drums, choirs and some of the brass. Other sounds left alot to be desired but considering the huge amount of sounds available, I'm not stressed over this as there is just too many sounds to keep track of and too many good sounds that is!!!! The library in Sonicsynth is very 'bread and butter'(!) for workstation type sounds that you get from a Triton, Motif or Fantom. The effects (within the Sampletank engine) are also very 1st rate and way better than what I thought would be the case!

However there is a big point of dissapointment Id like to inform readers about- a few of the sounds cause the software to completely crash. Some of the guitars are the culprits. NO MOST OF THE SOUNDS ARE FINE!!!! But it's frustrating when you accidently select a sound and your system crashes. After contacting Sonic Reality. they informed me it was a bug that they are working to fix!!!!! I sincerely hope that they fix this issue ASAP as Ive read online about other people have the same problems with SonicSynthe on both Mac and PC. Here I'd like to congratulate Sonic Reality and IK Multimedia for their excellent and prompt service. When I queried them about anything, they have been incredibly helpful and I admire companies even if their products might not be completely perfect that they admit errors and do something about them. SO I HOPE THAT THE SOUNDS CRASHING ISSUE IS FIXED ASAP and Im sure they are working hard to fix the situation! :).

As for me, I now roughly know which sounds not to use and will delete them from the hard drive when I get around to it!!!!! (although this is not the ultimate fix IMHO!)>

Sonic synth overall is a great product and with the above mentioned bugs being fixed, will be 11 out of 10 in my books along with Sampletank 2XL. I'm looking forward to seeing what Sonicsynth 2 will offer!

I have been writing music from a very early age and have been into production as a hobby for around 7 years. Just 2 years ago I began to get into synthesis work seriousely.

I make ambient, feel good electro pop/expirimental with vocals. Was inspired to take this on by Bjork and Radiohead.

I've been working with Sonic Synth for about a year now. I run it on a laptop with Cubase SX, an M-Audio mobile pre and a set of Sony studio headphones. It's my mobile unit.

I think it was worth it's price. It's a fairly pop and accoustic oriented sound set. I've found the soundset is very useful for making realistic sounding backing tracks... like faking you actually had a backup band or a symphonic orchestra.

But on the note of orchestral sounds... it is lacking in string sounds geared for fast paced music. Mostly everything is geared towards long ambient stretches.

Every multisample is very detailed and very high quality, though.... better than workstations and ROMplers I've tried by Roland, Yamaha and Korg.

Comes in IK Multimedia Sampletank format and only works with that software. It's available in other formats direct from Sonic Reality under the label "Sonic Station".