how EASY is installing SAMPLETANK?

[SenecaReader2]

I am considering buying SAMPLETANK because of the special offers, but I have read of many users dealing with many problems related to the installation, which frankly all seemed pretty ridiculously bad, especially considering that I have NOT had any problems installing my other IK Multimedia products, such as Amplitube.

Now these posts are 2 or 3 years old, so the question is:

1.has IK addressed ALL these problems?

2. is the installation EASY and PAIN FREE? I generally hated computers my whole life. The rule I follow is: if it's difficult to get it to work, forget it. I am a busy musician and practice 3 instruments. I have no time figuring out nerdy computer stuff.

Thank you.

[SenecaReader2]

so I bought Sampletank, and as I understand it, I am simply installing all the 43 files from the Product Manager. It seems to be installing everything sequentially, by itself.

That changes EVERYTHING.

I don't have to do anything, or much, which is a huge relief. It seems that IK has fixed all that earlier stuff, indeed? If so, kudos to IK and I am not even going to waste my time looking for alternatives in the future when I'll buy more software. I was already a happy camper with amplitube and Tonex and the IK hardware, and now it's all better than ever.

[Peter_IK]

Great to hear, I know that there have been updates to improve the IK Product Manager and the installers themselves in tandem. Just this morning I was in a software meeting where it was mentioned that we need to keep these improvements going and making sure that future virtual instruments or add-ons follow the improved experience and mainly how to improve the process that made these improvements happen (basically further optimizations as well as eliminating as much potential for human error - on our side! - as possible when setting up any new/updated products).

[SenecaReader2]

the only thing I find a bit strange is that it's not very obvious that such huge libraries can be installed simply with Product Manager. The installation manual is dated 2019 and makes mention only of the old and more difficult way of downloading every single installer, etc, but perhaps it refers only to the boxed versions.

I found out about the 'super easy way' almost by accident, by just looking around in Product Manager. It's still downloading and installing everything sequentially and all by itself, and so far it seems to be working very well.

Whew! That's a huge relief. I had bought a library by another company and it all works very well, but frankly Sampletank offers 3 times more the sounds, and it costs even less, and that is for the 100 gb version. The MAX version is an absolute monster, I don't think there's anything like it, soon or later I'll get that one too.

[lovaspillando]

In my opinion it is being like a nightmare for me. I am really comfortable with computers as I worked so many years in the sphere of programing and designing software, but after lot of hours trying I am almost about to surrender.

First the Product Maganer get freeze when I click on install button, you can close the window but this the only thing you can do after it (in my case). Literally frozen. Really I would like to be able to download manually the installers for being to be able to install the product I paid for. I ask too much?

Second when downloading the Soundcontent its being also a nightmare. I click on a download and then it start the download of the selected packages. Most of the time the download fails (ok, I consider it as a normal case due to bandwith even if I am not lack of it). When you finally get the download done you can not download more. I select more packs and click download and nothing happend, even not a warning. I tried closing and reopening browser but dont works. Only way I find out that works is restarting my computer and trying again to download the other packages, and restarting for the next one, and restaarting for next one, again and again.

This is the way that people who pay for using the software are paid? Honestly you shoud make more easy things to the customers that pay... Dont you thing so?

[Peter_IK]

In my opinion it is being like a nightmare for me. I am really comfortable with computers as I worked so many years in the sphere of programing and designing software, but after lot of hours trying I am almost about to surrender.

First the Product Maganer get freeze when I click on install button, you can close the window but this the only thing you can do after it (in my case). Literally frozen. Really I would like to be able to download manually the installers for being to be able to install the product I paid for. I ask too much?

Second when downloading the Soundcontent its being also a nightmare. I click on a download and then it start the download of the selected packages. Most of the time the download fails (ok, I consider it as a normal case due to bandwith even if I am not lack of it). When you finally get the download done you can not download more. I select more packs and click download and nothing happend, even not a warning. I tried closing and reopening browser but dont works. Only way I find out that works is restarting my computer and trying again to download the other packages, and restarting for the next one, and restaarting for next one, again and again.

This is the way that people who pay for using the software are paid? Honestly you shoud make more easy things to the customers that pay... Dont you thing so?

Yours appears to be the opposite experience of OP and do not appear related to the much-improved installers. Seems like it might be a connectivity or some other odd error on either side so I'd suggest reaching out to IK Support for official technical support via http://www.ikmultimedia.com/contact-support/sw

[SenecaReader2]

lovaspillando, sorry to hear that! My experience has been painless for the most part, which frankly I wasn't expecting. I always hated computers, but since I got a 2017 Imac, everything is changing for me.

I was having a strange problem with the connection too, it seemed that after a certain amounts of downloaded samples, the connection would drop, I had to force quit Download Manager and I too had to restart the computer, but it only happened a few times and everytime I would restard Download Manager, it would painlessly pick up again. The only problem I encountered was the occasional connection drop. If I resterted Download Manager without restarting the computer, DM would say that it cannot connect, but I don't remember if I tried the internet to see if it was really the connection, or a problem with DM.

My suggestion would be to use Download Manager only. Unfortunately this type of product is huge and yeah, normally I would not have attempted it, but the special offer I could not turn down.

If it can be of any comfort, I had bought Kontakt two days earlier, along with various synths, all on special offer too. But I say without shadow of a doubt that for me Sampletank blows Kontakt out of the water, as a rock, metal, pop, jazz and blues musician Sampletank is exactly what I wanted: a huge collection of sounds of all types, for all styles. Kontakt is very good but ST blows it out of the window.....acoustic pianos are rubbish compared to ST, and the latter has a much more effective search. It's a powerful, high quality, huge "meat and potato sounds" monster that cannot fail to impress. As soon as I needed a synth pad, I had hundreds at my disposal, one prettier than the other.

And this said by someone who, some years ago, spent several hundreds on Eastwest libraries. Sampletank is like the Goliath library I had, but with 4 times the sounds and 10 times better software. Goliath had a ridiculously simplistic editing. I don't do much editing but none at all is no good either. I resold all the software for a sixth of what I paid, that's how much I didn't care for it.

Man, I love Sampletank. Like Peter said elsewhere, the patience will pay off. In my view, it kills everything else out there. In a magazine review, the reviewer said that the orchestral sounds did not have keyswitches but that IK said they would be implemented in an update. I am pleased to note that many of the sounds already have keyswitches, like the Eastwest libraries I had. As a musician who has no time to waste fiddling with "building creating sounds", what I love about Sampletank is that as soon as I need a sound, I can find a great one in no time. That's exactly what I wanted in a sound module.

Hope it all works out soon for you, Sampletank is amazing, definitely I am a fan now. I'd keep trying the download manager, sorry to hear about your experience, hope you get it sorted soon. Don't know if I have just been lucky, but I immediately cloned the whole drive, I definitely don't want to reinstall 100 gb of sounds, even if things went quite smoothly for me it took a couple of days. My connection worked at about 1-3mb per second.

[SenecaReader2]

PS. I would have gladly paid for the samples to be shipped on an external hard drive....then one would only have to install the software instead of the sounds. But I guess I would not have been able to get the amazing offer, I had quite a few Jampoints, got to say I am definitely impressed with the purchase, killer bargain

[Peter_IK]

If the connection issues persist and you have some time to do so, I'd report them to support. Basically would probably need to be the next time you have a huge installation so I understand if it doesn't happen soon or at all but it might help. However, that being said I know our IT staff is looking at CDN options as we grow since we need to continue to serve a global audience while we add more and more content so that's even more hopeful that installation continues to improve and become as seamless and trouble-free as possible.