Sampletank 3 first impressions

[musicman691]

Took about 2 hours on Verizon FIOS regular (non-Quantum) which I think is 20-25 mb/s. Not too bad. The actual Sampletank 3 program downloaded in a flash. Install of ST3 program no sweat. What was was installing the content - each of the 8 sections on a Mac has to be installed separately. There's no way to just click on one installer and have them all install. For that matter there's no install readme for the content which isn't going to help those who aren't computer geeks.

So I got everything installed and opened ST3. The gui is a real change from ST2 and it's still a bit on the small side. A little dark for my tastes and on a glossy screen like on my iMac that doesn't help things. Would like a contrast and brightness control on the gui like on ST2. If there is one I haven't found it.

I do like the sounds that I've tried so far. One big change is the sounds for things like violins won't play outside their normal range of notes unlike ST2. Whether that's good or bad is up to the individual user. Just noting that here. What I don't like is MIDI learn assignments are not remembered when shutting down the program. Say I have MIDI cc7 controlling a mixer channel; it's global for all instruments that are in that particular mixer slot and you would have to MIDI learn each mixer channel if you make use of MIDI cc7 for volume control. Of course if each mixer channel is on it's own MIDI channel you get individual control of each channel. Shut down ST3 and reopen it and all your assignments for the mixer are gone. It's probably like that for every other MIDI control learn.

Would like to hear about other user's experiences.

edit for additional:
All the above was with ST3 in standalone mode. Inside PT11.1.3 in a small session with 2 Instrument tracks (one with Kontakt 5 and the other with ST3) and a pair of Aux tracks with nothing on them the MIDI learn I cited above, at least for MIDI cc7 and mixer channels is not an issue; the MIDI learn seems to stay learned when closing the session and re-opening it. That's a good thing. I don't know about any other MIDI mappings being retained yet.

A bad thing is changing patches in ST3 sometimes results in the cpu meter in PT going redline. Doesn't do it on all the patches. Buffers are set at 1024 for this experiment. I can't imagine what it'd be like with something like 128 or 256. This is with the PT transport stopped and the ST3 samples on my samples drive.

Another bad thing - when I first saved and then closed the above session and quit PT PT crashed. Further work with the same session without reboot or anything else ran just fine.

Not a bad program but has some issues that hopefully will get ironed out.

[musicman691]

Another update - after further messing about with the above session PT is now crashing on every close after a save. Not good and sadly not ready for prime time production work. All these years of waiting and now this; to say I'm bummed is an understatement

[PatriotsBiker]

It's gotta be DR's fault.

[Emcha_audio]

I hope you're logging the bugs with IK?

[SpinningDisk]

👍

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by Emcha_audio

I hope you're logging the bugs with IK?

And how do I do that? The only error message that pops up is for sending something to Avid.

edit for aiidtional:
Found a way to contact support via the IK site and raised a support ticket with them. But like I said it's disappointing after waiting all this time to find bugs like this. I know no software is perfect but ST3 had a gestation period like no other.

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by PatriotsBiker

It's gotta be DR's fault.

What is that supposed to mean?

[DetroitT]

Working and sounding fine here. HD11.2
Air should note and be envious as this download and install had no hiccups.

[denka]

Originally Posted by DetroitT

Working and sounding fine here. HD11.2
Air should note and be envious as this download and install had no hiccups.

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by DetroitT

Working and sounding fine here. HD11.2
Air should note and be envious as this download and install had no hiccups.

Is this with your OSX 10.9.3 system? Hopefully I won't have to go that far to get things to work. The patches I was having the most problem with with cpu usage going redline were the acoustic guitar patches. Most everything else that I tried patch wise had no issues.