eSoundz Sonik Synth 2 Group Buy

eSoundz is having another great GB. This time it's the Sonik Tank GB. If it hits 100, the price will be $199. That's lower than the normal crossgrade price of SS2 alone, plus you get the extra stuff listed below


For less than the price of Sonik Synth 2 itself you get:

Sonik Synth 2.1 (software and sounds)

SampleTank 2.5 (software engine only - that can play SS2.1 sounds -AND- import AKAI, WAV, AIFF, SampleCell and read any SampleTank format sounds)

50 bonus COMBI patches for BOTH SS2.1 and ST2.5 (referencing the SS2.1 sounds)

All 6 Sonic Reality Expansion Tanks (ST format sounds)
This includes the Piano, Symphony Strings, Guitar, Bass, Drums and Omni Synth Tanks.

Plus the Sonic Reality ST2.5 Bonus disc that has some unreleased sounds (like a drum kit from Studiophonik) and loops, Miroslav sounds and cool Combi patches for ST2.5

Here's the sign up link.
http://www.esoundz.com/details.php?ProductID=1768& refcode=gbrss

KVR discussion
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=197109&start=0

The group is at 17 right now, and will end November 30th.

18 people now :) I just got in on it.

Come on folks - lets drive that price down. Getting all that for $199.00 would be a sweet Christmas present for myself

Thought I'd bump this to let people know the GB has hit 71 now,,, it's only four from the second lowest level. If you were waiting for the price to get a little lower before signing up, it's time to look again.

This is a good deal on some great vintage keyboard sounds, plus a solid set of bread and butter sounds. If you're into that sort of thing, this one is for you.

http://www.esoundz.com/details.php?ProductID=1768& refcode=gbrss

No Dongle,,,

You do need to be connected to the net to register,,, but you may be able to get your authorizations through emails to another computer, but I'm not 100% sure. I would say your best bet, would be to post it on KVR. Squids will answer any question like that, I'm sure.

As for getting this deal or Dimension Pro,,,, that's you're call. Dimension covers all the bases, and is a nice deal, especially for $100. It will give you all the basic sounds you need to do a lot of work. Dimension is a good choice.

Sonik Synth 2 also covers all the bases nicely. It also is like stepping into a vintage keyboard store, with flavors of a lot of classic synths. There are so many sounds in Sonik Synth 2, it takes time to see what is all there. The interface is set up like a keyboard workstation, which gives you a lot of options for creating your own sounds by blending up to 16 sounds together, adjusting levels, pans, keyranges, applying effects, and saving them as combinations. This is a really powerful feature. Squids is great at creating combinations, and this includes a bunch of special Combi's he created for SS2, that show off the power of this feature.

Going head to head Dimension Pro and Sonik Synth 2 could be a close call.

There's more to consider here, though,,,,,the Extras you get in this deal. First, there's the Sampletank 2.5 engine. The Sampletank engine is the standard player for the format. Sonik Synth 2, Philharmonik, and SampleMoog all have proprietary players which are based on the Sampletank engine, but will only play the sounds from those products. They don't allow you to load your own wav files, and don't have Akai import features. The Sampletank 2.5 player will allow you to play any Sampletank format sound. You need that to be able to use the extra Expansion Tanks and bonus sounds included with the deal. If you just bought SS2, you would then have to buy Sampletank also, to be able to run any other expansions. This would cost you, over $200, but of course, for that money you'd get the Sampletank soundset, which this deal doesn't include. (IMHO, the SS2 sounds are a little better than the Sampletank sounds) Getting the Sampletank 2.5 player is key to being able to put all these sounds together in one library.

The Expansion Tanks are just as described,,, extra sounds in specialized catagories, to give you more sounds. These expand your sonic palet a lot, and together with the bonus sounds, which have a lot of world sounds, Philharmonik sounds and some other extra stuff, this is quite a huge library of sounds. The Orchestral sounds in SS2, with the Piano Tank, Symphony Strings, and the Mirslov sounds in the bonus disk, would make an orchestral set to rival or surpass GPO,,,, IMHO. Then add the extra kits, basses, guitars, you get a lot of coverage on that front.

So,,, the question then is,,,,, is this deal at $200, worth twice what Dimension Pro is worth??? My answer to that would be a resounding yes!!!! This is a seriously huge amount of sounds.

I guess at the end of the day, I would say this,,, Dimension is great, and so is the stuff in this deal. At $100 Dimension should be in your toolbox, but at $200, so should this. Why not get this deal, and then get Dimension when that deal comes up again?? Even at the very best price you could get this stuff for, it would cost you around $500, and you get it for $200. Take some of that savings, and buy Dimension, too. Also, don't forget to budget some money for the Dimension expansions, too.

If you break it down as $100 for Sonik Synth 2, and $100 for the Expansion Tanks, bonus sounds and Sampletank engine,,, this is an absolute no brainer.

The GB is at 89 now, which is only 11 short of the lowest price.

Hey All,

Harmony invited me over - Thanks!!

Looks like a great deal - I did a little reading about Sonik Synth 2

Can some one educate me quickly before I jump on this what the advantages/disadvantages of Sonik Synth vs. Sampletank are?

I was thinking that I needed a sampler - This looks more like a synth (albeit, one on steroids from the looks of it) Is this more comparable/better than Dim pro?

ORIGINAL: D K

Well, I should have read your post above Harmony - I can definitely see your logic - Looks like they are at 100 now so I have a couple of days to decide but this does seem like a whooole lot of sounds for 200 bucks

Hey DK,,, yes, the group hit 100, so it's officially a great deal. I paid quite a bit more for this stuff, myself, and felt it's been worth every penny. Keep an eye on the GB deal, too, because Squids joking said something about throwing in the Capsules if it hits 200,,, that's not official yet, but he's just nutty enough to do it. He is sure to do something fun though,,, eSoundz GB's are ALWAYS a great deal.

shoot. that is a pretty dang good deal.

cost me as much just to buy a freakin license for windows xp home. ugh.

This thang could go to 250 or 300! Wow!

I guess at the end of the day, I would say this,,, Dimension is great, and so is the stuff in this deal. At $100 Dimension should be in your toolbox, but at $200, so should this. Why not get this deal, and then get Dimension when that deal comes up again?? Even at the very best price you could get this stuff for, it would cost you around $500, and you get it for $200. Take some of that savings, and buy Dimension, too. Also, don't forget to budget some money for the Dimension expansions, too.

Well, the Dim Pro $99 upgrade offer just came back in Cakewalk's 5 day sale (just got an email about it) and they're throwing in shipping and the Cakewalk Synthesizers book for free. I was hoping this would come up a bit later so I could spread the purchases out over different months, but oh well.

Looks like it hit 200 so we get ALL the stuff now !!

Yeah, I feel so tempted to jump in too... wait... I already have most of this stuff!

Group buys at eSoundz are excellent. In fact, that's exactly how I picked up my stuff from them over the last few years.

It's at 233 now. Wow,,, well, this is a terrific deal, so no wonder so many people are getting in.


DK,,, I hope you enjoy it, as much as I do. It's a very solid set of sounds. I paid $219 for SS2, around $180 for the Capsules, I got the Expansion tanks included with some other deals along the way, plus I bought ST for $219, (basically to get the engine to run all the sounds together). I have over $$600 into this stuff, but I do have the Sampletank soundset, which you won't get. I've never regretted one nickel I've spent on it. It's true that this stuff has been around for a while now, and probably is a contributing factor to why this can be offered at such a low price.

I go back a ways in buying sounds. Some other things I've purchased over the years,,, my DX7 for $1600,,,, an Alesis QSR for $600,,, to name just a couple. Think of a what an expansion card used to cost for Roland keyboards,,,, Softsynths have dramatically lowered the cost of sounds. It's amazing really. Money is money, of course, but if you think back 10 years people were spending tens of thousands of dollars to get the equivalent hardware equipment.

Think about it,,, for $300 you can get this deal and Dimension Pro,,, and for another $60, you can get Wusikstation, too, which is another great deal.

All I can say is,,, there are some terrific deals around right now,,, and this is definately one of them. I'm a little envious, but that's the way it goes.

ORIGINAL: higain_guitar

Dear harmony gardens,

I have heard that many find the samples in Sampletank 2.5 xl more polished and better sounding than the samples in Sonik Synth 2.... do you agree with that assessment?

You see, I'm on the fence here because I could crossgrade to Sampletank 2.5xl from amplitube for just $100 more than the group buy price...

Thanks,
HG

Hey HG,,, we have the same initials,,, lol

Actually, I would say it's the other way around. I think SS2 is a little more polished.

To give you a little background on this,,, the original Sampletank 2 sounds weren't Sonik Reality products. (that's Squids company) They were created by some unknown company,,, and when the product hit the market, there were some sounds that weren't up to snuff. When Sampletank 2.1 came out, Sonik Reality went through the sounds and polished them up, replaced a few, added a few, and released them as an upgraded sound set.

IMHO, they needed to do that, to put the Sampletank set up to par with SS2.

Squids was saying to contact sales@esoundz.com to request the Sampletank set,,, I know there is a sounds only Sampletank, for people who don't have them,, as well as an upgrade for people using the pre2.1 soundset.

If you bought Sampletank, and not the GB, you wouldn't get the expansion tanks or capsules, and those are really nice additions to your library. (and worth a few hundred bucks, too. ) You would however still get the bonus material that is included with the GB. (at least if you bought it at eSoundz)

It's been pretty common thought around the Sonik Reality/eSoundz community, that Sampletank has a focus on Bread and Butter Sounds with a lot of nice Synth sounds, too, and SS2 is focused on Synth sounds, with a lot of good Bread and Butter sounds. With the inclusion of the Expansion Tanks and Capsules,,,,, you're adding two accoustic drum kit disks, an electronic drum disk, two extra disks of Bass sounds, three guitar disks, a disk of Pianos, and a really sweet collection of Orchestral sounds. There's a disk of drum loops in the Groove Capsule, and Omni Synth is a pretty kick a$$ GM soundset. IMHO, those are a huge added value to the GB.

Also as she said,, size matters. Sampletanks sound set is 6.5 gig, SS2 is 8 gig. The extra stuff in the GB is huge, too. It's well over 4 gig, conseratively. Maybe someone knows that figure exactly.

I would recommend joining the GB and contacting sales@esoundz.com about a crossgrade price to the Sampletank Sounds Only set. I'd be willing to bet the extra sounds won't cost much more then $100, and you'll be ahead SS2, the Capsules, and the Expansion Tanks. If you did it the other way, you'd spend $300 and only have Sampletank and the bonus disk, and then you'd have to spend another $219 to get SS2, and figure up what you might want to spend on Capsules and Expansion Tanks.

The GB is the way to go.

ORIGINAL: harmony gardens

ORIGINAL: higain_guitar

Dear harmony gardens,

I have heard that many find the samples in Sampletank 2.5 xl more polished and better sounding than the samples in Sonik Synth 2.... do you agree with that assessment?

You see, I'm on the fence here because I could crossgrade to Sampletank 2.5xl from amplitube for just $100 more than the group buy price...

Thanks,
HG

Hey HG,,, we have the same initials,,, lol

Actually, I would say it's the other way around. I think SS2 is a little more polished.

To give you a little background on this,,, the original Sampletank 2 sounds weren't Sonik Reality products. (that's Squids company) They were created by some unknown company,,, and when the product hit the market, there were some sounds that weren't up to snuff. When Sampletank 2.1 came out, Sonik Reality went through the sounds and polished them up, replaced a few, added a few, and released them as an upgraded sound set.

IMHO, they needed to do that, to put the Sampletank set up to par with SS2.

Squids was saying to contact sales@esoundz.com to request the Sampletank set,,, I know there is a sounds only Sampletank, for people who don't have them,, as well as an upgrade for people using the pre2.1 soundset.

If you bought Sampletank, and not the GB, you wouldn't get the expansion tanks or capsules, and those are really nice additions to your library. (and worth a few hundred bucks, too. ) You would however still get the bonus material that is included with the GB. (at least if you bought it at eSoundz)

It's been pretty common thought around the Sonik Reality/eSoundz community, that Sampletank has a focus on Bread and Butter Sounds with a lot of nice Synth sounds, too, and SS2 is focused on Synth sounds, with a lot of good Bread and Butter sounds. With the inclusion of the Expansion Tanks and Capsules,,,,, you're adding two accoustic drum kit disks, an electronic drum disk, two extra disks of Bass sounds, three guitar disks, a disk of Pianos, and a really sweet collection of Orchestral sounds. There's a disk of drum loops in the Groove Capsule, and Omni Synth is a pretty kick a$$ GM soundset. IMHO, those are a huge added value to the GB.

Also as she said,, size matters. Sampletanks sound set is 6.5 gig, SS2 is 8 gig. The extra stuff in the GB is huge, too. It's well over 4 gig, conseratively. Maybe someone knows that figure exactly.

I would recommend joining the GB and contacting sales@esoundz.com about a crossgrade price to the Sampletank Sounds Only set. I'd be willing to bet the extra sounds won't cost much more then $100, and you'll be ahead SS2, the Capsules, and the Expansion Tanks. If you did it the other way, you'd spend $300 and only have Sampletank and the bonus disk, and then you'd have to spend another $219 to get SS2, and figure up what you might want to spend on Capsules and Expansion Tanks.

The GB is the way to go.

Hi,
I am trying to decide whether to join the group buy. I am convinced about the Sonik Synth sounds. The demo sounds are really great. Can anyone comment on the acoustic/electric guitar sounds that are available as part of the group buy?
Appreciate your feedback.

Thanks
Chander

ORIGINAL: tcaylor

Harmonygardens,

I joined the group buy (293) and put you down as the reference. I also posted these questions in a similar thread but this one seems to be getting more activity:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What I'm hoping that I'm getting is a replacement to several hardware synths I have now. Is that the case?

Also, am I confined to 16 channels of multi-timbrality for the entire library?

If I buy another soft synth/sampler do they share channels or does each instance have its own set of 16 channels?

Finally, will it take a lost of processing power to run multiple instances?

What other soft synths/samplers would you recommend at or around the $200-$500 range?

thanks,

tcaylor

question 1 - with likely over 6,000 presets in 14 gigs of data including the sample tank 2.5 engine which can import other formats... i'm thinking it will definitely replace at least a few of them

question 2/3 - not sure

question 4 - sonik synth 1 was really light on cpu use. it was really stable for me as well. I'd compare it to dimension pro in terms of cpu usage.

question 5 - definitely kontact 3 and mach 5. kontact 3 is the best bang for your buck and both give you over 30 gigs of sample material...
if you just want a sampler with no presets or included data though - shortcircuit 2 is free now (it used to sell for over a hundred bucks) and it is the most powerful free sampler out there, hands down.