Why companies who have huge downloads are, as a general rule, too stupid to post checksums for each file is beyond comprehension to me.
 
 
But anyway, make sure you play with the "Stretch Note" sampling mode.

Glyn Barnes

clintmartin
finally...http://www.ikmultimedia.com/news/?item_id=5115
 

I see Sample Tank 3 is now "the industry standard sound and groove workstation."  When did that happen?

When no other company decided to make a true workstation type product. It's pretty easy to be the standard product of your type if nobody is doing it.

Re: download problems...when I opened a support ticket with IKM I discovered that I had previously opened support tickets twice before. Once for problems downloading ST 2XL and again for problems downloading Miroslav. I also had difficulty re-authorizing the 670 but didn't request help that time. So basically every product I've ever bought from them has been a headache.
 
BTW, it was the CW forum that told me what I needed to know. I closed the IKM ticket before ever hearing back from them. 
 
I see that the font size for ST3's control labels is the same as ST2's. I still need a screen magnifier to read them. That was supposed to be one of the benefits of ST3 - to get rid of that itty-bitty UI. In ST2 I was at least able to set the background color to white, which improved legibility. ST3 does not appear to offer that functionality. Grey text and grey icons on a grey background...ugh. Maybe a future update will allow color customization.
 
Other than legibility issues, I like the overall layout. Simple and quick once you identify what those grey smudges on a grey background say. The mixer is a nice addition, it's clean and logically laid out. The Edit tab is an improvement over ST2's just because it's on its own tab.
 
Nice collection of effects, too. That was one ST2's strengths as well. Why they'd put spring reverb on a bass by default beats the heck outa me, but that's trivial.
 
So far, I give ST3 3 stars out of 5. I think I'm going to enjoy having it.

I noticed an anomaly with ST, which is that hold pedal (CC64) events don't seem to be acting in accordance with the MIDI spec.
 
Soloing this bass track, I heard a string of fast notes that all ran together as if the pedal was down. Looking at the MIDI data, there was a CC64 with a value of 1 rather than the usual zero for a pedal-off. ST3 was interpreting this as pedal down (on). Normally, values of 63 and lower are supposed to be interpreted as pedal-up (off) and values 64 and higher are pedal-down (on). This non-compliant behavior is a problem for me, because I often hand-plant pedal events via the PRV and now I'll have to make sure they all go in as zero.
 
I also have some issues on that track with notes that (intermittently) don't play at all. Still investigating that one.
 
This is a little troubling, seeing multiple problems with my very first ST3 track.

They just released 3.3 - the blurb I read says it adds support for IK's iRig controller, but there's bound to be a few bug fixes too. 

bitflipper
I noticed an anomaly with ST, which is that hold pedal (CC64) events don't seem to be acting in accordance with the MIDI spec.
 
Soloing this bass track, I heard a string of fast notes that all ran together as if the pedal was down. Looking at the MIDI data, there was a CC64 with a value of 1 rather than the usual zero for a pedal-off. ST3 was interpreting this as pedal down (on). Normally, values of 63 and lower are supposed to be interpreted as pedal-up (off) and values 64 and higher are pedal-down (on). This non-compliant behavior is a problem for me, because I often hand-plant pedal events via the PRV and now I'll have to make sure they all go in as zero.
 
I also have some issues on that track with notes that (intermittently) don't play at all. Still investigating that one.
 
This is a little troubling, seeing multiple problems with my very first ST3 track.

I have a similar problem with sostenuto and opened a ticket which has gone nowhere after several months. I even did the trouble shooting for them:
 

I've loaded 3.01 and am still having the problem.

However I've done some additional troubleshooting and found that the problem seems to occur because my midi controller is sending continuous data for CC66 sostenuto (to allow for half pedaling, etc.).

What seems to be happening is that if ST3 receives a CC66 value of < 64 before receiving a CC66 value >= 64 it ignores the higher values. All of the other HW/SW I have that implement sostenuto do not have this problem, only ST3.

An example - if I go in Sonar's Event List and create something like the following it works correctly:

Note On
CC66 (sostenuto) 65
Note Off
CC66 (sostenuto) 0

But the following does not work with ST3:

Note On
CC66 (sostenuto) 30
CC66 (sostenuto) 65
Note Off
CC66 (sostenuto) 0

 
I have to double pedal (rapidly pedal/release/pedal) to make sus work.

Well, as long as they're working on iRig compatibility, that's what's important. Especially now that it's the new industry standard. I imagine all those industry giants have probably been frantic without iRig at the center of their studios.
 
It's not reassuring that a company that's been at it as long as IKM can't conform to a standard from 1985. Ah, maybe it's a NEW standard - iMIDI - redefined by Apple, only compatible with iPads and all MIDI tracks must now be run through iTunes for a 99-cent fee. Just a theory.
 
Another bit of bizarre behavior: MIDI volume envelopes have no effect until you train the volume fader to CC7. Oddly, ST2 had no problems with volume envelopes.
 
My dropped-note problem turned out not to be ST3's fault. I resolved it by increasing the MIDI buffer from 500 to 750ms. Surprising that I'd have to do that on the new computer, but not the much slower previous DAW. But I'm not gonna sweat it, a workaround's as good as a fix.

I'll sidestep some of that snark ;) but did want to let you know that I made the project manager and support manager aware of these issues and they are doing their best to work with the devs and team to figure out exactly what is going on.  They have their suspicions, though - apparently the way it is set up internally will work fine with most controllers, but not with some, or when people enter CC values manually so they are taking a look at what the heck is going on and if it is what they suspect it shouldn't be a terribly difficult fix from what I gather.  I didn't see the MIDI volume envelope issue until I came to post this so would you mind sending the details to support?  That would be very helpful too.  Thanks!

nevermind.

Oh, the iRig snark? That's all in good fun my friend. I'm pretty happy with ST3 overall. Every new product has quirks you have to figure out, especially new products. I have a pretty high tolerance for those kinds of annoyances.
 
As for the pedal events, it shouldn't matter to the instrument whether they came from a controller or were plopped in with a mouse or pasted from another file. The problem is simply that the code is just checking for zero, not < 64, which is what it should be doing. A 5-second fix, once the coder tracks it down. BTW, I did open a support ticket for that issue.
 
The volume automation thing may very well be by design. SONAR's volume envelopes are simply a convenient way to insert CC7 events. Most software instruments link CC7 to volume by default, so we've come to expect that inserting a volume envelope will automatically control volume. I say "most", and it does work that way with every other synth and sampler I have, but it's not universal. I have heard of other instruments that don't implement it.