I spent two hours last night playing with ST3 and apparently I did not get through as much of it as larry. I honestly just touched the surface so I will begin section by section on sounds.

I will agree that the vocals ARE so-so...just like every rompler ever compared to high end vocal libraries. They certainly sound no worse than comparable products and are an improvement over previous version. For starters they give individual voices for the same sounds. It is somewhat redundant but does give variety and options to build on. Pretty much every rompler "aaaah" and "ooh" preset ever stopped being inspiring years ago when listened to in a vacum. Yes, I look forward to more extensive vocal library ad ons but these are par for the course. Anyone requiring heavy duty vocal sounds (film composers and sound designers I suppose) are likely using Kontakt or other full fledged sampler capable of using speciality libraries that don't come standard with Kontakt or any other sampler.


Pianos are hard to compare with st2.5 because the pianos were already good for a workstation. Again, and perhaps some may consider it cheating, what gives st3 a slight edge is the built in effects and mixer to more finally tune custom layered pianos. Most synths and pianos have effects but none have effects on par with what is available within st3. The main grand piano sounds beautiful but takes forever to load. No, it does not sound as good as dedicated piano vsts or add on piano libraries but can hold its own with the best of stock sounds. Again, these are preliminary opinions. I know I have to spend more time because with piano flaws are more likely to show in performance playing versus hitting a few notes and chords in a vacum.

I actually don't think it's cheating at all to have the effects on there.  When you reach for a sound, you just want it to sound good.  And the less you have to hassle with it the better.

A touch rough there. My judgement in music is suspect it must be admitted. I just got told so in no uncertain terms on the IKM forums. So take this with a grain of salt, but in my initial forays in ST3.
I really like the two grands and the upright pianos. They layer nicely and sound smooth.
The electric pianos can't touch Scarbee. They sound like patches not instruments if you know what I mean.
Has anyone ever gotten an acoustic guitar right? ST3 doesn't either, but for being a digital guitar I rather like the sound. Most steel strings sound terrible to me, while these have a pleasant ring. I like the 12 string best.
My theory on electric guitars is take a good piano or guitar or banjo or mandolin..., run it through your amp sim and batter it until it sounds like whatever genre you want. The amp is whats important. You could take these electric guitars and batter them with an amp sim and they would sound about as good as any other amp battered guitar.
There are two types of people in this world, those who revel in every bass sound and those who think hey that's a nice bass it goes 'thud'. Lets say just they don't sell Trillian to people like me. I think there are some nice thuds in there, but I'll still go Scarbee Rick anywhere that it fits.
The drums almost impressed even the excellent Mr. Larry. Being me I enjoy the Jazz and Brush. I think this is strong point of ST3. Only problem is its a strong point of EZDrummer (love Nashville), KU (love older Abby Roads) and even BFD Eco ain't bad. So not sure how much action it will see. Still nicely done.
E-Drums, Synth Bass... like dating a doll instead of a woman.
Summary for band instruments. Piano: A-, EPiano: D, Acoustic Guitars: B-, Electric Guitars: C, Bass: C+, Drums: A-

A touch rough there. My judgement in music is suspect it must be admitted. I just got told so in no uncertain terms on the IKM forums. So take this with a grain of salt, but in my initial forays in ST3.
 
 
Your opinion is as good as any ones; on this or any forum.

Drewfx (and Dub)
 
My disdain for a companies business practices has nothing to do with how I feel about their PRODUCT.
Everyone here knows how I feel about THE PRODUCT.  

So, you may not consider it an objective viewpoint, and I certainly understand that...
But it is nonetheless....

This, to me, is not a marked improvement over ST 2.5XL.  It gives a better GUI, and 64 bit support,
which could have been done in a few weeks...while still using "mediocre" samples...

again that's just my opinion...and I will certainly listen to others opinions objectively, and, if they
have valid points, most certainly respect that (i.e. bigcat)

Those who know me know my objectivity.  I see the product as a separate entity from THE COMPANY.
If I did not...I certainly would not post and promote their sales, ads, and specials...and I also respect
others rights to buy what they feel they want or need.

IK is eminently aware of their shortcomings in the development cycle of this product
and how most feel about what they did...and it's not just from me...there is a host of others...

But that has nothing to do wiith how I rate THE PRODUCT ITSELF.

On a scale of 1 to 10, it falls in about a 6 or 7...and actually, based on "OVER 10 years in the making"
development time it should get a lesser rating...

So bash me all you will - that is your prerogative, as it is mine to continue to bash
IK THE COMPANY.  The facts are the facts and they stand on their own...
 

bigacat, I agree wholeheartedly that very few if any sounds on ST3 will touch sounds from a dedicated instrument specializing in that sound.  Between Geist, Addictive drums and the endless gigs of drum samples I already have there is no way ST3 outdoes them.  ST3 is not going to replace lounge lizard or addictive keys for my pianos.  Then again, it's not designed to.  The appeal of something like ST3 is not that it is the best at any particular thing.  Jack of all trades by nature always come up short to specialists in that area.

stating things as facts don't make them so.  Nobody is bashing you.  I'm just stating the obvious; unless objective has suddenly been redefined  it is hard to buy in that your review is anything close to objective.  Realistically, how much time could you have spent with  new product at guitar center?  Your first thing you declared as a bug was not actually a bug but a simple easily corrected install inconvenience.  We still get posts on the main forum where people installed complain about missing items because of install order issues.  You continually quote obvious marketing hype that all manufacturers are guilty of .  If every "revolutionary" product was actually revolutionary, I have lived through several thousand revolutions in my lifetime.  I make advertisements for a living so i know marketing is pure BS at worse and extreme exaggeration at best.  You say you promote their ads, specials, etc, but it is almost always accompanied by the exact same venomous rant.  With promotion like that who needs enemies.  Obviously there is no way i can know what you are thinking, but I hope you repeat how objective you are the less objective you sound.
 

Larry, the point was yesterday you implied someone else far less emotional couldn't really be objective, but then CLAIM IN ALL CAPS that you are.
 
I frankly think this clearly indicates how you've lost any ability at all to be rational and objective regarding IK products.
 
And I'm not bashing you, I just think having you attempt to review an IK product given your overwhelming contempt for them doesn't add any value, whether you want to claim in ALL CAPS how objective you (think you) are or not.

I didn't feel the upgrade price without hearing ST3 was worth me throwing $99 away for the upgrade.  Now the upgrade price is $149.
 
I have MOTU 3 Five and Kontakt  lots of addon sample packs and a bunch of rompler hardware like EMU Proteus boxes, a Yamaha MOFX 8 and a Motif 6.
 
My sales rep at Guitar Center installed SampleTank 3 on the GC Mac and I went and played (I think this was his personal copy of ST3 but I don't know if it was CG copy or not).  I went primarily to hear a Roland Integra 7 and play with the new Roland FA keyboard - but played with ST3 for about 20 minutes.
 
Interface was improved, liked the effects and how they were implemented, those were nice features.
 
Some of the samples were just crazy bad.  a lot of them were okay and might be usable with a lot of effects processing or tweaking in ST3.  The vocal choir sounds were just terrible.  I had listened to the IK website demos of the sounds and didn't think they were that great but sometimes compression, web etc so tried to keep an open mind.
 
for me, there is absolutely no way I will pay $149 as an upgrade for sampletank 3.  $50, maybe - but after playing I'd almost rather buy a $50 sample pack for kontakt.
 
I am not a long time user of IK products.  maybe 2 years.  When I started building my studio recording rig I started with IKM Total Studio 3 which had amplitube 3, sampletank, miro, t-rack etc.  as one of the 1st recording software products I had I thought it was a great bundle.  Now that I have invested in so many other software products I just feel that sampletank is just a beginner product and not very usable professionally.
 
btw the Roland Integra 7 is an amazing rack sound module, AMAZING that there are 6,000 sounds and tons of historical patches.  loved the sound module I just don't think I can justify the $1800 it would cost for me to have one.  The Roland FA 8 I played has some of the same sounds as the Integra 7.  I didn't care much for the FA8.  I'll stick to my Yamaha MOFX 8 for now.
 
I am not one of the IK bashers, I just think the ST3 sounds are meh to horrible.

Downloading now. I ogt my email with serial # at 0947 yesterday. Didn't see it till this evening.
 
Larry, read your review. First thing I thought was, "He bought it?!!" Then I saw you were at a GC. Then I figurted how can he do that there? But I reasoned that you know them over there and they let you sit there playing around. IOW, I gave you the benifit of the doubt, naturally.
 
But I'm with dub and drew on this. Give it a rest man! You say that you suspect Tonesy is something other than just a forum user simply because of his post count? Come on! That's conspiracy thinking! And this is just ST3!!
 
Just give it a rest.