Beyond the absurd “Total Value” compared to actual pricing, does anybody understand the differences between these two things from IL Multimedia?
They both have B-3X, Philharmiok, modo drum/bass, sample tank max, sample tron and syntronik with the sample libraries that come with the ‘max’ versions of tank/tron/tronik.
Studio includes all the T-Racks modules (including Leslie) and the full Amplitube package, mix box, arc system room analyser and lurssen mastering software.
VI has all the sample libraries (500 GB worth) that don’t come with the stock versions of sample tank, sample tron and syntronik but doesn’t have the stuff that I listed in the Studio package.
So VI is more of a libary bundle, Studio is more of a processing bundle.
Thanks ---- I was thinking of getting these plugins for testing given how many people complain about issues with IK plugins.
But wow — from over $12k down to $200 for that bundle —
they change a fair amount for every T-Racks plugin… and they are very good… but there is a lot of overlap. There’s probably 10 compressors alone.
The Studio Bundle would cover all the VSTs people use with GP from IK.
I have got this bundle which was also cheaper for me during sales because I own another IK product.
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@David-san, I got the promotional bundle as well. If you already had an IK product, the discount was just too good to pass up.
However, the downloading took me almost three days! 
but I think it’s 200-300 GB of sounds.
I got it too.
I think Hammond B3X and Mixbox are extremely good. I couldn’t live without them.
IK things are not good when downloading but using them I had no issues until now.
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I got it too (Total Studio 3.5 Max). Main driver was to get the T-Racks Leslie and Mix Box.
I have now tried SampleTank 4 and was confused by a CPU usage between 25 und 80 % !!!
I use a Mac (2018) with 2,7 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 and 16GB Ram and assumed that the CPU usage with sampled instruments is low compared to B3X or Moog MiniMoog. But it is much higher.
I have used an empty Gig and only loaded 2 Instruments (Grand Piano and CP80). Mac ActivityApp shows around 50% CPU and 2 GB Ram used by GigPerformer.
Is this usual?
What does GP CPU monitor say? The regular activity monitor calculates the use of all threads in all processes — and those plugins may be creating lots of threads that are running continuously. The only thing you really care about is the audio processing thread, which is what GP gives you, and even then, you only care if you start to hear glitching.
SampleTank does draw a pretty big resource load on a computer. The problem with some of the IK VSTs is they went a bit overboard on the graphics build and they are very feature rich but this means they can also draw a lot of cycles.
Where you can, double up on the sounds you use in SampleTank and most all the Syntronik sounds can load in SampleTank so just use one instance of that vs. it and Syntronik.
Still I can run SampleTank, Hammond B3-X, T-Racks Leslie (with the leslie disabled in B3-X) and another 1 or 2 aurturia VSTs without glitches on an older Windows laptop.
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"…What does GP CPU monitor say? … "
GP Monitor is between 25 and 70 or 80%. As soon as I bypass Simpletank it goes done to 0-3 %. So the driver is clearly SamplelTank 4
Maybe it is the SampleTank User Interface … as I’m still in the test phase the SampleTank UI was open to load the instruments and see what SampleTank is doing / shows…
Will try it again during the next days with the Sampletank UI closed - only using GP interface and widgets. May be this will reduce the CPU load.
If GP is showing 70-80% just for the audio processing, then either SampleTank is seriously using way too much CPU or there’s something else very wrong.
You’re not by chance using a crazy sample rate and/or a tiny buffer size, are you?
i’m using 48000 Hz and 512 samples … I assume that’s ok.
I have now around 50-60% GP CPU and around 40% Mac overall CPU (Activity Monitor) and 3-4 GP RAM. Setup is 3 instruments within Sampeltank (Piano Imperial / CP80 piano / Harpsichord) and B3X and T-Rack Leslie.
Have not heard any glitches (needs more testing) but i think that the CPU load for sample based instruments is still to high. Had expected something between 5 and 10%
Agreed…I use Kontakt and as long as you don’t go crazy with convolution processing, CPU usage is quite small.
First and foremost… If you have the Leslie turned on in both B3-X and in the T-Racks Leslie… you are likley going to overload on cycles. Toggle the Leslie on/off in the B3-X VST and watch the perfomance bar. It’s significant… ~20-25% as I recall.
Advice on this… Make T-Racks your leslie amp, put it in Global Rackspace and route anything you want running though it into the Global from the Local. Then disable the Leslie within B3-X and just use the DI output.
The Leslie is the exact same in both those plugins… so just use one or the other. I like using T-Racks even if I am using B3-X because then I can route other instrumetns into it.
Also you really don’t want to run a Leslie signal into another Leslie… you’ll get really bad phasing issues. You really don’t want to run them in parallell either if they aren’t rotating at the exact same speed for the same reason. Might work in a room but not in a VST mix.
Second… if the above doesn’t reduce the processing overload… you might want to look at loading fewer sample libraries at the same time in SampleTank. So if you aren’t going to use Imperial and CP80 and the Harpsichord at the same time as a layered sound, don’t configure SampleTank to be a multi-VST in a single racksapce. Set it up to just be the piano for instance and in another rackspace, as the haripischord.
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Thanks for the advise and tips … I think you mentioned the T-Rack Leslie advise already in an older post and that was one of the reasons to buy the bundle.
Even with only one instrument in sample tank (Grand or CP80) and no B3X and Leslie it is still around 20-30% GP CPU.
That doesn’t sound unusual to me. My processor load is usually around 45-55%, running SampleTank, B3-X and T-Racks Leslie, plus an Arturia Rhodes, etc…
Another thing that reduced Sample Tank load is how many rack effects are being used within it. Some of those make very little discernable difference to me. Might if I was recording but not for live, so I take a preset I like and I reduce the effects on it until it’s more efficent and sounds nearly the same.
ok … looks like it need a bit of testing and playing around to find a useful set-up.
Nevertheless, my expectation was that sample based instruments need less CPU compared to non sample based solution.
First of all, a lot depends on how good a job the developers did — secondly, even if your system is sample-based, there could be a lot of processing happening after the samples. If all you’re doing is playing back samples without modification, that should be very inexpensive. But if you’re adding effects to the raw samples, then it could get quite CPU intensive.
If you compare to a synth, samples take the place of oscillators but there can still be a lot of other stuff going on.
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