IK Multimedia has introduced SampleTank 3 Free, the free version of their SampleTank sound and groove workstation for Mac and PC.
SampleTank 3 Free is essentially a fully functioning version of SampleTank 3: The only difference is that SampleTank 3 Free includes a small portion of the sounds featured in the full version.
Here’s a video intro to SampleTank 3:
The library is expandable; IK plans to add instruments to SampleTank 3 Free until a total of 22 instruments are available.
SampleTank 3 Free is available now as a free download, for Mac & Windows. See the IK site for details.
This does seem like a good model in this case. As much as I don’t like the IAP model for some things, this seems like a way to fill in your library without tons of sounds you don’t want to waste disk space on. But will the sounds suck? That is always the question.
even for free these sounds are not good, totally outdated
Fortunately I don’t believe you have to download it if you don’t want it, but still, why not complain about stuff that’s totally free and maybe useful to some people.
Can’t import your own samples on the free version :[
Does it play the sample tank 2 libraries?
Could they have provided a less rudimentary and more informative video for those who have been through the VST set-up process a thousand times already? And, they’re really going to have to come up with something especially SHAZAAM to make this attractive to studios that already have three or four hardware samplers and at least as many software samplers. Free just isn’t different enough. How about a 1-bit sampler? (i.e. 1-bit recording in software) Yes, it might be CPU intensive, but you can’t argue with the resolution.
This is more of a hobbled demo than “Free” like the SampleTank Player that IKM used to provide. You cannot play old libraries, nor import them. You can’t play ST3 libraries in fact, until after IKM converts them to ‘free’ format. You can’t save, yadda yadda. It probably would have been less confusing if IK Multimedia simply called this SampleTank Demo.