Tuned percussion instruments like marimba and vibraphone sound rich and wide, and the orchestral strings, brass and woodwind come from IK's superb Miroslav Philharmonik package, with plenty of articulations and both ensemble and solo patches. There are also some edgy new pop brass and woodwind patches.Īcoustic drums are very well covered, with a handful of core kits serving as the basis for numerous presets, and individual component menus (kicks, snares, cymbals, etc), providing plenty of flexibility.

There's also a collection of electronic drums, with patches labelled by style (Dance, Glitch, Dubstep, Trap, etc). ROMpler-generated guitars often sound weak, but here the electric patches are remarkably convincing, including Stratocaster, Les Paul and hollow body instruments. 'SampleTank 3 has a lot going for it, succeeding in doing what some of the best hardware workstations do' The basses comprise Fender Precision and Jazz, Music Man and Rickenbacker, with picked, finger and slap playing styles covered.

The synth sounds are grouped by type (Lead, Pad, Bass and FX), and we were most impressed by the variety of the Pad and Bass categories. Naturally, the programming flexibility on offer is nothing like that of an actual synthesiser, but the Edit page's filters and envelopes allow for a reasonable level of tweaking. Rounding things off are some decent 'ethnic' sounds (bouzouki, dulcimer, gamelan and suchlike).Īs well as its instruments, SampleTank 3's loop library is surprisingly good, covering current electronic styles (hip-hop, EDM, dubstep and house) plus Latin and Cuban styles, and drum kit loops. Obviously, they're not a replacement for an ongoing collection of bespoke sample packs, but they do deliver quick, convincing results, and the Stretch (SampleTank REsynthesis TeCHnology) engine, with its individual control of Pitch, Time and Harmonic Shift, is great for manipulating them in real time. Our biggest criticism of SampleTank 3 is that, although there are loads of Instrument presets onboard, there are very few 'combi' presets, layering those sounds into larger-than-life patches.Īlso, while you can audition MIDI Patterns before loading them, you can't preview Instrument patches (via, say, a pre-rendered audio 'demo', like in Ableton Live 9) nor is there a way to audition a patch for play without overwriting and thus losing the current one.

Where are sampletank 3 instruments