Why does IK Multimedia generally have a bad reputation?

I had every product included in the Total Studio Max 4 apart from one…that I had accumulated over the years…

My upgrade price to TS4 was the same as someone who had a Max Version of any product…

I emailed support and explained I was one product short of TS4 max…

My upgrade to TS4 was more expensive than buying the last product outright which would have hindered my upgrade path to TS5 in the future…

IK didn’t want to know….they just told me to use Jam points….

I had Universal Audio Ultimate 11 and had bought 3 plugins that were part of the new Ultiamte 12 so I was one plugin short of U12

I emailed UAD support….They sent me a voucher to get the final plugin for less than the sale cost….thanked me for being a UAD customer and congratulated me and told me to enjoy U12.

UAD different league of company…

I got so annoyed by their juvenile marketing ploys that I've started to cancel IK out from my system, "jam points" and wtf! They do have some good plugins, especially in the T-Racks realm, but nothing I can't live without. I got into collecting Arturia plugins and prefer them by a mile, what an exemplary company!

GtrString said:

I got so annoyed by their juvenile marketing ploys that I've started to cancel IK out from my system, "jam points" and wtf! They do have some good plugins, especially in the T-Racks realm, but nothing I can't live without. I got into collecting Arturia plugins and prefer them by a mile, what an exemplary company!

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Yeah the Jam points are like rubbish trinket rewards for kids…

Agree with what most ppl already posted. IK are disliked for their old download credits system and also for the fact that it's hard to re-sell your licenses. That's why lots of account takeover posts on KVR.

I doesn't affect me. I use the tools I bought. Personally, I use a lot of IK stuff. Ampltube, ToneX and lots of SampleTank. What I like about ST is a single interface and sample manipulation tools to a very large collection of sampled instruments. My only beef with it is the UI. Too dark and hard to see sometimes. It would be great to be able to adjust it. hint hint at @IKMultimedia & @peter what IL have implemented.

Re: mixbox and TRacks. It does the job, but I get the impression the algorithms are old. I have Softube's version's of the 81 and British channels, and the sound quality (and CPU hit) are quite astonishing.

easyrider said:

And there are hundreds of Zips….(shudder)

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it has been replaced with the new product manager. works better now.

nitrateaudio said:

it has been replaced with the new product manager. works better now.

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Yes the new product manager that downloads Zips in the background , half of them fail and you’re left with zip garbage you have to manually delete,

Yep used both the old method and new IK method both suck.

easyrider said:

Yes the new product manager that downloads Zips in the background , half of them fail and you’re left with zip garbage you have to manually delete,

Yep used both the old method and new IK method both suck.

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i had no problems. maybe you ran out of diskspace or have it pointing to an external drive. this is useful resource for debugging.

José Herring said:

....generally have a bad reputation?

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Most certainly not due to their sound. I know a least two top-tier mastering engineers who are using several of their plug-ins regularly.

The download and installation process for the most demanding in disk space becomes a nightmare to deal with. Also the updates for that. I do have a second computer that i couldn’t install SampleTank Syntronik yet. SampleTank is an amazing tool, hundreds of sounds. I really wish if they could improve how you manage the search of sounds. It becomes so annoying when you have multiples long lists of the same instrument as separate lists. I could find only one instrument with everything contained in a Keyswitch method marked as KS at the end of the instrument name, the others didn’t have this pre configured KS. Something similar as ST was adopted in Soundpaint. I really dislike that. If you have multiples articulations, processed variations, mic positions needs to be presented as one group and then if you like you could chose and pick just one art, variation or mic positions.

In fact Soundpaint reunite all variations under one instrument arrow, if you open that you could chose one of the multiples option of that same instrument already listed under one structure

José Herring said:

.......generally have a bad reputation?

On a whim I bought their Mixbox a while back. Just getting around to it and honestly, I'm quite impressed. Definitely not subtle stuff but it can make a bass synth rip like no other plugins I have.

I've generally avoided them all these years because of the "bad" reputation but that was a mistake.

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My main grievance with IKM is its utter inflexibility. Example: I got 98% of Tracks, AmpliTube & co, but I can never upgrade with the best pricing.

Also, SampleTank & other players essentially are upgraded every decade.

However, I really like T-RackS, Mixbox, ARC 3 and AmpliTube. Top notch.

If you can get a nice discount on T-Racks 5 Max it's an absolute steal considering what you get for it.
Stealth Limiter, Standard Clipper, Master EQ, and a few classic EQs and compressors, the tape machines, the reverbs, all very good plugins. Stealth Limiter is great.

Flyo said:

The download and installation process for the most demanding in disk space becomes a nightmare to deal with. Also the updates for that. I do have a second computer that i couldn’t install SampleTank Syntronik yet. SampleTank is an amazing tool, hundreds of sounds. I really wish if they could improve how you manage the search of sounds. It becomes so annoying when you have multiples long lists of the same instrument as separate lists. I could find only one instrument with everything contained in a Keyswitch method marked as KS at the end of the instrument name, the others didn’t have this pre configured KS. Something similar as ST was adopted in Soundpaint. I really dislike that. If you have multiples articulations, processed variations, mic positions needs to be presented as one group and then if you like you could chose and pick just one art, variation or mic positions.

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I can only speak for the drums. For example below drums. The eco kits have less round robin and I usually load them up as one instance and one instrument when I need low CPU overhead. The other ones are all based on how much processing and room sound you want. In my setup I will usually use them as multis. So in the mixes, i load up kicks, snare, hh, toms as separate instruments, and separate outputs and map those to the DAW as separate tracks. And it's cool you add and make your own additional processing with the built in t-racks effects within ST for each one as needed. I have found in works much smoother in DAW in ST than it does in Kontakt where I have to save outputs and re-load instrument all the time.

16 Kit Instruments
​

• Terry Bozzio Kit
• Terry Bozzio Eco Kit
• Terry Bozzio Crush Room Kit
• Terry Bozzio Kicks
• Terry Bozzio Snares
• Terry Bozzio Toms
• Terry Bozzio Hi-Hats
• Terry Bozzio Ride Cymbals
• Terry Bozzio Crash Cymbals
• Terry Bozzio Hat, Ride and Crashes
• Terry Bozzio Tom 1
• Terry Bozzio Tom 2
• Terry Bozzio Tom 3
• Terry Bozzio Tom 4
• Terry Bozzio Tom 5
• Terry Bozzio Tom 6

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nitrateaudio said:

I can only speak for the drums. For example below drums. The eco kits have less round robin and I usually load them up as one instance and once instrument when I need low CPU overhead. The other ones are all based on how much processing and room sound you want. In my setup I will usually use them as multis. So in the mixes, i load up kicks, snare, hh, toms as separate instruments, and separate outputs and map those to the DAW as separate tracks. And is cool is you have make your own processing with the built in t-racks effects in ST. I have found in works much smoother in ST than it does in Kontakt where I have to save outputs and re-load instrument all the time.

IK Multimedia - Terry Bozzio Drum

Additional sounds for SampleTank 3 available via Custom Shop

www.ikmultimedia.com

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Thanks. Yess you could encounter various possible ways to work as prefer with multiples instances. For me the most annoying thing under ST is the search for one specific instrument. Is a long list mixed with others instruments with any kind of variations in it. Pff

For me, B3X is good, Modo Bass is usable, Mixbox is usable, and their product manager is good enough these days.

I gave Mixbox to my kid...I like the simplified format for my kid to learn on and the plugins are decent enough though not stellar, imo. But for myself I use mostly UAD, PA, TDR.

José Herring said:

.......generally have a bad reputation?

On a whim I bought their Mixbox a while back. Just getting around to it and honestly, I'm quite impressed. Definitely not subtle stuff but it can make a bass synth rip like no other plugins I have.

I've generally avoided them all these years because of the "bad" reputation but that was a mistake.

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For me, it's that the tools I tried had obnoxiously pushy storefronts inside of them. And I just don't accept that under any circumstance, ever. I'm trying to work, attempting to push product on to me when working makes my blood boil.

No microtransactions or DLC in my Vsts thank you very much.

EDIT: Oh yeah, I'd forgotten about the credits and stuff too. It's good they seem to have dialed back their marketing but I think the ship has sailed for me.

Flyo said:

Thanks. Yess you could encounter various possible ways to work as prefer with multiples instances. For me the most annoying thing under ST is the search for one specific instrument. Is a long list mixed with others instruments with any kind of variations in it. Pff

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sure. makes sense to me. i usually bookmark as favorite when i find a sample or sound i like using.

Crowe said:

pushy storefronts inside of them.

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It seems the direction the industry is going. I tired Kontakt 7 player and see the store all the time at the bottom. Waves StudioRacks also has it now. An IA search front end for upselling you to other waves bundles.

Astronaut FX said:

I’m sure many pros see IK as prosumer grade and avoid them.

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For what I've experienced, they seems to have several top-notch products and many decent ones too, but unfortunately way too much (easily over half of their products) of that mid-tier copycat bullshit that sounds like basic stock plugins with a new UI. If you only look at those, that prosumer- impression is really hard to rub off.

I've recently fell in love with their tapes as well as the bus compressor which I find miles better than eg. the Glue. Granted, I got the bundle for cheap and wouldn't bought those otherwise, but I'm glad I did- there are lot of gems in that ditch if you're willing to dig around a bit.

IK Manager been sketchy at times.
Use to charge to download samples after period of time, glad they quit that.
ModoBass and ModoDrum pretty good but rest of the instruments I'm not a fan of anymore.
I like Amplitude, Tonex, T-Racks and Mixbox (need to revisit last two.)
I plan to get Tonex pedal one day.
Guitar effects are cool but only worth it if you get one pedal. Try to get them all and better off getting another company multi-effect pedal.

I started out with IK products back in 2015 - they (and WAVES) were my first entry into this now over saturated world of audio plugins. As such, I have a soft spot in my heart for them.

A lot of the bad reputation goes back to maybe 6-7 years ago when very often their first revision of new software was bug ridden (to the point of non-functional features) and their on-line forums and support were fairly clueless. Users (including me) would post detailed bug reports and they would be ignored or downplayed. And the preceeding comments about their old convoluted download/licensing procedures are spot on.

But they've gotten better. The newer IK Product manager works well. And they no longer charge for re-downloading of sound files.

Although I've moved on to UAD and Plugin Alliance for most of my audio effect plugin needs, I still use a few of the T-Racks effects and occasionally crank out SampleTank 3 (yes 3!) to use as a bread and butter rompler for quick and dirty rough mixes of original pop/light jazz songs.