PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows The Sampletank expansion sale is back. All expansions $10

Here it is:

http://www.esoundz.com/landingpages/sampletank.php?tab=2

This is a great deal for those of you who want much better sounds for cheap and this is why PG decided to include ST free with Biab. Having that installed allows a user to buy whatever expansions they want. This isn't like the $700 Kontakt synth plus their $300 expansions but still good, clean sounding sample sets that are way better than old GM synths like Coyote Forte, the TTS-1 or Hypercanvass and the like.

Bob

Bob,

2 years ago purchased this... OmniSynth 2 SampleTank Expansion for same price.
This was/is a nice all around pak.

Folks, make sure you listen to some of the demo's top right corner for each pak.

Great Tip...

does the SampleTank included with BIAI also work in other DAWs? Or only in BIAB and RealBand?

With any DAW that can use VSTis.

Thanks Mario! Well, then, there goes more of my kids' inheritance!

Hi, I'm a new BB user (1 week), read this thread, and went over and bought a couple of ST expansion packs (could hardly lose, for $10 each). Thank you so much for starting this thread, I never would have known otherwise.

Now my question - I've done a ton of reading and trying and watching and asking, and have learned a lot about BB and ST and ST sounds. My question has to do with how to load my new expansion packs on to my machine so BB can use them.

It turns out SampleTank 2.5 itself is installed on my C drive, which doesn't have much space. BB is installed on my D drive, where I have lots of space for where I hope to put the roughly 4GB (zipped!) of ST expansion files.

I can see the default BB/ST instrument sounds in
c:\..x86\IK Multimedia\ST25\
Instruments\BB\
(Bass,Drums,...\Synth,World)\*.stip.

The instructions (clearly out of date) for the eSoundz ST expansion packs say to (1) drag the pack folder to copy it into (2) c:\..\ST2\STInstruments\*, and then relist the sounds in the ST app or sequencer (can you even see these sounds in BB)?

1. I don't want to unzip 4GB of zip files on to my C drive under any circumstances.

2. What is the win7x64 BB 2014 equivalent folder for the out-of-date "ST2\STInstruments" folder on my modern machine? I'm guessing it is "ST25\Instruments" as I found above?

3. I saw a video for the ST2.5 app GUI on how to load new instruments by using the ST Prefs.. menu/dialog to set the disk location to find instruments. It's not clear if this path is (1) just to load new sounds, or (b) if ALL (both old and new) sounds must be located below that folder.

I'm hoping that I can point the Prefs... path to a location of my choice on my D drive, and that ST2.5 will then index all the sounds there, and add them to it's internal list of instrument locations, so that I can access both the default BB/ST original sounds, plus my new ones.

Q. Do you think that's possible?

Q. How do I make the OmniSynth 2 sounds act like a different GM synth? Do I need to load the sounds, then manually bind (my choice) of sound to each one of the 127 GM midi sounds, then leave those bindings alone from then on? If I do that, and change the BB default synth to SampleTank, then my new OmniSynth sounds should be used whenever BB needs to use a GM MIDI patch, right?

Q. And if I use all the OmniSynth sounds in the 127 slots, there's no way for me to use one of the non-OmniSynth sounds (say an acoustic guitar) in a melody or solo MIDI track in a BB song, right?

I know that's a LOT of questions for one post, but I would really appreciate it if some expert could take a shot at them, and/or explain (why) there is a better way to do things, and what I should be doing as a newbie.

Thank you for your help. There's a HUGE amount of info to learn and to process with BB/ST/expansion packs, MIDIs, and importing MIDIs to melody/solo tracks, and binding them to better MIDI instruments than the default Windows sounds.

You do not need to install the ST sounds on the C drive. As a matter of fact you don't even need to install SampleTank on the C drive

I have all IK Multimedia SW (Sampletank2, Sampletank 3, SampelTron, etc.) and ALL IK sound/sample libraries for all IK SW, including all eSoundz expansions installed on my D drive (in a directory called music, which is ALSO where I have BIAB, RB, PTPA, Sonar, Jamstix, EZdrummer, XLN stuff, Native Instruments stuff, Reaper, …. essentially everything DAW, VSTi, or VST related installed.


Beware, if you install in non-standard places advice/directions and instrctions given later by others (e.g., eSoundz, IK Multimedia, forum members here,...) WILL NOT know that and will offer help based on standard locations. It is up to you to translate as needed.


As far as Sampletank and it's "prefs" path -it must find ALL sound & sample libs, including the HQ sounds BIAB installs, under that ONE folder "parent" folder (whatever that folder is). In my case, as seen by pic the folder is D:\Music\IK Multimedia instrument libraries\ …






As to how to use the GM Omnisynth add-on see this thread - Noel always has best pics and instructions


http://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=255403&page=4

Good luck

Larry

Hi Larry, thank you for your reply. Now I know that the ST Prefs path requires ALL sounds below it.

I did understand that if that was the case, maybe my best route would be to somehow uninstall / reinstall ST on the D drive, and then put my new sounds on the D drive.

But if I did that, I couldn't see how BB would be able to find ST in its new location. Would I end up having to reinstall the whole BB too, just so it could find an existing copy of ST?

And as for reinstalling ST, I note that (1) I never had an existing copy of ST when I installed BB, and (2) the timestamps on my C drive (ST) and D drive (BB box, etc) are identical (2014-11-14), meaning that I think BB actually installed SampleTank for me, except that BB installed it on my C drive.

Does my logic make sense? Is that how BB normally installs ST, on the C drive? (I know I would not knowingly install on the C drive, for sure.)

----------

While I'm waiting for your reply, I already (1) read the other forum thread you cited, and agree that it makes perfect sense, and (2) was thinking maybe I could find a non-BB installer for ST 2.5.

If I can find one, then I can (1) copy the BB-installed ST instruments to a safe place, (2) uninstall the C:...BB-installed\ST, (3) install my ST installer on the D drive, (4) and then repopulate the "default" ST Instruments folder with (a) my saved BB-shipped HQ instruments, and (b) all my eSoundz instruments. Then tell ST to relist the instruments, and then I should be ready to go.

As that other thread suggested, I should be able to get my BB projects set up the way I want using the default GM synth, and then at the very end just switch out the default GM synth on the melody/solo MIDI tracks with specific higher quality ST instruments, before generating MP3 files.

I will report back here if I find an ST 2.5 installer somewhere.

Ok, I found an installer for ST 2.55b on the IK Multimedia site in my user area, and proceeded with the uninstall on C: / reinstall on D: procedure described above.

When I ran the ST2.55b installer, I had to manually specify about 6 particular folder paths for VST plugins, RTAS plugins, etc. I just changed C: to D: in each case, and that seemed to work fine.

I had to copy over my saved BB-installed instruments into the new D:\..\ST2.5\Instruments\BB folder. (I had to create the Instruments\BB folders under the ST2.5 folder.) BB printed out a very nice error message telling me exactly where to move the folder -- I was impressed!

On the first boot of BB after all this, the ST plugin asked me to specify my Instrument path, and it picked up the BB-shipped instruments.

So I think I'm good to go on the D: drive.

---------

The only issue I have now is what is displayed in my melody track in my BB song. I had previously assigned a BB-provided "HQ 001 01 Piano, Acoustic, Grand SampleTank.gs" to the Melody track.

But I wanted to use a simple GM assignment, so I did (#106 Banjo). The banjo plays fine in the melody track, but now the melody track text says: ""HQ 001 01 Piano, Acoustic, Grand SampleTank.tgs Instrument: 106" (which is the banjo).

Is there any way to make the "HQ 001 01 Piano..." text go away?

I spoke with BB support, and they could not make the HI Q text go away, so the support person said he would pass it on to the developers.

Just bought 10 of them. Hope I have not been foolish, now Bridge lets me use SampleTank 3 etc. Can you use SampleTank 2 files in 3? Is it worth using 64bit stuff? Not convinced yet.

Yes and maybe.

The maybe depends on now much memory you have and if you already use the large 64 bit softsynths a lot. 64 bit lets you access all your ram while 32 bit limits you to a little less than 4 gigs so even if you have 24 gigs installed all you can use is 4. If you're running those huge sample libraries in the big name synths like Kontakt or Halion just one piano patch can be 2 or 3 gigs by itself so if you use a bunch of instruments that are all large samples you can see that 32 bit won't cut it but if you use hardware synths or much smaller softsynths that don't use the big sample libraries like ST 2 then 32 bit is good.

Bob

Yes, you can transfer all previous SampleTank patches into SampleTank 3 including the BIAB ones. There is a provision in the Main Window > Instruments to import Legacy Instruments. Also, in the Multi Window there is provision to transfer all previously created Multis.

Yes, you can transfer all previous SampleTank patches into SampleTank 3 including the BIAB ones. There is a provision in the Main Window > Instruments to import Legacy Instruments. Also, in the Multi Window there is provision to transfer all previously created Multis.

Interesting, thanks.

I already have Acoustic Guitar Collection 2, Vocal Collection and Omnisynth 2 Xpansion Tank modules all of which are very useful.

However, I also have the Sampletank 3/iRig Keys Pro bundle on it's way to me and I'm wondering whether the 33Gb of samples included along with the existing Xpansion modules above will suffice or whether it would be worth picking up any of the other 10$ offer modules?

Can anyone advise?

Thanks

EDIT: The offer seems to be over as they are now priced at $29 so please ignore my question.

Thanks. Very pleased. Now I've installed BIAB 2015 with new realtracks and run out of hard disk. Going to have to move SampleTank to my USB drive or have a rethink. Might have to move the real tracks. Anyway, all good!