Although both IKM (SampleTank etc.) and NI (Kontakt etc.) run sales and discounts, I'll stick to IK for this one.

I had bought Miroslav Philharmonik CE at a sale price and downloaded the CS versions of ST2 and Amplitude to get the freebies. Philharmonik runs in its own player or SampleTank.

A few years later, IKM emails me an offer saying that if I bought/upgraded to SampleTank Max, I could get another of their premium instruments free. STMax included a few already so I decided to check it out—a bit pricy but it contained a number of VIs that I wanted including the Alan Parsons Imperial. Ok...

A few days later, GuitarCenter.com sends me a sale invite. I check it out and STMax is available for $299. !?!?! I double-check with IKM and all I have to do is register my purchase to be eligible for the freebie. So, for $299, I bought STMax and chose Miroslav Philharmonik II ($499 retail) as my freebie on registering at ikmultimedia.com.

STMax included ST3. I was on MacOS High Sierra at the time and everything worked great. A few months later, I had to update the OS to Mojave for another app and ST3 gave me major grief.

So, I contacted IKM Support and they said I would have to update to SampleTank 4. Really? I just bought (and bla, bla, bla…). Not only that, STMax still included ST3 so what upgrade path were they talking about?

I was not happy but I downloaded ST4 CS to see if it would work and that's when I discovered THE PLAYER IS FREE. Not only that, everything in my STMax and MP II bundles ran great — and still did when I purged ST3 from my system.

Instant free upgrade! Support should have told me this, of course, and I blasted them (gently) on their user forum for not letting me know this.

Since then, when the $99 upgrade to Total Studio and another inexpensive upgrade to Total VI came along, I rang the bells both times. I will never use everything I own, of course.

The Alan Parsons Imperial VI is the main one my wife uses. Although there's a Bösendorfer in the living room, it's rare that we record it anymore. She has discovered the convenience of VIs and as her engineer, I appreciate that.

BIAB 2025 Audiophile Mac
24Core/60CoreGPU M2 MacStudioUltra/8TB/192GB Sequoia, M1 MBAir, 2012 MBP
Digital Performer11, LogicPro, Finale27/Dorico/Encore/SmartScorePro64/Notion6 /Overture5