Reply To: IK MixBox – $19.99

[peter]

On Fleer said

OTOH these were upgraded to version 2, both Syntronik 2 and Sampletron 2 being only a few years old, which is why I’d think IK would launch version 3. Then again, maybe there was some intellectual property at stake, IDK.

2021, 4 years ago. I don’t find that at all surprising. Now, I only know Peter T from IK, and we’ve never discussed this with him, so this is not based on anything told to me from anyone from IK, but any product extension can fail to meet expectations at any point after release and be eliminated. Every brand does it, and if they ceased to eliminate products that didn’t meet expectations, they’d be bankrupt in no time. It’s just a bummer for those of us who enjoy these product lines.

IK doesn’t exactly prioritize SampleTank and related libraries / product lines (which is what those are, just Sampletank libraries with different skins and customizations). Sampletank 4 was released 6 years ago. I would NOT be surprised to see it phased out. The fact that a retailer — Humble Bundle — recently sold SampleTank 4 for $1 US isn’t something you’d expect for a well-performing product or even a product line you expect to thrive (IMO, that greatly devalues a sub-brand).  I’d love to see ST 5 come out that was deep sampled and in the same league as Kontakt 8,  Pianoverse does provide evidence that IK is capable of doing an excellent job at producing detailed sample libraries. I’d love to see it and it can only help push developers forward.

But a company can only effectively support, maintain, and manage so many sub brands, so when you look at the size of IK (it’s a small company) and consider its breadth of sub brands, it’s no surprise that it is going to have make tough choices.

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