IK Multimedia - T-RackS 6

[Despondo]

New version of T-RackS from IK Multimedia. $99 for current owners.

https://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/tr6/

8 new devices:

[Theo.M]

Cheers for the heads up...
From my end, almost nil interest this time. They really did me a bad turn recently, then to top it all off gave me the worst support I have ever experienced (top 3 for sure if not the worst), and there's genuinely nothing here that excites me. To some degree, SOME, the master match has me curious because it's not just an EQ match like all the others that do matching, but the others genuinely do absolutely zero for me. I have so many things that I love that cover all that ground and it just seems like more of the same. Their channel strip seems to be copying Flux's EVO channel which is already a good product with a team with great support (all 4 times I have needed them, sorted within 24 hours), and I'm beyond covered in all the other areas. And btw, on the videos of the Mastering Match I have seen thus far, it needs a lot of work itself.

The thing is, and this is entirely true, I have the one just before this, T-Racks Max, and I never use any of the plugins. I made a topic about it at Gearslutz once, cause even their Equal EQ uses something like 10x the CPU of ProQ3, with almost none of the special features that has - so what's the point? And I find IK effect plugins in general to be unreasonably heavy on the CPU.

The world raves about their tape plugins, another example, and all I see and hear are plugins up sampled to 768khz (16x @48k) internally without an option to change that, which is adding some sort of hi fi sheen to the sound in some cases (and making a true project "track to tape" multi track use on even 7950X and higher setups impossible due to the ridiculous CPU), because if they are pushed they do not even tame transient spikes. How is that tape? Tape rounds transients, period. The fact that I can add like 24DB of push into the IK tape and they don't do that, means to me (and others who have recorded to tape) that they aren't tape emulations. Therefore I think their stuff is overhyped, crazy expensive on CPU and just not all that wonderful.

I always go to the UAD versions of Neve, API etc, cause again, IK too heavy on CPU and they are not sounding better than the UAD. And so on....

I see a bunch of pretty GUIs here with cleverly timed uber sales, but nothing of note, bar, maybe, and I stress maybe, the new master match plugin.

[WaxTrax]

If you own a copy of Total Studio Max, you will be better off waiting until the next version of that is released and get TR6 with it. When on sale, the price gap between individual Max lines (TR Max, Amplitube Max, etc) and the TS Max is usually not that much.

IKM is tricky and they tend to run weird pricing/promo schemes with very little regard given to previous purchases. In some ways, it's like playing a game with them. It can be frustrating (and if you follow on KVR, IKM outright pisses a lot of people off!), but if you know the pricing games they play, it's not so bad if you wait for the appropriate bundles and sales.

[Steedus]

I have some of their stuff from big Group buy promotions, but previous to that I've never really trusted them as a company, as I've probably explained before, years back on their forums I brought up the question of only having a limited time and number of times to download stuff you've bought, after which you need to purchase the right to download it again.

A few other people chimed in that it was pretty stingy, and pretty soon mods were deleting posts which were genuine, but negative, and they eventually just deleted (not locked, deleted) the entire thread.

I never trusted them after that, but have dipped back in on super group buys for T-racks in the past. And, I actually like a lot of them.

[WaxTrax]

Decent products, but shady sales schemes for sure. I think it was earlier this year, though, they finally dropped the fee to re-download the sound libraries.

[Theo.M]

I have some of their stuff from big Group buy promotions, but previous to that I've never really trusted them as a company, as I've probably explained before, years back on their forums I brought up the question of only having a limited time and number of times to download stuff you've bought, after which you need to purchase the right to download it again.

A few other people chimed in that it was pretty stingy, and pretty soon mods were deleting posts which were genuine, but negative, and they eventually just deleted (not locked, deleted) the entire thread.

I never trusted them after that, but have dipped back in on super group buys for T-racks in the past. And, I actually like a lot of them.

I can't stand them as a company, they are only one of 4 I will ever say that about but for me to say it, trust me I really mean it. However, they DID stop the download token nonsense. You can now download whenever and as often as you need.

Their support is as bad as ever though. I've been dealing with a serious Sampletank 4 issue and they haven't updated it since 2022 and have absolutely no clue what they are doing. Not to mention they fooled me fairly badly with some trick advertising re a sale that wasn't a sale at all. That one's a long story. I also have 90 Jam credits and I can't use them (that's 90 USD btw) because they no longer sell them and every plugin is 100 Jam points. No, I am not kidding and they won't even just let me pay the $10 difference.

They are not nice people these days, even their tech "support" replies are an incoherent babbling disgrace, and that includes forum presence Peter who has a real side to him as I recently found out. They USED to be wonderful when they were a new company. Heck, the CEO was calling me from Itaty to discuss these crazy denormals in Logic and Sampletank 1 that I had found way back when on a power mac G5, and he spent AGES emailing me continually after the fact. Now I can not get a reply at ALL. Go figure. They've become too big for their boots and care about precisely one thing and one thing only now. Cashflow. Nothing more nothing less.

So bad. Sorry but I will never give them money again, ever.