However, this being IKM, attractive sales initiatives are frequently mounted and the product can often be had for considerably less. There are three versions: SE, standard and MAX, which have respective list prices of $150 USD, $300 and $500. Authorization is via IKM’s online authorization manager. It has a standalone version and also supports plug-in formats compatible with all current mainstream DAWs. With version 4, ST takes another major leap forward in both instrument capabilities and scope of content. When IKM’s brilliant sample-based synth instrument, Syntronik, was introduced in 2017 (reviewed here), a version 3.5 of ST was also released so that Syntronik content could be played on it, although arpeggiation was not an option in ST 3.5. It was a full decade before ST version 3 was announced, and rather longer for it to finally appear in 2014 (ST 3 was reviewed in SoundBytes Magazine here). ST 2 had some sibling products like Sample Moog and Sonik Synth that were based on the same engine but sold separately.

A second release followed shortly after in 2003. The first version of SampleTank (hereafter ST for brevity) was reportedly released in 2001.

SampleTank is the venerable sample player (on steroids) from IK Multimedia (IKM), the initial version of which was released nearly two decades ago. Sample Tank 4 from IK Multimedia has arrived and there’s a lot to enjoy here with respect to both playback capability and instrument content.

Sampletank 4 max review