A mild grumble+warning about IK Multimedia & Amplitube 5 Max

[[Nathan]]

There's a bit of a "oils ain't oils" about IK's packages. You buy Max and discover that it does not include the things you most wanted. Then they spam you to get you to upgrade to something like "Max 2" and eventually "Max Max" no doubt. The strategies resemble mobile phone company contracts after a while. Just tell 'em you're all maxed out.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

I stumbled upon this thread (very interesting BTW) trying to find out what would be in the Amplitube 5 Max package. Actually more like what wouldn't be in it.
I have Amplitube 4 and downloaded the Amplitube 5 SE package that IKM put in my account but was immediately turned off by everything being locked and not really that usable.
That being said, I see on their site right now that the Total Studio Max package is on sale for $150.00 which contains Amplitube 5 and a shit ton of other stuff. Seems like a no brainer but......... what's the catch?? I want to be sure as there are no do-overs.

Any advice / thoughts / disparagements, greatly appreciated

You’ll get a ton of stuff for $150, it’s a pretty insane deal for what you get vs what you pay. You might not get all of the most recently released stuff, and it’s not always easy to see exactly what is included vs what isn’t. If there is anything you particularly want, double check if it’s in there.

If you own none of it already, then it’s a great deal. If you own 99% of it already then you usually end up paying the same price for the last remaining bits as a new customer would for everything. Lots of companies operate like this. Just be warned if something comes out that you want that your options will not represent the same value as offers like this.

I actually think the quality of many IK plugins is better than they get credit for, but they have some long standing bugs that don’t seem like they’ll ever get fixed. Their customer service and support is generally pretty poor - you can file bug reports, logs, video demonstrations and steps to recreate the bugs and they’ll gaslight you or ask for more proof of it, or try to send you in a loop as opposed to fixing it. They’re generally quite stable but you just have to keep an eye out for goofiness, especially when using different sample rates or if you need latency compensation to line up correctly (like when something is bypassed).

IMO the products are largely better than the service/overall experience, so while you get good value with the products it’s the other areas that suffer. Another thing to consider is so much of IK’s product line is them copying products from other companies. Say you want a Manley Vari Mu, or 1073, or 1176 or LA2A, you can get officially licenced versions from UAD.

 

[JiveTurkey]

@JiveTurkey?

 

[Frodebro]

I successfully made it through 2024 without buying a single IK Multimedia plugin. Long may it continue!

The only new software in my world in 2024 was Fractal updates, so that doesn’t really count. But 2025, hoo boy. Native Instruments got a good chunk outta me already for both software and hardware.

 

[DaleCohee]

You’ll get a ton of stuff for $150, it’s a pretty insane deal for what you get vs what you pay. You might not get all of the most recently released stuff, and it’s not always easy to see exactly what is included vs what isn’t. If there is anything you particularly want, double check if it’s in there.

If you own none of it already, then it’s a great deal. If you own 99% of it already then you usually end up paying the same price for the last remaining bits as a new customer would for everything. Lots of companies operate like this. Just be warned if something comes out that you want that your options will not represent the same value as offers like this.

I actually think the quality of many IK plugins is better than they get credit for, but they have some long standing bugs that don’t seem like they’ll ever get fixed. Their customer service and support is generally pretty poor - you can file bug reports, logs, video demonstrations and steps to recreate the bugs and they’ll gaslight you or ask for more proof of it, or try to send you in a loop as opposed to fixing it. They’re generally quite stable but you just have to keep an eye out for goofiness, especially when using different sample rates or if you need latency compensation to line up correctly (like when something is bypassed).

IMO the products are largely better than the service/overall experience, so while you get good value with the products it’s the other areas that suffer. Another thing to consider is so much of IK’s product line is them copying products from other companies. Say you want a Manley Vari Mu, or 1073, or 1176 or LA2A, you can get officially licenced versions from UAD.

Thank you for your response! I understand what you are saying about customer support. I had an issue with version 2 of Arc Studio and while IKM was slow to non responsive, I did manage to corner a rep at the NAMM show and after sending videos and files and a bunch of emails got a free upgrade to the next version. Not a comforting experience really.

I am looking for Amplitube primarily so I suppose all the other stuff for the same price is a great deal. I use an UAD interface so have those plugins. I have watched some of the videos pointing out gain staging issues where properly achieving emulation of some of the amplifiers in the package requires a ton of input gain to get there resulting in clipping and other artifacts. I guess my main question is this: for $150 is there a better package out there for getting great in the box guitar sounds?