What is Pulsar XTC and what does it mean for your devices?

Although most of you already know about Pulsar XTC we would like to say a few words about it.

Pulsar XTC can be looked at as a converter from native to hardware based processing and back that allows the user to integrate the Scope Platform devices into their native audio sequencers (at the moment there is a converter for Steinberg’s VST 2 interface on PC, adapters for other native plug in interfaces and Mac versions will follow).

To achieve compatibility with the window, preset and automation handling of standard audio sequencers some changes were necessary. Due to these changes there are some restrictions for the design of XTC devices. For example you must not use drawers at the edge of your device which expand your device's surface dynamically because the host software does not support dynamically resizable windows. Instead you may use a desk bar (or main desk) from which you can open all the other windows of your device - a technique used by the STS-samplers and the Volkszämpler. Another possibility is to use pages.

To allow parameters to be automated you must from now on create a parameter list. This is interconnected to the creation of the preset list, since the preset list is a subset of the parameter list. You have to tell the preset list which parameters it should store in the presets. Also you should be aware that some audio sequencers support only a limited number of parameters - so you might like to differentiate between the more and less important parameters.

There are three points that you should take into account to get your devices XTC compatible:

  • Modification of the surface, 
  • parameterization and 
  • generating the preset list.

We will cover these points later on but first let us have a look at the changes within the Scope /DP environment.

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