PlanetZ forums - scopeusers.com

Shark devices? Are they same generation? Like pulsar or xite?

The UAD DSPs (21369) are the same as in the Xite-1 (DSP 7-18). As this Sharc DSP was introduced around 2004, anything older wouldn't have a 21369.

No matter what number there is on the shark, they are gold! And certainly the software is the most important thing. I connected now all parts of my studio now, and all starts to get working again. I updated a lot of things and downgraded too, went back to Hardware because software alone is not sexy enough. Scope makes it easy to use all the beautiful things together. UAD succs in this discipline, because they only sell the relabeled software fake and pull peoples money out of their pockets.

Both SCOPE and UAD Use the same dsp's BUT there are several key differences one of wich makes SCOPE XITE-1 significantly more powerfull.

1. XITE-1 uses 21369 dsp's like UAD but XITE-1's dsp's are underclocked by about 15% for compatibility with older dsp's wich are the old and less powerfull dsp's used in the old pci cards (XITE-1 has 6 old dsp's combined wuth 12 newer 21369 dsp's for a total of 18 dsp's). I think the UAD dsp's are running at 400MHz while XITE-1's dsp's are running at 333MHz. This underclocking gives UAD a small advantage over XITE-1 in single core dsp power.

2. XITE-1 has a extremely huge advantage over UAD because SCOPE plugins can span multiple dsp's for power usage. A single SCOPE plugin can draw power from multiple dsp's but a UAD plugin can only draw power from one dsp. Spanning dsp's is needed for big complex synths and their multiple voices but also it allows for more complex effects designs. Of course spanning can also bring phase and error problems if not carefull. Because uad uses same SHARC chips as SCOPE spanning is possible with UAD but it has not been coded into its plafform yet.

3. As a single unit XITE-1 has more power than a single UAD card since it uses way more dsp's. XITE-1's 18 dsp's come out to 25GFLOPS while UAD Octo uses only 8 dsp's for a total of 19.2GFLOPS. XITE-1 is more powerfull than UAD when comparing single units since it uses more dsp's than UAD.

4. While XITE has the advantage as a single unit UAD has a cascading advantage wich allows for multiple UAD cards to be combined into one system, this is UAD's big advantage (but honestly I'd rather have a very powerfull single unit then multiple units cascaded wich has its own set of problems. If you need 4 cards combined to have enough power then that's a sign your platform is underpowered).

5. As far as REALtime power goes XITE-1 is by far more powerfull in single unit comparisons since UAD only has the Apollo's wich largest amount of dsp's is the Quad (their Octo's are only for the high-latency-cards and are NOT in their Apollo REALtime interfaces). XITE-1 has waay more REALtime power thus it allows for ALOT more to be done at ultra-low-latency since uad's biggest dsp unit is not available for the Apollo's.


EDITED

Hi,

UAD can work with an Apple Mac but now can work with Windows 10 x64 on Thunderbolt 2 / 3 - If someone had both Scope and Xite then that is the best!

UAD is simpler in signal flow / routing which is good but not as flexible. There are no synthesizers or samplers - So if one had to be chosen over the other - I'd be with Scope of course as it's just so much more versatile.

A lot of the UAD plugins may be available as VST plugins with Waves to be used natively - And Waves too offer some hardware to run the plugins off - That's one too many for me - I'm out - - technology overload!!!

Anabelle wrote about being happy with the equipment and not selling it and learning to use it all correctly.

Scope is awesome - Another trip down memory lane - When I got the Pulsar 2 and Power Sampler card back in 1999 - I bought it because the Computer Music magazine quoted it being "the best sound card on the face of the planet" - I knew it would take lots of learning because everything needs configuring

Pulsar 2 MIDI source - err what come again - But I've got these cards still and added a Scope Pro in 2008 along with ADAT expansion plate for the Power Sampler and 2 x Luna II boxes and a 14 / 15 DSP expansion card and of course an Xite-1

Scope!!! -

Great sounding plug ins too, but no real MIDI Control of vital parameters and their mixer Console 2 is beaten silly by Scope and 3rd party mixers like SpaceF Wolf RoyT, etc.

The iOS iPad controller sucks as well.
For all of the development they've done with plug ins and the money they've made you'd think they'd break down and put MIDI in their static boxes.

RME has better routing than UAD with Total Mix, but their FX Suck, and again they can't afford a MIDI Control added. Why have MIDI.....?
Oh, to recall static mixer presets.

Face it guys, were way ahead of the game and nobody will ever catch up as this type of control and Synths mixers FX MIDI Devices and Modular would be too expensive to reproduce.

Yes Scope is ahead of the game dawman which is good! - UAD could make a synth or two or a sampler or two if they wanted to but would they be as good VSTi that already exist? - There are some excellent VSTi from NI, Arturia etc....

I don't see anything wrong with the fixed signal path of UAD it's just not as flexible as Scope - A few years ago I was talking to someone on the RME forum who mentioned he'd really like to be able to add synths like with Scope so he felt he was missing out on something even though RME audio interfaces are very good

People won't have heard of Scope now so much if it is not advertised in the music tech magazines and even if they have lack of development would put them off.

When I got my first card in 1998-1999 advertising was present as were magazine articles and when I bought it I knew it would be a keeper