My experience with company driver updates in the past has been that until the hardware product has been superceeded or discountinued drivers are developed for the current OS. Sonic core are still selling new boards but are not providing software compatible with the latest windows OS with the new boards?
I think moxi has hit the nail on the head. 4.5 wasn't an update at all just a chance to rebundle old plugins. If you were a longstanding loyal customer who had all the plugins then 4.5 didn't make sense. So now these early adopters are being penalised it seems. I was still relatively new to the system and didn't have alot of the plugins on offer so I did bite.
I should also mention that 2 out of my 3 boards are second hand but my first card was a Scope pro bought direct.
SonicCore charging money for a *driver*?
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neuromantik
- Posts: 90
- Joined: Wed Oct 03, 2007 12:34 am
please don`t blaim the new company already, not much time has passed, some month ago everyone was asking for vista support, now this dream has come true to a platform that has been said dead for a long time.
I aggree that the platform has seen less invovation from Creamware themself in the last years.
The paradigm was building external standalone asb units, which are the opposite of the basic scope idea: a total flexible virtual studio on one card.
I think many scope users had less interest in the asb series. Why? because they are a step back regarding flexibilty and options in using the gear.
Don`t get me wrong. the asb boxes are great stuff, I like them and I`m sure they were commercial successes, but I just like the scope system more.
In my opinion the innovation was there from 1999-2003 until the first insolvency happend. From then on there only were new tools from 3rd parties, creamware concentrated on squeezing the platform into asb standalone products and leaving that platform as it is.
Now that soniccore is a small team consiting of original scope developers wyou can and should be much more optimistic for new innovation: drivers, software updates, bug fixes, new devices or even new hardware.
the pessimistic speculation that is put in here since some time is just unfitting.
I aggree that the platform has seen less invovation from Creamware themself in the last years.
The paradigm was building external standalone asb units, which are the opposite of the basic scope idea: a total flexible virtual studio on one card.
I think many scope users had less interest in the asb series. Why? because they are a step back regarding flexibilty and options in using the gear.
Don`t get me wrong. the asb boxes are great stuff, I like them and I`m sure they were commercial successes, but I just like the scope system more.
In my opinion the innovation was there from 1999-2003 until the first insolvency happend. From then on there only were new tools from 3rd parties, creamware concentrated on squeezing the platform into asb standalone products and leaving that platform as it is.
Now that soniccore is a small team consiting of original scope developers wyou can and should be much more optimistic for new innovation: drivers, software updates, bug fixes, new devices or even new hardware.
the pessimistic speculation that is put in here since some time is just unfitting.
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Mr Arkadin
- Posts: 3280
- Joined: Thu May 24, 2001 4:00 pm
Will there be many flavors of drivers in 5.0?
For instance Gigastudio 4 has XP32, XP32 w/ the LAA Extension, XP64, Vista 64, Mac OSX, etc.
I'll pay for it just to help support CW / SC, and of course allowing me to upgrade if I deem it necessary. Seems like the PAE / LAA 3GB switch was what the doctor ordered for me.
I Fear Change........................................................Garth Algar 1993, Waynes World.
For instance Gigastudio 4 has XP32, XP32 w/ the LAA Extension, XP64, Vista 64, Mac OSX, etc.
I'll pay for it just to help support CW / SC, and of course allowing me to upgrade if I deem it necessary. Seems like the PAE / LAA 3GB switch was what the doctor ordered for me.
I Fear Change........................................................Garth Algar 1993, Waynes World.
Scope is a wonderful system - we all agree with that. Even with all the troubles that rise from something more than a decade old, I'd still have no problems in reccomending it to anyone who's looking for high quality audio tools. That in itself is saying something about the quality of the work put into this - and still available. If we look here on Z, we'll see users still using SFP v.3, and they never needed to upgrade!
That, for me, is the best kind of respect a company can pay their costumers: to design and build a product that will work for a long time with little maintenance.
And Scope was never as expensive as Pro-Tools or other hi-end systems, so it is acceptable that the return of their investiment spreads out for a longer time. Most of us here on Z, IMO, would never have bought Scope in the first place if the price tag was in the same league as other comparable hardware/software. On the other hand, many "professionals" didn't go for scope because it wasn't expensive enough...
What we have is a quasi-affordable and very exclusive system. We get sounds that MOST musicians and engineers don't, and we have a community for support and discussion like no other. Even if it is not directly related to the company, it is of great added value, because it gives you true knowlege to tackle your own studio / musical issues. And this is probably the only DSP platform which is OPEN enough to bring forth stuff like Bowen's, Flexor, SpaceF, Wolf, DAS at ridiculous prices as well as great freeware like Shroomz or McCy's, to name but a few.
I think it's unfair to give this SCP5 much discussion until SC tells us a bit more about it. Vista-ready is important for new users, but I'd be more willing to pay EUR200 for better XP/Magma operability or OSX drivers than for Vista. But still, SC has to dance to the same music as their user base, and most are M$ dependent anyway. So, although I was happy when they announced Scope 5, since then, I have changed the way I think about Scope altogether - I'm perfectly happy as I am, with a PC dedicated to Scope, and something else (whatever that may be) for sequencing. I am free to face the future, and Scope has never worked better.
The "new" Scope will be just that - something new.
To answer the question "should we pay for new drivers?", I guess the answer is "if you need them, yes, if not, then don't". We still have to wait a bit until SC shows their hand in full. But I'm sure there's just so many Christmas Specials you can make until everybody has everything, so they will have to come out with something new someday.
All the best to SC, and to all you Pulsarians out there. You know who you are!
That, for me, is the best kind of respect a company can pay their costumers: to design and build a product that will work for a long time with little maintenance.
And Scope was never as expensive as Pro-Tools or other hi-end systems, so it is acceptable that the return of their investiment spreads out for a longer time. Most of us here on Z, IMO, would never have bought Scope in the first place if the price tag was in the same league as other comparable hardware/software. On the other hand, many "professionals" didn't go for scope because it wasn't expensive enough...
What we have is a quasi-affordable and very exclusive system. We get sounds that MOST musicians and engineers don't, and we have a community for support and discussion like no other. Even if it is not directly related to the company, it is of great added value, because it gives you true knowlege to tackle your own studio / musical issues. And this is probably the only DSP platform which is OPEN enough to bring forth stuff like Bowen's, Flexor, SpaceF, Wolf, DAS at ridiculous prices as well as great freeware like Shroomz or McCy's, to name but a few.
I think it's unfair to give this SCP5 much discussion until SC tells us a bit more about it. Vista-ready is important for new users, but I'd be more willing to pay EUR200 for better XP/Magma operability or OSX drivers than for Vista. But still, SC has to dance to the same music as their user base, and most are M$ dependent anyway. So, although I was happy when they announced Scope 5, since then, I have changed the way I think about Scope altogether - I'm perfectly happy as I am, with a PC dedicated to Scope, and something else (whatever that may be) for sequencing. I am free to face the future, and Scope has never worked better.
The "new" Scope will be just that - something new.
To answer the question "should we pay for new drivers?", I guess the answer is "if you need them, yes, if not, then don't". We still have to wait a bit until SC shows their hand in full. But I'm sure there's just so many Christmas Specials you can make until everybody has everything, so they will have to come out with something new someday.
All the best to SC, and to all you Pulsarians out there. You know who you are!
yes...
and please don`t forget the driver is for "free", only the few users that still work on older versions have to pay a fee, but not for the driver itsself, but just to make their version updatble. For the money they ll get additional great plug-ins.
If you are win98 user you cannot install the free xp service pack either.
Thats how it is isn`t it?
and please don`t forget the driver is for "free", only the few users that still work on older versions have to pay a fee, but not for the driver itsself, but just to make their version updatble. For the money they ll get additional great plug-ins.
If you are win98 user you cannot install the free xp service pack either.
Thats how it is isn`t it?
yes , it is...
As I've said, I will in every case keep my SC boards, and will finish this half empty beer, my head carefully glued on my speaker ...
I'm flamming more against the way SC communicate than about what they finally decide to charge us: we say here "chat échaudé craint l'eau froide"...
and this cat, walking for a long time in the rain, is asking himself that maybe this shinny Scope 5 sun is nothing than another unknow kind of cloud...
brrrr...
As I've said, I will in every case keep my SC boards, and will finish this half empty beer, my head carefully glued on my speaker ...
I'm flamming more against the way SC communicate than about what they finally decide to charge us: we say here "chat échaudé craint l'eau froide"...
and this cat, walking for a long time in the rain, is asking himself that maybe this shinny Scope 5 sun is nothing than another unknow kind of cloud...
brrrr...
I think scope 4.5 was really worth it thanks to the additional plugins (the new logo was just an "extra" 
). It is normal people with scope 4 will be charged as scope 5 will give you, obviously, scope 4.5 features + more .... That sounds normal and fair to me, really... Then, Soniccore does not charge money for a mere Vista driver feature for sure !
On the other hand, i have personally focused my money+attention on scope as the initial investment was, for me, worth it, considering the quality + low prices of many plugins (ex : third party). I have never complained about their prices for this very reason. Of course it is up to every customer to accept or not the upgrade ... You can also have a very stable DAW with scope 3.1c...
PS : the english translation of your french proverb (i am frenc too !) : "Once bitten, twice shy" ...
). It is normal people with scope 4 will be charged as scope 5 will give you, obviously, scope 4.5 features + more .... That sounds normal and fair to me, really... Then, Soniccore does not charge money for a mere Vista driver feature for sure ! On the other hand, i have personally focused my money+attention on scope as the initial investment was, for me, worth it, considering the quality + low prices of many plugins (ex : third party). I have never complained about their prices for this very reason. Of course it is up to every customer to accept or not the upgrade ... You can also have a very stable DAW with scope 3.1c...
PS : the english translation of your french proverb (i am frenc too !) : "Once bitten, twice shy" ...
I don't think my message got through to anyone in here. My point was that the Scope platform is *hardware*. The drivers should be made available for free, as they are with any other hardware.
I don't expect to have to pay for drivers so that I can use my scanner in Vista, or my drawing tablet, or any of my other sound cards, or my MIDI interface, or my USB master keyboard.
I've already paid for Scope 4.0 - I should be able to migrate it to Vista at no cost, or at least a *very low* cost, and not be *required* to buy Scope 5.0 just for the Vista compatibility.
I'm perfectly fine with Scope 4.0. I don't need 5.0. All I need is a driver that enables me to run Scope 4.0 in Vista. That's it.
I don't mind paying €200 for the 5.0 upgrade. What I do mind is paying €200 for the *driver* when I already own 4.0 and am perfectly happy with it, except that it doesn't work with Vista. Oh, and the fact that it bugs out with Cubase 4.1, which - if they've sorted that out - would be a bug fix, and I don't think *anyone* agrees with companies charging money for bug fixes.
All this said, I'm perfectly in agreement with most of you that Scope is a fantastic platform and it was incredibly well designed from the start to have lasted this long, and hopefully a few years more before we see the end of it. I doubt I will ever invest as much time, money and love in a PC audio platform again as I have with Scope.
In the near-decade which I've been using Scope, I've always been keeping an eye out for alternatives, new technologies and hardware. What I've found is that no other company has, in ten years, been able to achieve anything with close to the price/performance ratio that Scope offers. For mid-size studios and home users, as well as pro production facilities, the Scope platform is still pretty much unbeatable.
With Vista, and PCI-Express, this will change. My point of making a driver update available for Vista is simply a note to SonicCore that they should place the survival of the platform, and their company, before everything else. With the amount of Scope cards floating around in the second hand market, and many of them probably not interested in paying €200 for a driver upgrade, we're going to see a lot of casual Scope users choosing other platforms in the coming years.
I also would like to point out what a perfectly idiotic move it is for SonicCore to drop the "Scope" brand with 5.0, as it seems they're doing. They are now referring to their "Sonic Core Platform" based on "Scope technology". This is also a bad move, one which there is still time to reverse, and I sincerely hope they will. Scope is already an established brand, with tons and tons of positive feedback around it. To drop the Scope brand name for no apparent reason is simply bad business. It takes a far larger amount of corporate resources to build a new brand name than it would take to ride on the Scope brand.
But that's straying from the topic. My original point still stands: Sonic Core should publish a driver update for Scope 4.0 to make it Vista compatible, in addition to the release of Scope 5.0.
Sorry for my incomprehensibly long posts, I tend to babble.
Rant mode off.
Cheers!
I don't expect to have to pay for drivers so that I can use my scanner in Vista, or my drawing tablet, or any of my other sound cards, or my MIDI interface, or my USB master keyboard.
I've already paid for Scope 4.0 - I should be able to migrate it to Vista at no cost, or at least a *very low* cost, and not be *required* to buy Scope 5.0 just for the Vista compatibility.
I'm perfectly fine with Scope 4.0. I don't need 5.0. All I need is a driver that enables me to run Scope 4.0 in Vista. That's it.
I don't mind paying €200 for the 5.0 upgrade. What I do mind is paying €200 for the *driver* when I already own 4.0 and am perfectly happy with it, except that it doesn't work with Vista. Oh, and the fact that it bugs out with Cubase 4.1, which - if they've sorted that out - would be a bug fix, and I don't think *anyone* agrees with companies charging money for bug fixes.
All this said, I'm perfectly in agreement with most of you that Scope is a fantastic platform and it was incredibly well designed from the start to have lasted this long, and hopefully a few years more before we see the end of it. I doubt I will ever invest as much time, money and love in a PC audio platform again as I have with Scope.
In the near-decade which I've been using Scope, I've always been keeping an eye out for alternatives, new technologies and hardware. What I've found is that no other company has, in ten years, been able to achieve anything with close to the price/performance ratio that Scope offers. For mid-size studios and home users, as well as pro production facilities, the Scope platform is still pretty much unbeatable.
With Vista, and PCI-Express, this will change. My point of making a driver update available for Vista is simply a note to SonicCore that they should place the survival of the platform, and their company, before everything else. With the amount of Scope cards floating around in the second hand market, and many of them probably not interested in paying €200 for a driver upgrade, we're going to see a lot of casual Scope users choosing other platforms in the coming years.
I also would like to point out what a perfectly idiotic move it is for SonicCore to drop the "Scope" brand with 5.0, as it seems they're doing. They are now referring to their "Sonic Core Platform" based on "Scope technology". This is also a bad move, one which there is still time to reverse, and I sincerely hope they will. Scope is already an established brand, with tons and tons of positive feedback around it. To drop the Scope brand name for no apparent reason is simply bad business. It takes a far larger amount of corporate resources to build a new brand name than it would take to ride on the Scope brand.
But that's straying from the topic. My original point still stands: Sonic Core should publish a driver update for Scope 4.0 to make it Vista compatible, in addition to the release of Scope 5.0.
Sorry for my incomprehensibly long posts, I tend to babble.
Rant mode off.
Cheers!
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
1 x Scope Project, 2 x Scope Home, 1 x A16 Ultra, 1 x Luna 2496 I/O Box
1 x Scope Project, 2 x Scope Home, 1 x A16 Ultra, 1 x Luna 2496 I/O Box
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Mr Arkadin
- Posts: 3280
- Joined: Thu May 24, 2001 4:00 pm
Well you assume the bug fault is with Scope. Ask Steiny for the money for your Scope upgarde - it's most probably their problem seeing as everyone had stable platforms for years and suddenly with 4.1 lots of systems (other than Scope) aren't coping - where do you think the fault lies?dragonfly wrote: I don't mind paying €200 for the 5.0 upgrade. What I do mind is paying €200 for the *driver* when I already own 4.0 and am perfectly happy with it, except that it doesn't work with Vista. Oh, and the fact that it bugs out with Cubase 4.1, which - if they've sorted that out - would be a bug fix, and I don't think *anyone* agrees with companies charging money for bug fixes.
Well to be honest those casual users probably wouldn't buy a plugin synth at €198 either (they'll probably have a bundle thrown in) so they're probably inputting zero finance to S|C anyway.dragonfly wrote: With the amount of Scope cards floating around in the second hand market, and many of them probably not interested in paying €200 for a driver upgrade, we're going to see a lot of casual Scope users choosing other platforms in the coming years.
Most people i know that are even vaguely aware of the Scope platform still call it Pulsar, i think you hold too much importance on the Scope brand. In fact if they went back to calling it Pulsar most people would be more generally aware of its continued existence.dragonfly wrote: I also would like to point out what a perfectly idiotic move it is for SonicCore to drop the "Scope" brand with 5.0, as it seems they're doing. They are now referring to their "Sonic Core Platform" based on "Scope technology". This is also a bad move, one which there is still time to reverse, and I sincerely hope they will. Scope is already an established brand, with tons and tons of positive feedback around it.
Given that most users here seem happy to stay with XP i am assuming that S|C will be including some sweetener devices or a couple of new features to entice us to upgrade, as Vista drivers isn't really going to entice many people. If Vista drivers is really all the upgrade is then why bother with it (unless you must 'upgrade' to Vista).
I don't agree with that.dragonfly wrote:I don't think my message got through to anyone in here. My point was that the Scope platform is *hardware*. The drivers should be made available for free, as they are with any other hardware.
I don't expect to have to pay for drivers so that I can use my scanner in Vista, or my drawing tablet, or any of my other sound cards, or my MIDI interface, or my USB master keyboard.
I have several "big brand" pieces of hardware for which these huge companies never produced drivers for win XP 64 (some of them had like 6 months time when XP 64 appeared in the market). I contacted the support and they said "well, if you want to use XP 64 then you can choose from any of our recent pieces of hardware that have drivers, of course, you have to pay for them".
So I got free drivers but had to pay for new hardware.
They never supported XP 64 nor vista on those equipments (webcams, printers, scanners, graphics cards and the list goes on).
As it has been said, Vista didn't exist when pulsar/scope/sc/whatever_you_want_to_call_them cards were launched.. so SC could easily bring up a new card and say "if you want vista, then you've to buy this brand new card".. Instead they are giving you the free update if you purchased scope 4.5, or an affordable upgrade which will certainbly include all the extra plugins that 4.5 included, which seems more than fair.
Second: nobody, I repeat: * N O B O D Y * is taking vista seriously out there in the corporate world.. I work in IT for fortune 500 and also small, human-sized companies, and they're all still sticking to XP and praying for SP3 to come out so they can hopefully avoid vista and switch to the next version in a couple of years time... remember windows ME back in 2000? So unless you are a hardcore gamer willing to use the 2 or 3 games that actually made some use of DX10, and assuming that you paid 1000 bucks for the latest NVidia card that supports DX10, Vista is a huge piece of c**p that will only suck useful memory and processor cycles for doing useless tasks like the pretty clock.
Third: there's this chinese company selling a huge plugin bundle for two peanuts and a banana... I don't know the terms between them and SC and I don't want to know them either.. But I perfectly undrestand that SC might will to protect themselves against that, therefore they need a new release of the software with a new key handling algorithm.. This fact is preventing them from simply releasing a "vista driver pack" for 4.5, as they want people not being able to use the peanut-banana plugins.. To achieve that they need to add a bit of meat to the upgrade, besides simply "vista" support, but those are difficult business decisions, what can easily explain why "vista support" is the only "officially" announced new feature of scope 5.. Right now this is probably becoming a matter of survival for SC...
I agree with you ... I think that Soncicore was not aware about the indsp/useaudio product launch though... which makes me think scope 5 will offer more than the vista drivers as I do not think scope 5 is supposed to thwart this piece of hardware from useaudio/indsp...
As I have already said, I am deeply convinced Soniccore is working on bigger projects for sure and scope 5 and the new A16 ultra/XLR are just appetizers
As I have already said, I am deeply convinced Soniccore is working on bigger projects for sure and scope 5 and the new A16 ultra/XLR are just appetizers
I'm curious if one needs new drivers for all cards to use all devices on the cards... anybody has allready info about that? All this won't be as easy to handle as it sounds from first reading. I'm quite sceptical about the plan. I don't remember getting a seperate 4.5 key (although having purchased iot for one card), by the way, but I might be wrong. I own quite a few creamwarecards, devices spread all over them, so I can't believe that this procedure will be anyhow easy. Maybe we'll get all new keys for them... bravo ... I hope they can recreate those old sonic timeworks keys etc.
I hope the best for SC & all Scope users & the best would be two companies which work peacefully together or seperated, however, but without producing such chaos.
Martin
I hope the best for SC & all Scope users & the best would be two companies which work peacefully together or seperated, however, but without producing such chaos.
Martin
edit: ...waiting for the sun...
Last edited by moxi on Thu Jan 10, 2008 9:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
How you can blame soniccore/creamware for this is beyond my mind.dragonfly wrote: Oh, and the fact that it bugs out with Cubase 4.1, which - if they've sorted that out - would be a bug fix, and I don't think *anyone* agrees with companies charging money for bug fixes.
Every other DAW system is working just fine including OLDER VERSIONS of CUBASE. Do you read forums at cubase.net ? There is gazillion of people with bad time regarding cubase and latest 4.1 update. Imo you should read that forum. And someone even posted how you can avoid scope-cubase 4.1 problem if i can remember correctly. Yep you are not alone in this one.
That forum is my only reason why i wont upgrade my perfectly stable and "workingwithscope" Cubase sx 3 DAW.
Regards!
I'm certainly not blaming SonicCore. I'm not blaming anyone. I'm merely pointing out that there is a bug with Cubase 4.1 and Scope. Steinberg are saying the problem lies with the Scope drivers, and SonicCore are saying that the fault is Steinberg's. I prefer not to take sides myself, I'm just concluding that there *is* a problem, and it needs to be fixed. Both companies should realise the importance of this, and since Cubase is quite possibly the #1 DAW software used in conjunction with Scope, SonicCore should be even more adament about this than Steinberg. Because Steinberg have their own favoured audio hardware systems, they couldn't care less about small-time companies such as SonicCore making claims about bugs in their software. I hope SonicCore are putting some pressure on Steinberg, because they are surely in a much better position to do so than the user-base, which is getting the silent treatment by Steinberg, as usual.mpodrug wrote: How you can blame soniccore/creamware for this is beyond my mind.
I am extremely frustrated with Steinberg for their lack of understanding towards their customers over this issue. I acknowledge that SonicCore are very probably in the defensive position here, rightfully, but they need to turn it around because while the users are in practice a fly fighting an elephant, SonicCore are, so to speak, at least another mammal, albeit a small one.
But I am certainly not *blaming* anyone.
*EDIT* I missed my own point.
My original point was that if the problem lies within SonicCore's drivers, and they release a bug fixed version of these drivers *only* with Scope 5.0 and not for 4.0, then they are in essence charging money for a bug fix. I make no claims as to whether that *is so* or not. I'm saying, *if*.Let me say this before I'm misunderstood again: This has no bearing on Vista support; as long as they include a bug fixed driver for 4.0 under Windows XP, they have essentially done all they are required to. A bug fix is a bug fix, new OS compatibility is a *feature*. It is not the same thing.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
1 x Scope Project, 2 x Scope Home, 1 x A16 Ultra, 1 x Luna 2496 I/O Box
1 x Scope Project, 2 x Scope Home, 1 x A16 Ultra, 1 x Luna 2496 I/O Box