John Cooper's Design 4 SFP / GS3 Hunting DAWg's

dawman · Post by **dawman** » Sun Jul 22, 2007 8:09 am

Our beloved moderator has a heart of gold. 3 weeks ago I just returned from an expensive vacation in Tahoe and St.Louis which left me vulnerable to my disease. ( 3PDS, third party developers syndrome ). And the upgrades from the week before I left were costly but needed as well. John noticed this and saw me trolling 4 an Oberheim EDP as I sold both Echo Pro's which are only useful in a recording scenario. The EDP is for battle live, and w/ the 198 seconds of memory, and the Loop IV software, this is now a serious punisher of all comers. But John said why wait , I will send this to you till you are back on your feet. How could I refuse the Godfather ? So I humbly accepted this " gift " and will be able to pay for it w/ my session check Friday. This is another example of what a special forum this is. I am indebted to him, as he probably helped design this when he worked at Oberheim R & D in'95.

Thank You Brotha' Man John Cooper.

I have sold my production of the Hussies, and also received back some vital components which have now been incorporated into this mighty Battle Tank. Last week I received some equipment which I will sell, and hopefully I can be as accommodating as John Cooper has been to me. Watch out for old DP's and some serious hardware of yore. The TX816, and the other PCM70 will be sold here first. I shall give my fellow Pulsarians first crack at this awesome, ancient gear. But the Q20, and PCM91, are now in the back of MY Battle Tank. The new upgrades and added hardware sound amazing, as I suffered w/ a cheap MX200, and a Creamware A8, so my bitches could be happy, which BTW they have a 3 year contract now w/ a good salary, and perdium. I am happy for them. I grew weary of hearing them fight over dressing room mirrors like Chippendale dancers, and stealing each others make-up. I am glad I am a man, as I would make an ugly woman. Scope is going strong in Las Vegas,

BTW Olive ( DAS ), Your mixer for the Pro 10's and Sennheisers you made is sorely missed. I asked the lead singer/actress/dancer/choreographer if they missed Las Vegas, and they replied we miss the wireless, the 91, and the mixer. We shall ride again soon my friend.

Strength and Honor,

synthetic88 · Post by **synthetic88** » Mon Jul 23, 2007 1:05 pm

Oooh, PCM70. That's tempting.

dawman · Post by **dawman** » Mon Jul 23, 2007 2:14 pm

It sounds good through the A16 Ultra into Scope. MIDI program changes are very slow as the DSP chips ( 2 x Lexichips ) must load.

Does everything w/ DSP chips sound good.

John Cooper · Post by **John Cooper** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 10:41 am

Hey Jimmy,

Glad I could help fill some empty spaces in The Rig!

And just to clarify-- I started working at Gibson R&D shortly after Gibson aquired Oberheim, and after the EDP was finished. The projects I worked on were a massive additive synthesizer called FAR, hosted on SGI hardware, and an internet protocol for live collaboritve audio looping. Neither project ever saw the light of day - since Gibson shut the R&D group down and swallowed all the IP.

Enjoy that EDP- and post some new music for us to hear!

Cheers,
-John

valis · Post by **valis** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 3:36 pm

I recall reading some bits about FAR back around 95 or so (I used to do 3d animation on SGI IndigoII/Origin/Octane hardware in a post production firm back then).

I recall something about a line from a Suzanne Vega tune being resynthesized, but I also seem to recall that they had moved the code over to the Mac (or was it moved from the Mac to SGI, I forget).

Where's the clips Jimmy?

John Cooper · Post by **John Cooper** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 3:54 pm

Good memory, valis! We had a demo of Suzanne Vega's "Tom's Diner". It was being resynthesized on the SGI, and you you could control the speed from a Max patch running on a Mac, over TCP/IP to the SGI. The speed change was really natural. FAR was really good at this kind of thing, and morphing between sounds, etc.

Back in the day!!
-John

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 12:35 pm

oops, sorry fot the OT guys - but I'd like to grab this opportunity as 2 SGI 'experts' show up in a row ...

is that Octane (or equivalent thingy) with onboard Adat usable for something like Max under Irix/Linux ?
I never could figure out if Max would really run on the SGI, though it seems to have some roots in that domain.

cheers, Tom

John Cooper · Post by **John Cooper** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 12:46 pm

Better not be calling me an SGI expert!

NOT!
Valis maybe

I'm quite sure that Max's roots are firmly on the Mac.
It was only ported to Windows in the last few years...

So I imagine running it on irix/linux would involve some kind of windows emulation, etc.

-John

labou · Post by **labou** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 5:38 pm

I don't know about Max at all, but I will say even if it ever got compiled on Irix, I will stay away from having the idea of running it on an Octane. Don't take me wrong they have been super machine in their ages, but now you will find it really slow compared to any new pc running linux(Octane2 highest CPU were MIPS 600Mhz), also if it ever broke, good luck to find affordable not refurbished parts.

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 7:08 pm

never mind, John

thanks for your concerns, labou - I'm not much of a clock rate addict anyway, rather the reverse is the case.
If a program goes hick-up on my 1.4 Tualatin P3 then I just assume it's badly written

to be honest I don't remember the exact SGI model which had Adat as a standard option, but those boxes were sold in the 200 Euro range by several refurbishers here.
strangely they don't appear on eBay searches anymore, as do several other items I occasionally enter, like 'creamware'...

cheers, Tom

labou · Post by **labou** » Thu Jul 26, 2007 3:44 pm

I know the Octane model range(SE, MXE, 2) were all coming with ADAT on their motherboard. For the Tezro you had to get the additional RAD card.

It migth means that they are more going directly to the trash can these days, but if you find it cheap at some point be careful at the shipping price, the Octane are really heavy for their size, also make sure you have a video cable that comes with it since the graphic board connector is an SGI specific connection, might be hard to find now...