It appears Universal Audio could not do it.

[Warp69]

Let us see what the future brings.

Well - Softube is located in Sweden. Softube are probably the most promising plugin company right now. Just wait for NAMM. They're are talented.

[katano]

Ups, sorry for that, Scandinavia it is, then!

I asked them for a Tubetech Scope Version, but didn't get an answer. Who knows, maybe the question will be answered at NAMM.

Cheers,
Roman

[Warp69]

I asked them for a Tubetech Scope Version, but didn't get an answer. Who knows, maybe the question will be answered at NAMM.

Softube is quite busy - so they don't have time for the Tubetech Scope version. But is it really necessary if SC releases a VST integration mode within the Scope environment? Then you can combine the best native plugins with the best Scope effects inside Scope.

[kylie]

They don't want other people horning in on their platform other than the few developers they are working with. I don't think the walled garden approach is really working though either for the company or end users.

the "walled garden approach" is exactly what uaudio does ( we're still in a UAD thread, aren't we? ). no public sdk, only selected companies as accredited developers.
but maybe you just forgot about that... and tc powercore...

[Sounddesigner]

One example is The Native Empty 250 reverb compared to the uad emt 250. i can run about 16 instances of the native empty 250 on my Core i7 at 96khz depending on buffer-size but i can run about 21 uad emt 250 on its quad card wich is expandable to four quads for 84 instances at 96khz (too much money to accomplish this tho). A single UAD Quad is outperforming the Core i7.....

Let us not confuse optimization with CPU power - I could create an EMT250 plugin that uses 3 of your 31369 DSPs inside XITE - would that be an indication of how powerful the XITE is?

UA hired the complete Csound team from Analog Devices - they do know how the sharcs works - what do you think would happen if Intel closed the compiler/optimization department and I hired them all for optimization of plugins?

I want more power out here and i think duende kind of does'nt contribute to this, and companies like SSL overestimated computers capabilities and underestimated the growing of musicians needs.. I still would love your x-verb and several other duende plugins, i just don't think the company made a good move processing power-wise, altleast not one i care for. you bring your x-verb to xite and i think i'll do better with xite + computer than duende eating from computer.

I don't think SSL overestimated computers capabilities - Other companies will follow very soon - just wait and see.

As stated many times before - I would love to do something for XITE - really push the hardware - releasing the forthcoming 480L plugin with extras, but it won't happen. I simply can't do anything - I don't have the right developing tools and SC is apparently not interested.

Time will tell wich one of us is right far as computers being powerfull enough or not on their own, and how great some developers and users needs are and can grow . .

I do hope you get a adequate SDK soon and would love to use your 480l reverb on XITE. A new device from you belongs on XITE-1 and you and S|C i do believe can accomplish even more great things working together. Both you and them have very talented hands. I'm gonna stay optimistic and look forward to your plugin release, or better yet releases.

EDITED

[braincell]

It's rather obvious that computers will continue to advance. What we need is software development more than anything. Even if a VST takes a lot of CPU, you can easily turn it into an audio track and unload it. There is no more need for DSP powered synthesizers. UAD and SC have the talent to make great sounding software which they could market to a wider audience if only it wasn't dependent on hardware. This reminds me of Apple stubbornly refusing to sell their OS to PC users. They are shooting themselves in the foot. When Steve Jobs dies, Apple will reverse course and become a software only company; a little late since most people will be using a secure and fast Google Chrome OS on an SSD, also late because Microsoft finally got their act together. The Apple iPhone will be overtaken by various phones with the Google Android OS or some other Google OS. The type of computers we now have will be bought only by musicians and artists and will cost significantly more.

Yes UAD is a walled garden.

Greg, I said "a few developers". You only mentioned a few more.

Developers Developers Developers Developers
Developers Developers Developers Developers
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Last edited by braincell on 18 Dec 2009 10:22, edited 66 times in total.


Last edited by braincell on 18 Dec 2009 10:24, edited 84 times in total.

[garyb]

and then we'll all go out to the lawn for tea and sandwiches!

[katano]

I asked them for a Tubetech Scope Version, but didn't get an answer. Who knows, maybe the question will be answered at NAMM.

Softube is quite busy - so they don't have time for the Tubetech Scope version. But is it really necessary if SC releases a VST integration mode within the Scope environment? Then you can combine the best native plugins with the best Scope effects inside Scope.

Maybe you're right. I just don't like VSTs that much, don't ask me why, it's perhaps for emotional reasons, or I just like to have something different from the mainstream, which is of course the Scope Platform

Cheers,
Roman

[kylie]

Yes UAD is a walled garden.

..but that's not keeping them from being successful.

Developers Developers Developers Developers

absolutely

[Mr Arkadin]

Wow, don't think i've ever seen a post edited 185 times.

[King of Snake]

It's rather obvious that computers will continue to advance. What we need is software development more than anything. Even if a VST takes a lot of CPU, you can easily turn it into an audio track and unload it. There is no more need for DSP powered synthesizers. UAD and SC have the talent to make great sounding software which they could market to a wider audience if only it wasn't dependent on hardware. This reminds me of Apple stubbornly refusing to sell their OS to PC users. They are shooting themselves in the foot. When Steve Jobs dies, Apple will reverse course and become a software only company; a little late since most people will be using a secure and fast Google Chrome OS on an SSD, also late because Microsoft finally got their act together. The Apple iPhone will be overtaken by various phones with the Google Android OS or some other Google OS. The type of computers we now have will be bought only by musicians and artists and will cost significantly more.

Yes UAD is a walled garden.

Greg, I said "a few developers". You only mentioned a few more.

Developers Developers Developers Developers
Developers Developers Developers Developers
Developers Developers Developers Developers
Developers Developers Developers Developers
Developers Developers Developers Developers
Developers Developers Developers Developers
Developers Developers Developers Developers
Developers Developers Developers Developers


Last edited by braincell on 18 Dec 2009 10:22, edited 66 times in total.


Last edited by braincell on 18 Dec 2009 10:24, edited 84 times in total.

Then again you have to consider that without the hardware, the software becomes very vulnerable to piracy.
How much money would Soniccore be making if they only sold software? The software they develop caters to a niche group anyway. Apple doesn't make it's money from it's software either. A big reason people buy Apple products is because of the carefully cultivated image which stems for a big part from the hardware design (looks + usability). I don't think it would be in Apple's best interests to go head to head with Microsoft in the OS market for PC's.

[siriusbliss]

They don't want other people horning in on their platform other than the few developers they are working with. I don't think the walled garden approach is really working though either for the company or end users.

the "walled garden approach" is exactly what uaudio does ( we're still in a UAD thread, aren't we? ). no public sdk, only selected companies as accredited developers.
but maybe you just forgot about that... and tc powercore...

This industry is full of 'sub-contractors' - just ask Digidesign/Avid

[siriusbliss]

Greg, I said "a few developers". You only mentioned a few more.

Developers Developers Developers Developers

Don't worry. They're coming. A little birdy told me...

[astroman]

... Apple doesn't make it's money from it's software either. A big reason people buy Apple products is because of the carefully cultivated image which stems for a big part from the hardware design (looks + usability). ...

no way - it was software (and nothing but software) that allowed them to established their brand image
Apple was a candidate for an unfriendly take over numerous times, their developement department being their main asset.
But those folks made it unmistakably clear that they wouldn't work (effectively...) for any of the big boys, so such maneuvers were considered too risky.

This kind of superior software allowed Apple to sell numerically inferior hardware for a long time.
It also allowed networking with almost no additional resources on existing phoneline installations.
Most important fact was the (kind of) self-administering network software.
Again from numeric specs it was a lame system, but very effective on the daily job and idiot proof

Without their special software Apple would have never established any image at all.
this reputation still lingers today, though OSX isn't even remotely related to MacOS - in fact it's just the opposite

cheers, Tom

[astroman]

as it may not be obvious... and to bring this back to the original topic:

an external box like the XITE may not be such a bad idea even if high powered CPUs exist
there's no simple way to get a CPU to do just what you want it to process and not half a million threads of some obscure rubbish your OS vendor considers important.

cheers, Tom

[valhallasound]

UA hired the complete Csound team from Analog Devices - they do know how the sharcs works - what do you think would happen if Intel closed the compiler/optimization department and I hired them all for optimization of plugins?

Hi Warp69,

Where are you getting the info about the Csound team from Analog Devices? I know that Universal Audio hired a few people from the ARTC team at Analog Devices, which had once been Staccato Systems. Lots of SHARC and audio DSP expertise there, but no Csound expertise.

I worked with the ARTC guys, and was at Analog Devices for almost 6 years, and I was never able to find ANY information about what happened to the Extended Csound project. Any and all references to Csound were removed from the internal and external Analog Devices website. I know that Barry Vercoe and his son, Scott, had a lot to do with this project, but I have no idea what happened to the source code.

While at ARTC, we were working on a software program, VisualAudio, that was designed to create highly optimized SHARC and Blackfin code for audio DSP algorithms using a visual environment. I know that the UA guys used this in late 2004 to create some internal "proof of concept" work, where their algorithms were ported to VisualAudio. However, I don't think that VisualAudio was used much beyond that at Universal Audio. They might have looked at the SHARC source code for the optimization of low level operations (the VisualAudio source code was free for download at the time), but that seems to be about the only usage of the code today, if that. It kinda makes me sad, because I put some modules in VisualAudio that were designed to aid the creation of reverbs, like lattice allpass filters for creating nested and damped allpasses.

Sean Costello
Valhalla DSP, LLC

[Warp69]

Welcome Sean,

I got the information from the UA booth at the last Musik Messe - an UA representative told us about it and the development of UAD2.

You have already told me about your relation to Straccato and later Analog Devices

The developing for UAD2 card have been quite limited (non-existing) for 3rd party, but this has changed over the summer.

[valis]

I remember when the Extended CSound win95 board came out and some unnamed maillists had complaints about the win95 version perhaps not being well optimized as it could have been and at 1 dsp it wasn't worth the money. I do remember reading on the maillists that extended csound (when I was aware of it) also wasn't a full csound implementation, but none of that mattered to me. My dual PPro's didn't run Win95 terribly well (NT 3.51 & NT4 that era) and it didnt' seem like a good investment at the time to purchase a dedicated PC *and* a $1000 card (silly me!)

But one of the appeals when I first encountered the Pulsar1 a few years later was that it used the AD Sharcs as a realtime audio platform. And though certainly a lot more fixed in form than csound I probably wouldn't have taken the same notice of Creamware products had I not played a bit with Csound and been aware of Extended Csound. Ie, that led me to grabbing the Pulsar1 board back when it came out.

More recently I had heard through a few people that Extended Csound had played some role in the past of former CW as well. But while I haven't any more info than that anecdotal hearsay, it caught my attention. 2004 puts that quite a bit too late (somewhere between 96 & 98 or 99 I would guess?) so I would be interesting in knowing how that ties in and/or if there is some truth to that.

[valhallasound]

I remember when the Extended CSound win95 board came out and some unnamed maillists had complaints about the win95 version perhaps not being well optimized as it could have been and at 1 dsp it wasn't worth the money. I do remember reading on the maillists that extended csound (when I was aware of it) also wasn't a full csound implementation, but none of that mattered to me. My dual PPro's didn't run Win95 terribly well (NT 3.51 & NT4 that era) and it didnt' seem like a good investment at the time to purchase a dedicated PC *and* a $1000 card (silly me!)

I remember that the University of Washington had an Extended Csound card around 1998. The 400 MHz Pentium II computers that were put into the computer music labs around the same time were actually able to run Csound faster natively. So the Extended Csound card seemed DOA.

More recently I had heard through a few people that Extended Csound had played some role in the past of former CW as well. But while I haven't any more info than that anecdotal hearsay, it caught my attention. 2004 puts that quite a bit too late (somewhere between 96 & 98 or 99 I would guess?) so I would be interesting in knowing how that ties in and/or if there is some truth to that.

I am not a Creamware user, just a lurker, but I know that the Pulsar dates back to at least 2000. It is entirely possible that some of the Extended Csound DSP modules could have been repurposed as modules for the Creamware platform. It depends on whether the IP of the Extended Csound modules was the property of MIT, or of the Vercoes in some private capacity, or whether Analog Devices retained the rights to the SHARC ports of the DSP code. If the latter is the case, then Analog Devices might have given the code to Creamware, as part of the process of supporting a customer.

I wish I knew more about the whole Extended Csound story. If anyone has any info, feel free to PM me.

Sean Costello
Valhalla DSP, LLC

[valis]

PM? Why not add the info here.

I had also read on the maillists back then that the E. Csound card was slower than the computers at the time, and in some cases slower than a 486 even. However it was also claimed that this was due to it being just an initial implementation and hence wasn't well optimized yet.