Who cares about Noah?

braincell · Post by **braincell** » Wed May 28, 2003 11:10 pm

One great thing about the noah is that it frees up your computer for other things. You could just have 2 computers though. It would be nice to own. I don't have any more money because I spent it on Creamware cards, software and computers.

Shayne White · Post by **Shayne White** » Thu May 29, 2003 11:18 am

I don't think you need to worry about CreamWare's advertising for Noah. Ever since it was finally announced at NAMM I keep seeing CW's name everywhere. Noah got a high rating at Harmony Central, and suddenly all the music magazines are reviewing SFP and giving it rave reviews. CW is putting fancy ads in the music magazines as well. There's certainly a lot of hype surrounding Noah, so I hope it sells well.

Noah is a good way to boost DSP power if you already have three cards -- and it comes with tons of plugins! I think it's a pretty good deal -- how much does a MiniMoog sell for?

Shayne

kensuguro · Post by **kensuguro** » Thu May 29, 2003 2:30 pm

now that I have a G4 notebook, if CW releases an OSX version of SFP (or some sort of Noah control soft), then I'd just connect the G4 to Noah with USB, and have a very portable studio solution. I'd be interested in that.

BUT, of course, all plugins would have to be compatible with SFP and Noah, and also all my SFP mod patches would have to be usable in Noah. Otherwise, it's of no use I think.

Michu · Post by **Michu** » Thu May 29, 2003 3:13 pm

...and also all my SFP mod patches would have to be usable in Noah...

so true

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Thu May 29, 2003 4:56 pm

Noah it's not for us, composers, it's for those playing life, this is what I think. Am I wrong? Unless you use it as your main do-it-all keyboard, like Ken does with its Triton.

mythalethe · Post by **mythalethe** » Sun Jun 01, 2003 5:34 am

The simple thing CW missed is that NOAH would be irresistable for people who use SFP but want to take their carefully crafted sounds live. Instead, they made it unable to run SFP and third party synths. Maybe they were smoking crack or something. I would be willing to trade common sense consulting for a couple of Scope boards and an A16 ultra if they want to do better next time...

hopefully there will be a next time.

-myth

Immanuel · Post by **Immanuel** » Sun Jun 01, 2003 6:01 am

So can all you marketing people, who thinks CW did bad tell me, how else they should do it? Not in the "I want all this" way, but in the "It can be done this way" way.

What I am thinking of is the copy protection. If you could just export your devices to NOAH and then export them to another PCI card, then I believe CW would loose quite a bit of their income.

huffcw · Post by **huffcw** » Sun Jun 01, 2003 1:16 pm

It seems like with Creamware's current registration process that you could have plugins registered to your Pulsar boards and Noah that could not be transferred to someone else's boards/Noah (your boards and Noah would be linked via the registration process - just like two Pulsar boards are now).

This would allow you to transfer the plugin devices back in forth between your registered equipment only.

I think the main problem is that Noah runs a different operating system that is not entirely compatible with SFP - why they did it this way, I do not know.

The other option they should consider is to provide free Noah versions of all your devices you have registered to your Pulsar card. That way you have all your plugins on both systems and there is no need to transfer between them. Some third-party developers have already talked about providing customers with both a Noah version and SFP version of devices for one price - but everyone is still waiting for Creamware to release the development information for Noah.

Noah has huge potential - and it is very possible that Creamware will release updates that will add functionality and improve the system.

[ This Message was edited by: huffcw on 2003-06-01 14:18 ]

King of Snake · Post by **King of Snake** » Sun Jun 01, 2003 4:27 pm

On 2003-06-01 06:34, mythalethe wrote:
The simple thing CW missed is that NOAH would be irresistable for people who use SFP but want to take their carefully crafted sounds live. Instead, they made it unable to run SFP and third party synths. Maybe they were smoking crack or something. I would be willing to trade common sense consulting for a couple of Scope boards and an A16 ultra if they want to do better next time...

hopefully there will be a next time.

-myth

Creamware have already explained the reason for this. It's not because they don't want to, it's because it's just not possible. NOAH's version of SFP is taylored to actaully run on the SHARC DSP's whereas the normal SFP runs on standard Pentium/Athlon CPU's. Therefore, the plugins need to be adapted to run under these different circumstances. Same with 3rd party devices, it's not true that it won't run 3rd party devices, but they will have to be adapted as well. The question is how difficult this is. If it can be done fairly easily and CW is forthcoming with the details on how to do it, I'm sure we'll see 3rd party devices appear on NOAH as well. But first they'll have to wait and see how big the user base will be.
I agree that CW should provide some info on if/how/when we will see conversions of SFP devices to NOAH (and vice versa).

darkrezin · Post by **darkrezin** » Mon Jun 02, 2003 8:04 am

Also, I think that Noah has its DSP 'optimized' rather than 'dynamic'. This means that the dynamic allocation of devices, routing etc. in SFP is not possible. As I understand it, this dynamic allocation uses more DSP, and Noah was designed to be less flexible but allow more voices (kinda makes sense for a performance instrument).

I think that releasing Modular3 in some form for the Noah is *crucial* to its success.. It could even beat the Nord Mod G2. However, due to the reason explained above, it is perhaps not possible.

peace

BlackSun · Post by **BlackSun** » Mon Jun 02, 2003 11:32 am

back 2 topic:
Noah is interesting for live-musicains...
Are here any live-keyboarders?

This could be a gigantic marked 4 cw

[ This Message was edited by: BlackSun on 2003-06-02 12:34 ]

BlackSun · Post by **BlackSun** » Mon Jun 02, 2003 11:39 am

On 2003-06-02 09:04, dArKr3zIn wrote:
I think that releasing Modular3 in some form for the Noah is *crucial* to its success.. It could even beat the Nord Mod G2. However, due to the reason explained above, it is perhaps not possible.

thats it!cw,
are u listening??

caleb · Post by **caleb** » Mon Jun 02, 2003 9:40 pm

Well, if they need to rewrite SFP devices to be compatible with NOAH, then any time they spend converting something like Modular III or any of the other devices is time they could be spending creating new devices for the SFP platform.

With the quality of additions we've been getting from Creamware lately with MiniMax, Vinco, Modular III etc.. this sounds like a substantial loss for us SFPians.

Shayne White · Post by **Shayne White** » Mon Jun 02, 2003 9:48 pm

But if people who normally wouldn't be interested in investing in SFP buy Noah, then CW will get money and spend it developing devices for SFP and Noah.

Shayne

grotools · Post by **grotools** » Tue Jun 03, 2003 5:21 am

I just got a noah (for a few days now) and it kicks *ss : eventhough the interface is still a bit obscur - mainly because i didn't read the manual yet - it is pretty simple and fast to navigate in the menus. I expected something more complicated or unfriendly, and it is not.
The fact that it allows to run 4 synths (i got the EX version) at the same time is really great : i've been able to free dsp power from SFP by puitting the synths into noah ( i mean the preset, no exchange is possible yet, it's another format apparently). So SFP is now loaded with effectr and stuff (15 dsp board).
I got a project which reach the max pc capability. Well, i can now add 4 synths with no problems. (I have noah on a laptop with no soundcard)
The sound is also very good.
The fact that you just have to click on a controller to assign any of the 16 live knobs is just excellent (you 4 knobs, which act as 16 controllers).
I've been able to run a dozen of tracks using usb, may be i can get more with a fast usb2/firewire disk ?
If you can afford noah and if you use synths a lot, live or not, you will like noah i think.
I've also used noah with fruity loops thru usb (midi and audio thru usb) and had no special problems (usb 1 is not that fast so you may reach the limit after a while, but fruity loops is already a heavy load on that laptop).
Well, may be i'll report more when i know noah better.
Ciao, got some music to do now....

spoimala · Post by **spoimala** » Tue Jun 03, 2003 6:23 am

BlackSun, yes, there are live keyboarders here. Read my earlier post whether I'm interested in NOAH or not.

IMHO CreamWare is crazy if it makes developing for SFP and NOAH way too different. Being a programmer myself, I know it is a curse to keep two similar but somewhat different systems up to date. "Code it once and use everywhere". Maybe they just replace one bit to make the plugs not work in SFP but that's a different story.

Somebody said SFP is running on CPU and NOAH on Sharcs. Why on earth SFP Is not running on Sharcs also?? Would be a great option (at least for scope users)

Okay, there may be some differences on the platforms but plugins SHOULD be somewhat the same, only minor modifications.

King of Snake · Post by **King of Snake** » Tue Jun 03, 2003 6:51 am

Somebody said SFP is running on CPU and NOAH on Sharcs. Why on earth SFP Is not running on Sharcs also?? Would be a great option (at least for scope users)

And then how do you propose to run it along with the rest of your computer? You sequencer? Other audio software?
NOAH and a DAW are two different things. We'll just have to wait and see how much different until jumping to all sorts of conclusions.

spoimala · Post by **spoimala** » Tue Jun 03, 2003 7:04 am

Of course SFP UI will have to be a normal application but the engine - core - could be embedded into flash ram on CW cards and run on Sharcs. So they could have same plugs for both platforms.

As a consumer, I'm happy if they release all SFP plugs as NOAH versions (and vice versa) and if I buy a plugin for either platform, I'll receive a free key for the other.

huffcw · Post by **huffcw** » Wed Jun 04, 2003 10:15 pm

I agree that it seem logical to make SFP run off of a DSP like Noah to make them more compatible. Mpt a problem for me with 15 dsps. However, I wonder what this would do to the people who have only a Luna card with just 3 DSP??? To use part of the very limited DSP resources to run SFP.

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Thu Jun 05, 2003 10:18 am

you cannot run the visual part of SFP on a Sharc. You need a CPU for that in any case.
Only the final logic and control structures are loaded to the DSPs.
Can you imagine editing SFP on a 2 lines LCD display like your most hated piece of external hardware ?
But I'm seriously considering NOAH - I'm interested in most of the devices bundled and I like it to just switch something on without booting an OS first.

cheers, Tom