Creamware goes hardware?

Flyerfred · Post by **Flyerfred** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 1:15 am

Hi there,

just to add something about "lego-like" customizable controllers: http://www.mawzer.com/

Cheers from Paris

Shroomz~> · Post by **Shroomz~>** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 4:52 am

Interesting that you mention the 'Mauzer' modular midi controllers. These have a clever buss protocol allowing modular connectivity.
The *really* interesting thing to add is that the same developers Raphael & Co are *seemingly* working on a deep modular enviroment for a certain programmable audio dsp engine. The interesting concept is that of modular midi controllers in conjunction with 'a' modular software enviroment.
So, build your own "wall to wall" modular software enviroment

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 5:59 am

not sure if they actually ship that stuff now, but a peek at their shop (and specs) pages reveals the (still remaining) problem:

it's too bulky, too expensive and not flexible enough in organizing function groups (of controls)
a Minimax style controller would be in the 800 Euro range, something for Solaris probably 1500.

a midi controller doesn't get any more operational just by equally filling an area with 120 dials.
btw you could midi merge 4 cheapo Behringers for exactly that purpose for 600 Euro

anyway, the mauzer system is a traditional industrial design and clearly shows the limits of this strategy - nevertheless the use of the plugs is smart.
There ARE applications for it, but it's not as far reaching as one would wish for real world surfaces of virtual instruments

cheers, tom

Shroomz~> · Post by **Shroomz~>** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 6:22 am

For once i actually agree with most of your points there, Tom. They also made a plug for the Chameleon called looper, which not surprisingly, loops audio

dawman · Post by **dawman** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 8:45 pm

After CWA releases several little ASBs, and is happy with their ROI, I suspect that the Solaris would be right in time. Everyone will have their VA appetite satisfied, and look more to the future of sound synthesis. I for one am new and still building up my system. But once that is done I would be happy to continue my addiction. But John B., could you make it look like an Oberheim XPander. It's the largest ASB I have. The only device that could force me into retiring that beast would be a Solaris ASB, with rows of lights and knobs. I still have several musicians and crew alike commenting on how " bitchin " the XPander looks in the dark. Most think it's another keyboard until they walk around to look at it.

Post by **irrelevance** » Thu Sep 08, 2005 2:38 pm

Who wouldn't want a hardware solaris! And if we are talking digital ie dsp technology I hope it would mean that it would retail at a crazy price.
I remember SOS giving a great write up of creamware pulsar and at the end of the interview it did say there would be a review of a new zarg synth solaris...never happened. Any comment john?

johnbowen · Post by **johnbowen** » Thu Sep 08, 2005 3:20 pm

On 2005-09-08 15:38, irrelevance wrote:
Who wouldn't want a hardware solaris! And if we are talking digital ie dsp technology I hope it would mean that it would retail at a crazy price.
I remember SOS giving a great write up of creamware pulsar and at the end of the interview it did say there would be a review of a new zarg synth solaris...never happened. Any comment john?

SOS never followed up to do that review, and I don't advertise in any magazines, so...it just got 'forgotten', I guess.

re: "retail at a crazy price" - do you mean "crazy cheap" or "crazy because it's so expensive"?

Post by **irrelevance** » Fri Sep 09, 2005 9:31 am

Woops..

I meant to say I hope it wouldn't retail at a crazy price, like we saw with the Harrtman Neuron, with a retail price of over £3000!!! Most decent analogs retail for less than this!
If the Solaris could stay within the current range of £1200-1500 (with expansions?) It would eat any competition. If anymore then I guess it comes down to market strategy. But I wouldn't know about that :/

Anyway a Bowen signature series would no doubt shift units

Music Manic · Post by **Music Manic** » Fri Sep 09, 2005 11:48 am

Are there any sound demos of Solaris?Couldn't find any on Bowen's sight.Thanks

Shroomz~> · Post by **Shroomz~>** » Fri Sep 09, 2005 12:25 pm

From what i know, one of the big issues with ROI verses actual sales ('units shifted') is the actual cost. In todays market, what will shift units, is if John was able to finance a run of 1000 pre-assembled PCBs made in Taiwan, Vietnam, China or similar. You'd be looking at approx' £100,000 with nice big graphical lcds.
With Cases, graphics, knobs, wooden side cheeks or rack ears you're easily looking at about £300,000 (A LOT OF DOSH).

Anyway, not including final assembly, you're looking at £300 per unit (maybe a little more if it's really fancy)

The next question would be, could John sell 1000 units from his website & cut out the middle-man ?? The reason is the 30-40% cut of final sales John would loose in distribution & retail, so it would be nice to loose this cost.

I'd say it would be *possible* for John to put them out the door at about £699 or 999 euro if done from his website.

Now that sort of price is what would shift the 1000 units in todays market, not double that price IMO.

Shroomz

johnbowen · Post by **johnbowen** » Sat Sep 10, 2005 12:46 pm

On 2005-09-09 13:25, Shroomz wrote:
From what I know, one of the big issues with ROI verses actual sales ('units shifted') is the actual cost. In todays market, what will shift units, is if John was able to finance a run of 1000 pre-assembled PCBs made in Taiwan, Vietnam, China or similar. You'd be looking at approx' £100,000 with nice big graphical lcds.
With Cases, graphics, knobs, wooden side cheeks or rack ears you're easily looking at about £300,000 (A LOT OF DOSH).

Anyway, not including final assembly, you're looking at £300 per unit (maybe a little more if it's really fancy)

The next question would be, could John sell 1000 units from his website & cut out the middle-man ?? The reason is the 30-40% cut of final sales John would loose in distribution & retail, so it would be nice to loose this cost.

I'd say it would be *possible* for John to put them out the door at about £699 or 999 euro if done from his website.

Now that sort of price is what would shift the 1000 units in todays market, not double that price IMO.

Shroomz

Wow! I don't know your background, but you are pretty darn near right 'on the money' from what I've been researching!
It's nice to see this actually a topic, as I've been trying to do just that - figure out how to get things done, and at a reasonable price, etc., etc.
Just have to find the right investors

Shroomz~> · Post by **Shroomz~>** » Tue Sep 13, 2005 10:34 am

On 2005-09-10 13:46, johnbowen wrote:
Wow! I don't know your background, but you are pretty darn near right 'on the money' from what I've been researching!
It's nice to see this actually a topic, as I've been trying to do just that - figure out how to get things done, and at a reasonable price, etc., etc.
Just have to find the right investors

John, i'm not worthy. I don't have a synth dev' background, well certainly not a monumental place in the history of synth design like yourself

My little knowledge on the subject of manufacturing a desktop synth is due to the fact that i'm currently involved in a small way in designing one. What has come with this involvement, is the participation in private discussions with a small team of synth developers & programmers. There lengthy discussions have concluded that the approx' model I described here would be one of the leanest. (apart from my suggested final price) Can't say much more than that for now.

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Tue Sep 13, 2005 1:52 pm

well, not to discourage anybody, but we should not forget the driving force behind ASB sales...
it's the fact that people can buy a (totally reliable) Mini or a Prophet (copy) for a lot less than original vintage gear without the risk of failing components.

imho there is a market segment for 500-1000 Euro devices, but something like a Solaris should be hard to produce under such economic restrictions, if it's supposed to have the traditional 'synth look and feel'.

the sound generating circuit boards aren't a problem (at least not unsolvable), but imho the operational interface needs a complete re-thinking into another direction to make it affordable without sacrificing creative potential.
Not sure if this would apply for market success, tho (if one could find a way)

cheers, Tom

Shroomz~> · Post by **Shroomz~>** » Thu Sep 15, 2005 3:53 am

On 2005-09-13 14:52, astroman wrote:
well, not to discourage anybody, but we should not forget the driving force behind ASB sales...
it's the fact that people can buy a (totally reliable) Mini or a Prophet (copy) for a lot less than original vintage gear without the risk of failing components.

How could we forget such a driving force.
Incidentally, it's only a supposed 'copy' in software, which surely makes it an 'emulation'. A 'copy' would have the same look & feel as the originals too.

imho there is a market segment for 500-1000 Euro devices, but something like a Solaris should be hard to produce under such economic restrictions, if it's supposed to have the traditional 'synth look and feel'.

Nothing stopping John going in a totally different & more futuristic direction design-wise, like Elektron have for example.

the sound generating circuit boards aren't a problem (at least not unsolvable), but imho the operational interface needs a complete re-thinking into another direction to make it affordable without sacrificing creative potential.

My comment above covers that

Not sure if this would apply for market success, tho (if one could find a way)

Anything is possible

johnbowen · Post by **johnbowen** » Fri Sep 16, 2005 7:57 am

On 2005-09-13 14:52, astroman wrote:
..., but imho the operational interface needs a complete re-thinking into another direction to make it affordable without sacrificing creative potential.

Tom,
This is true, and exactly why I was going to develop a 'Solaris Lite', as a model for what would be possible in a hardware package. At the moment, I'm waiting to hear back from Creamware about their plans for 3rd parties and the ASB system. If, as previously promised, the system will be made available to me to develop and sell a Solaris (Lite) ASB, then it should be possible to have something this time next year!

darkrezin · Post by **darkrezin** » Fri Sep 16, 2005 10:44 am

Maybe you could have a continuous rotary to step through the available modules/modulation sources wherever there are drop-down menus at the moment (I haven't actually used Solaris but from what I understand this is the kind of thing that differs from a regular synth - am I right?) and an LCD readout to indicate the module/mod source being selected. You wouldn't need to have an LCD for each 'variable' part - you could have 1 main LCD which shows which part is being changed along with the values being scrolled through.

Just want to add that if something like this existed, ideally with Flexor components, I'd definitely buy one. I'm convinced it would be a massive hit - a semi modular would be a killer thing. I can't recall any proper semi-modular approaching say an Arp 2600 as VA hardware.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: darkrezin on 2005-09-16 11:48 ]</font>

Shroomz~> · Post by **Shroomz~>** » Sat Sep 17, 2005 2:42 am

Darkrezin, that's exactly what i was hinting at with the more futuristic approach a la Elektron

It actually makes a lot of sense to go with less knobs like 8, 12 or 16 (whatever) & have them all displayed on a *big* graphical lcd.
That way, you could have a graphical page driven menu system, with dedicated page buttons or a 'menu' button & cursors or whatever for screen navigation. You turn a rotary or move a slider & a graphical version of it updates on-screen.

darkrezin · Post by **darkrezin** » Sat Sep 17, 2005 5:12 am

Shroomz - never used Elektron stuff although I'm really lusting after a Sampling MachineDrum

As far as 'full' modulars go, I love the Vaz Modular interface - drop-down menus for available mod source/dest points, and no cable spaghetti!

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Sat Sep 17, 2005 7:50 pm

for me the VAZ is in the upper region of the 'most s*cking designs of all times'

it simply drives me nuts in front of the screen and (if I remember right) I even felt some anger creeping up - dunno why

just to illustrate different personal prefs...

cheers, Tom

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Sat Sep 17, 2005 8:35 pm

On 2005-09-17 03:42, Shroomz wrote:
Darkrezin, that's exactly what i was hinting at with the more futuristic approach a la Elektron

It actually makes a lot of sense to go with less knobs like 8, 12 or 16 (whatever) & have them all displayed on a *big* graphical lcd.
...

well, leaving aside the 'big graphic LCD representation' that's pretty similiar to the original EMU Proteus 2-dial menu system

when I wrote complete re-design I actually meant 'complete', not a slight modification of the paradigm.

a (point- and useless) example: those six axis controllers from 3-D CAD ('space-mouse') could give you a bunch of parameters to be controlled by one movement - yet it wouldn't help much as long as there's no feedback provided...
big LCDs don't count due to budget limits

but just for the imagination: your synth params need a certain arrangement and scaling (already at developement stage) to use such a controller.
you cannot simply assign (say) filter adsr, depth and mod dependency values to arbitrary parts of it - you have to think about what will be controlled most likely and how does it fit with actual hand movement.

a strange experience regarding visual feedback:
The Wavelength Avalon synth has a kind of oscilloscope to visualize filter modulation, which I considered a gimmick at first - but after some time I used to integrate the patterns on screen into tweaking movements.
This went as far as I dialed the knobs to achieve a certain pattern in the first place because I knew how it would sound...

it was a real useful feature, so I thought this mght also apply to virtual oscilloscopes to tweak a modular.
I tried several but failed completely - the latter all display a sample buffers after the sound has been generated, while the Wavelength synth generates the display at least synchronous with the sound.

cheers, tom

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: astroman on 2005-09-17 21:39 ]</font>