When an update will become true ?

cannonball · Post by **cannonball** » Fri Jul 01, 2005 4:25 am

i would like to pay too for
a quality update

ale

Bifop · Post by **Bifop** » Fri Jul 01, 2005 5:16 am

On 2005-07-01 05:25, cannonball wrote:
i would like to pay too for
a quality update

ale

I would even pay let's say 150€ for a SFP 5.0 with a simultaneous XTC mode + SFP feature. And I would get a 15Dsp card at the second they would make such a move... (hint, hint to CW);-)

Post by **hubird** » Fri Jul 01, 2005 6:09 am

just start creating a song...and you'll be lost in music

cream · Post by **cream** » Fri Jul 01, 2005 7:10 am

On 2005-06-30 17:27, valis wrote:
Because bugs exist software isn't stable and should be thrown out the window? Man I recall the bug list for NT5.0 (win2000). There's tens of thousands of the SAME bugs still in WinXP (5.1). Guess we should follow all the Mac users' advice and toss our pc's out too....

BTW never have problems with Optimaster here, but I also never use inserts.

I can't use my sts samplers in stereo because of phasing issues. The sts range is in this case completely useless because of that bug. And there's no workaround for it.This is not a tiny little GUI related bug, this is a hideous monster.

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Fri Jul 01, 2005 7:13 am

On 2005-06-30 18:59, Music Manic wrote:

Are you talking about Warp's Timeworks plugins?

yes, and as mentioned the low sales figures seem to apply to all 3rd party developements.

it's probably the most strange form of a hobby on this planet. Highly professional results with enormous amount of engineering that noone seems to buy.
But simultaneously the crowd is shouting for new plugins, innovative synths, better blah here and another 'but if it had... I'd buy one...' there.

honestly - the sh*t is just marketed the wrong way.
Sharc processors have a high regard in the audiophile scene. Whenever the circuit of whatever unit contains one of those the price rises at least for 1-3k bucks. Always.

under any reasonable constraints CWA only has an economic chance to survive as a high-end gear supplier (plus their custom radio apps).
Still they (and their 3rd parties) try their best to make this technology affordable for everyone.

They don't have to - and instead of complaining about a few annoyances that don't stop anyone from producing outstanding results with SFP, you'd better grin that you got it that cheap ...as long as it's still available

A combination of DeVice's ISON and Celmo's speaker simulator plus some ambience algorithms sells for 4k Euros as a dedicated box...

not to forget the 'updates' - how long do you want wait ?

right, better not very long

to get it out fast you need staff in at least a moderate headcount, who have to be working as a team though they probably don't even know each other in the beginning.
they have to be highly qualified, but also willing to work for less than achievable elsewhere.
if you hire them (in germany) you cannot simply fire them when the job is done.

and as frequently mentioned: CWA has some intellectual properties which are more or less their only assets - it's crucial for them that there are no leaks.

cheers, Tom

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Fri Jul 01, 2005 7:45 am

On 2005-07-01 08:10, cream wrote:
...I can't use my sts samplers in stereo because of phasing issues. The sts range is in this case completely useless because of that bug. ...

if you refer to the (constant) 6 sample delay then that's probably due the fact that each channel is processed on a different DSP.
It IS a bug in the context of stereo samples, but technically it's a feature of the dynamic loading of DSPs.
It is NOT restricted to the STS series, but can occur in any device - even analog ones

Yet I don't see a crucial problem. There's no need to modify all samples - a stereo sample delay in front the mixer channel will fix those cases.
Depending on the content of your samples (and the importance of a defined spatial information) I agree that it could become annoying, though.

cheers, Tom

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Fri Jul 01, 2005 10:57 am

to illustrate the blurb versus sales situation:

the thread Sonic Timeworks : Classic Plate released in the announcement section had over 17k views, but Warp69 sold just 135 reverbs in 2 different packages (according to what he recently added)

... his consequences regarding future releases are more than understandable

not amuzed, Tom

Post by **garyb** » Fri Jul 01, 2005 11:39 am

once again, the voice of reality.

Post by **Guest** » Fri Jul 01, 2005 2:50 pm

so true astroman well put.

valis · Post by **valis** » Fri Jul 01, 2005 10:45 pm

On 2005-07-01 08:45, astroman wrote:
On 2005-07-01 08:10, cream wrote:
...I can't use my sts samplers in stereo because of phasing issues. The sts range is in this case completely useless because of that bug. ...
if you refer to the (constant) 6 sample delay then that's probably due the fact that each channel is processed on a different DSP.

Its also something that isn't technically Creamware's fault, this is a carryover from Analog Devices' code & dsps. The newer chips and devkit supposedly have automatic compensation to avoid this, but it should be obvious that requires at least a major update and new cards.

Now there are things that Creamware could do to 'solve' this but it would mean that the sampler would have to lock large portions of its functionality to a single dsp chip, reducing polyphony and causing a reduction of dsp resources for other devices loaded at the same time.

RedMuze created Phasefix (and Phasefix-X) as a free tool to help users compensate manually, as most regular PlanetZ users know. The only downside here is that when dsps are reallocated (upon project reload or upon exceeding dsp in project and choosing to reallocate from the error message popup) your phase errors will move meaning that your delay will change or possibly even move to another channel/device entirely. This is mostly an issue when you start a project and insert delays, then go back later to do more work and reload from scratch. Usually once you have loadeed the project the second time (from your default project) the dsps will load the same each subsequent time unless something major changes in your project. RedMuze has also pointed out that the easiest way to deal with this is to ignore the phase issues until its time to do your final mixdown, compensating at that point.

cream · Post by **cream** » Sat Jul 02, 2005 1:51 am

So for these cards it isn't possible to make a sampler or am I wrong?

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Sat Jul 02, 2005 4:57 am

On 2005-07-02 04:25, stardust wrote:
On 2005-07-01 11:57, astroman wrote:
... had over 17k views, but Warp69 sold just 135 reverbs in 2 different packages (according to what he recently added)
hmmmm...

Whining or widening ?
135 times how many re-reads of actual buyers waiting for whatever ?

Anyway...
Paying for a (real) update is something different as paying for an optional, admittedly high end, plugin.

...
And... what about a deal of warp and wolf and onomat with CWA to make a real sexy update with high quality high end plugs ?

They sell to a higher number of 'updaters'.
Probably more than 135.
And CWA is lifted on the buckler by an euphoric user community.... like the sony oxford hypes of the pros and wannabes.
...
BUT...
Sell on reasonable prices to the adepts in spe and disciples.
...

17k views means of course less different viewers, and a lot of registration stuff is in this thread - yet the discrepancy between taking notice and ignoring the product is just too big.
And (as mentioned) it perfectly reflects the overall 3rd party and probably even CWA's own 'follow-up' deals.
btw the 135 sales are probably a max of 90 customers due to buying both.

you miss the point Stardust - it DOES NOT matter at all how good a product is.
it's brand awareness and who else is using it that counts (for sales)
Clavia and Access are on each and every stage shot you see in press and products like Reactor are constantly mentioned in interviews.

cheers, Tom

geoffd99 · Post by **geoffd99** » Sat Jul 02, 2005 5:56 am

Hi Garyb! What baseless rumours am I reiterating? As far as I know (from emails with CW) they have no developers on Scope... hence the recycling of old packages. Is this a rumour? They must have some people (freelancers?) working on the new boxes etc.
It is only a minor issue for us, but it a major factor for people considering buying Scope.

I am now very hybrid, I am upgrading the overall System (Scope + native VSTis etc) and not bothering about the oddities in Scope. A stable hardware system is the most important, this can be achieved, see many threads on here.
BTW, I have never had any trouble with Optimaster.

R.D. Olivaw · Post by **R.D. Olivaw** » Sat Jul 02, 2005 7:30 am

On 2005-07-02 06:56, geoffd99 wrote:
[...]As far as I know (from emails with CW) they have no developers on Scope... hence the recycling of old packages. [...]
It is only a minor issue for us, but it a major factor for people considering buying Scope.
[...]

100% agree
Exactly what kept me from switching to Scope.
I'll wait for CW Scope dev to get healthy again before buying this lovely modular system. Sadly I'm not holding my breath.

Post by **garyb** » Sat Jul 02, 2005 9:36 am

geoff, i think you have misinterpeted those emails. they are not developing scope AT THE MOMENT, but there are plans for new cards with new chips soon, after the asb project runs it's course. of course, this is just another baseless rumor.....

afaik, it is incorrect to say that there are no developers left. at the moment, there are some decisions to be made about the direction of future products which cannot be answered until the current hardware situation sorts itself out(64bit, new motherboard architecture/slots etc.).

of course, Ralf or better yet, Frank, would be much more qualified to speak about who is or isn't at cwa and what they are/aren't doing there......

JoPo · Post by **JoPo** » Sun Jul 03, 2005 3:01 am

Someone said somewhere in those threads : I would pay for a real update. I agree with that.
Someone said also CW is a 30 people company. But the last update was just a kind of illusion : almost just a new look. It means that since several years NOBODY between those 30 people is working on bug fix ?
If only one guy had worked to correct bugs, in several years, he would have been able to correct some, no?
And here, we get NOTHING, not even a small update, dedicate to 3 or 4 problems.

I never understood well the CW politie. Especially since they sale me the same plug several times ; without ever making a gesture towards me, a very very good customer.This prove that I now SFP is a very good product for me which I paid a lot of money believing that all this bugs would be eradicated later.

They too much and too often disappointed me, and now, I claim a bug fix update.

Sorry for my english.

JoPo

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Sun Jul 03, 2005 7:56 am

On 2005-07-03 04:01, JoPo wrote:
... If only one guy had worked to correct bugs, in several years, he would have been able to correct some, no?
...

ok, let's give it a try...
if 'several' translates to 3 (years) then this would give an estimated cost of 250k Euro in wages and job location.
if they charge 100 Euro then 2500 copies have to be sold to regain 'fabrication' cost of this product alone.

you may say: looks good - and affordable ( for both supplier and customer)
but well, there are another 29 members on the salary list - if you assumed 30

Since 30 is unlikely anyway lets reduce staff to a 10+1 headcount for simplicity.

this developer is supposed to contribute to the overall income of the company, so all wages and debts can be payed etc.

another 5000 copies sold would wash 500k Euro in the company's wallet - after 3 years(!). In that same time the rest of the company would generate staff costs in the range of 2 million Euro

this example assumes a totally optimistic value of 7.5k copies sold.
But you can be almost certain that no more than 2k would find their way to customers' systems, which wouldn't even pay back the 'developement' costs

CWA simply cannot afford such experiments - and no bank in western civilization would put any money into such an enterprise

cheers, Tom

ps: real estate is expensive in Germany,
as is qualified staff - if available at all (!) and social security fees.
multiply each Euro paid per hour by factor 2 to yield a value that includes all 'hidden' costs

samplaire · Post by **samplaire** » Sun Jul 03, 2005 11:50 am

On 2005-07-03 08:56, astroman wrote:
ps: real estate is expensive in Germany,
as is qualified staff - if available at all (!) and social security fees.

Perhaps moving the development to Poland would be the solution? There are many talented programmers here. And the real estate is not that expensive here (comparing with Germany). Other socisl/payment costs are also lower.

Naive?

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Sun Jul 03, 2005 12:59 pm

not naive at all, there's even a name for it near-shoring, opposed to off-shoring when picking an area where Firubbi is located

but that wasn't the point - and I'm not even sure if my numbers are precise, though at least the dimension should be correct.
I had the impression that the economic side is completely ignored, as is the technical difficulty. It's fairly easy for a developer to start a new, preferably well layed out project, but to dig into complex, existing stuff is pure horror.

the effort versus result ratio is often ridiculuous and it's in fact usually more effective to completely rewrite a system.

which in this case is (unfortunately) impossible - if there was a chance, someone else WOULD HAVE done it already.
I have no information about the historic background of the original Scope system and dunno how much is Analog's and how much is CWA's contribution.

anyway, this kind of project isn't a candidate for whatever outsourcing - obviously it's already difficult to handle this for the Linux part of the GUI.
A protection scheme must be omnipresent and very deeply interconnected with the processing code, otherwise it doesn't withstand attacks for longer than a couple of weeks.

obviously CWA is interested in continuing the product line - and we all know there are (strong) economic contrainsts and a few technical restrictions (first of all time), so it doesn't make much sense to demand the impossible.

cheers, Tom

geoffd99 · Post by **geoffd99** » Sun Jul 03, 2005 2:08 pm

Hey - here's an idea:
Why not rewrite the entire Scope system as a NATIVE piece of software that can run on anything.

(Inspired by trying out the Korg Wavestation, MS20, Polysix VSTis which actually sound same/better than the originals - I had a real Wavestation once).

Then you can use any interface, such as the M-Audio ones that also have a £240 ProTools sequencer; or EMUs new cheap ones... with Sonar, Cubase etc.

So have all the routing, effects, synths etc in a 'parellel universe' on the computer, linking to the sequencer/VST setup.

If small computers keep on getting faster and more powerful, especially for multimedia, then this would be a very interesting solution.

Compare running Logic on a G5 Mac with Mac Minis as extra processing nodes...

The original conecpt of Scope (or Protools) is based on low power computer hosts. What if the host computer is now super high power?

This is an idea for discussion, I love the sound of my Scope system, but I have also an M-Audio laptop system with VSTi only.

Once you remove the 'special' hardware, which these days is also cheaper elsewhere, what is so special about Scope?