When an update will become true ?
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.On 2005-07-01 08:45, astroman wrote: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.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. ...
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.
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.On 2005-07-02 04:25, stardust wrote:hmmmm...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)
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.
...
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
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.
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.
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R.D. Olivaw
- Posts: 85
- Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 4:00 pm
- Location: Trantor
100% agreeOn 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.
[...]
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.
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......
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......
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
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
ok, let's give it a try...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?
...
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
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samplaire
- Posts: 2464
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- Location: Warsaw to Szczecin, Poland
- Contact:
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.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.
Naive?
Sir 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
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
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?
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?
i don't think that would happen any faster. in fact, to get the same level of performance that you have with the present system, you'll need a couple of computers and then the physical distance between machines is an issue. it'd be a step back, that would take longer to develope than just waiting for new/updated cards. there are thousands and thousands of lines of code as well as a specialized library of audio instructions that can't simply be rewritten in a few days, let alone developed in a year, even with a large crew. scope is an engineering MIRACLE that we take for granted because it's in our lives and works well.
new computers are very fast, yes, but the extra power is being eaten by poorly optimized code. yes, cubase sx3 has more features than vst5.0 or logic 3.5, but i can do about the same amount of work as when i had a much slower 800mhz slot a athlon, when it's all said and done. that's not to say that i'd trade my present 3.2ghz machine for the old one, my new machine is certainly an improvement, but it's not the improvement that the hardware manufacturers promise in their glowing advertisements or the sycophantic reveiws of tech hardware.
personally, i'd rather not see any advancement in hardware for a while and i'd love to see the present software optimised for a few years. THAT would make tremendous advances in real world work accomplished. the current religion of newer is always better really serves no one but the hardware manufacturers who get people to by new products that they don't need. this slavish upgrade mindset is clearing out bank accounts without giving the promised world in return, because as soon as the upgraded hardware is purchased, it is obsolete and must be replaced.
those on this merry go round are blind and retarded. i thought the purpose of all of this was to have a machine to program and record music, not have new toys every few months.....
make more music. make more money. spend less.
p.s. g5s are obsolete next year with the introduction of the new intel based machines. what a burn on those who thought they were purchasing the wave of the future.
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: garyb on 2005-07-03 15:37 ]</font>
new computers are very fast, yes, but the extra power is being eaten by poorly optimized code. yes, cubase sx3 has more features than vst5.0 or logic 3.5, but i can do about the same amount of work as when i had a much slower 800mhz slot a athlon, when it's all said and done. that's not to say that i'd trade my present 3.2ghz machine for the old one, my new machine is certainly an improvement, but it's not the improvement that the hardware manufacturers promise in their glowing advertisements or the sycophantic reveiws of tech hardware.
personally, i'd rather not see any advancement in hardware for a while and i'd love to see the present software optimised for a few years. THAT would make tremendous advances in real world work accomplished. the current religion of newer is always better really serves no one but the hardware manufacturers who get people to by new products that they don't need. this slavish upgrade mindset is clearing out bank accounts without giving the promised world in return, because as soon as the upgraded hardware is purchased, it is obsolete and must be replaced.
those on this merry go round are blind and retarded. i thought the purpose of all of this was to have a machine to program and record music, not have new toys every few months.....
make more music. make more money. spend less.
p.s. g5s are obsolete next year with the introduction of the new intel based machines. what a burn on those who thought they were purchasing the wave of the future.
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: garyb on 2005-07-03 15:37 ]</font>
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hubird
Indeed, my words Gary 
(except the last ones ).
Imagine Creamware Audio would come up with posts here like
"Hey Hubird, we didn't see a new song from you for months now, what's up, you don't seem to respect us who delivered the tools for that.
BTW, your mixes sound terrible, why didn't you use the plugins you have?
And how dare you to use our stupid presets, which we just made for you to demonstrate the possibilities.
We expect you to respect us producents, at least update your songs style, it's getting outdated already!".
If a musicion feels that he's seriously missing essential tools in SFP to be able to make music, he should concider an other hobby/profession.
If A doesn't work, I take B, or Z, I just want my song done
Bugs are a different story, but I hardly know one to mention, on mac then, so I leave that to you?
Hm, this post would also fit the 'What do we want from Creamware?' thread, as far as some posts seem to express some right for some stuff.
Not to offend anyone here personnaly, but you know what I mean
Man, making music (or patches or sounds or whatever you prefer to do) is way more fun than even thinking about what you'd also like to have, at least to me
Ah well, I know there's nothing wrong about brainstorming about nice future stuff, but the relevance of it is meager.
Eigther you know it's not realistic (say a midi-audio sequencer in SFP) or it just will not done by Creamware (say a new plugin).
Defining the right company strategy is soho complicated these days, with all the new computer related hardware changes and market devellopments etc.
I wouldn't like to stand in their shoes, as we say
I learn a lot from all the tecky talk here, it's good to have some idea about (im)possibilities (say, never a reverb on DSP, or my Pulsar in a G5 ).
I really appreciate that.
But it will never be an argument for me to stop making music, or to complain or demand stuff from Creamware.
Except OSX/G5 support...
But herein I'm excused I hope
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: hubird on 2005-07-03 17:25 ]</font>
(except the last ones ).Imagine Creamware Audio would come up with posts here like
"Hey Hubird, we didn't see a new song from you for months now, what's up, you don't seem to respect us who delivered the tools for that.
BTW, your mixes sound terrible, why didn't you use the plugins you have?
And how dare you to use our stupid presets, which we just made for you to demonstrate the possibilities.
We expect you to respect us producents, at least update your songs style, it's getting outdated already!".
If a musicion feels that he's seriously missing essential tools in SFP to be able to make music, he should concider an other hobby/profession.
If A doesn't work, I take B, or Z, I just want my song done
Bugs are a different story, but I hardly know one to mention, on mac then, so I leave that to you?
Hm, this post would also fit the 'What do we want from Creamware?' thread, as far as some posts seem to express some right for some stuff.
Not to offend anyone here personnaly, but you know what I mean
Man, making music (or patches or sounds or whatever you prefer to do) is way more fun than even thinking about what you'd also like to have, at least to me
Ah well, I know there's nothing wrong about brainstorming about nice future stuff, but the relevance of it is meager.
Eigther you know it's not realistic (say a midi-audio sequencer in SFP) or it just will not done by Creamware (say a new plugin).
Defining the right company strategy is soho complicated these days, with all the new computer related hardware changes and market devellopments etc.
I wouldn't like to stand in their shoes, as we say
I learn a lot from all the tecky talk here, it's good to have some idea about (im)possibilities (say, never a reverb on DSP, or my Pulsar in a G5
).I really appreciate that.
But it will never be an argument for me to stop making music, or to complain or demand stuff from Creamware.
Except OSX/G5 support...
But herein I'm excused I hope
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: hubird on 2005-07-03 17:25 ]</font>
I agree that Scope hardware is stable and fine, I think Creamware have no new stuff cos they think that type of hardware solution is a dead end. Hence the idea of a non-hardware based Scope software.
(PS Why are people on this forum so defensive/aggressive? I have all sorts of hardware as I run a business, I don't need to 'dis' other types of hardware or software.
Perhaps our comments will be taken onboard for future software releases, so just saying 'it's great - how dare anyone suggest otherwise' is not useful. Obviously we are all making music with these cards - or what are they for?)
As for the wonder of PCI cards, all this technology will change. As recently as 1992 I was running a Unix system with a mag tape backup device as big as 2 washing machines, that took 100 meg tapes, each took a long time to backup the 12 box network (we had a technician doing it, I think it was about 40 minutes - or maybe it was 2 hours - we left him alone for an afternoon (!)). 100 meg! I now have a key flash memory device with a gig on it, that I lose in my pocket!
So don't expect computer things to be the same in 5, 10 years time.
I am happy with my Scope setup (3 cards) or I would have got rid of it ages ago. But I don't think it is particularly state of the art, and its good points are not as important as they were when it came out.
As for rewriting Scope, it would be better to start from scratch. For instance, I think it is boring to have to 'wire' everything up to a 'mixer'. Why not have slots in a grid?
Incidentally I think v4 is an improvement, and the look of an interface IS important (user experience).
Etc...
But I suppose CW see that if they made Scope only software, it would have to compete with all the other sequencer/trackers etc out there, and that is a very scary place.
CW seems to have missed the boat regarding firewire, or add on cards like the Powercore thing.
Now that must be bad marketing!
We are a sort of captive audience, perhaps that is where the defensiveness comes from!
The other point is that now a lot of music production is never 'output' at all, it is made as computer files, which are converted into other computer files, distributed on a network, played on headphones, or in multimedia pieces, or films... in which case the studio concepts of 'fidelity' and 'high' sort of get lost. And CW / Scope is not the standard in 'real' (=musicians playing and recording) studios, making project transfer between studios impossible.
Yes there is also surround and DVD audio etc etc, all very interesting, and Scope has a Surround mixer, so that and Sonar should do the job for small spend. Not that I have tried it.
CW Scope is also aimed at the electronic musician, so they are not in that high end 'real' studio bracket, even if they are perfectly high quality for the rest of us (including pro studios, perhaps the smaller ones).
So yes it is great, but let's see what happens in music and computers in the 'outside world'.
(PS Why are people on this forum so defensive/aggressive? I have all sorts of hardware as I run a business, I don't need to 'dis' other types of hardware or software.
Perhaps our comments will be taken onboard for future software releases, so just saying 'it's great - how dare anyone suggest otherwise' is not useful. Obviously we are all making music with these cards - or what are they for?)
As for the wonder of PCI cards, all this technology will change. As recently as 1992 I was running a Unix system with a mag tape backup device as big as 2 washing machines, that took 100 meg tapes, each took a long time to backup the 12 box network (we had a technician doing it, I think it was about 40 minutes - or maybe it was 2 hours - we left him alone for an afternoon (!)). 100 meg! I now have a key flash memory device with a gig on it, that I lose in my pocket!
So don't expect computer things to be the same in 5, 10 years time.
I am happy with my Scope setup (3 cards) or I would have got rid of it ages ago. But I don't think it is particularly state of the art, and its good points are not as important as they were when it came out.
As for rewriting Scope, it would be better to start from scratch. For instance, I think it is boring to have to 'wire' everything up to a 'mixer'. Why not have slots in a grid?
Incidentally I think v4 is an improvement, and the look of an interface IS important (user experience).
Etc...
But I suppose CW see that if they made Scope only software, it would have to compete with all the other sequencer/trackers etc out there, and that is a very scary place.
CW seems to have missed the boat regarding firewire, or add on cards like the Powercore thing.
Now that must be bad marketing!
We are a sort of captive audience, perhaps that is where the defensiveness comes from!
The other point is that now a lot of music production is never 'output' at all, it is made as computer files, which are converted into other computer files, distributed on a network, played on headphones, or in multimedia pieces, or films... in which case the studio concepts of 'fidelity' and 'high' sort of get lost. And CW / Scope is not the standard in 'real' (=musicians playing and recording) studios, making project transfer between studios impossible.
Yes there is also surround and DVD audio etc etc, all very interesting, and Scope has a Surround mixer, so that and Sonar should do the job for small spend. Not that I have tried it.
CW Scope is also aimed at the electronic musician, so they are not in that high end 'real' studio bracket, even if they are perfectly high quality for the rest of us (including pro studios, perhaps the smaller ones).
So yes it is great, but let's see what happens in music and computers in the 'outside world'.
Maybe, but your ears will probably be the same, or a little less efficient, hence this hardware will still be fine for producing sounds and music in 5-10 years =POn 2005-07-04 15:09, geoffd99 wrote:
So don't expect computer things to be the same in 5, 10 years time.
As for the rest of what you say, I'd kind of agree, but there is already plenty of stuff that exists on the native platform. You can do full C development with Max/MSP, which has tons of already-built audio modules and tons more you can get from random sites. It runs on Mac and PC, and even has stuff to process video. If you are more the programming type, there is SuperCollider (Mac only, haven't been able to run the PC alpha) and CSound and probably a few others. There's plenty of other stuff, which will run natively on your hyper-duper-super-souped-up-CPU. Want grid-like stuff? Just run VST and VSTi in any normal sequencer? You can do pretty modular-y stuff in Reaktor, etc.
This is probably why you feel some defensiveness/aggressivity directed toward you, despite the existence of tons of alternative, you keep saying Creamware cards should stop being cards and that Creamware should just re-invent the wheel and re-code everything (which is usually, industry-wise, a sure way to shoot yourself in the foot and destroy your company.)
Obviously, these cards are not for everyone. I got mine for 2 reasons: dedicated and garanteed audio processing, and sound quality. Audio processing on a modern CPU simply cannot be garanteed, and will face all sorts of spikes and variations during operation, while something running on a DSP will be pretty constant in it's usage, since it's dedicated. This is what I find interesting, and this hardware is awesome because I can still use native processing as much as I want and send them thru ASIO, or hardware synths or whatever else I can dream of.
This rather pointless Faster CPU vs DSP has been going on for years, I remember people in 1999-2000 saying exactly what you are saying now, that with faster processors DSPs are useless, in 5 years no one will ever be using hardware anymore, etc etc. And I still simply do not feel compelled to ditch my cards for a purely native solution. Dedicated GFLOPS simply aren't the same as General Processing GFLOPS.
Also, the only reason a modern CPU can get anywhere near as much processing as it does, is because *there are DSP cores embedded with the CPU*. While I think this is great, I prefer to have my DSPs outside the CPU, for 2 reasons: there's a limit to how much of them you can put in a CPU (while if they're outside you can just add however much you want,) and because by putting them outside, they get closer to the sound interfaces/converters, instead of having to go thru cache, memory, dma controller, PCI bus, sound card, alien starship, etc (ie latency.) This last point is pretty important to me as I still plan to use hardware synths and instruments for a while, and really haven't been convinced that a MIDI + VSTi synth is equivalent (with the added bonus of dedicated hardware synths being much more stable - I've seen computers crash during a live show, I've never seen a hardware synth crash during a show (this being said, I've also seen some succesful laptop/computer based show, but they're still just a whole lot less reliable.))
You really don't have to use these cards as an all-in-one solution, they are just wonderful for both software and hardware. My Virus Indigo and Prisma are making babies, and I'm surely not the one who is going to stop them. I really don't see how you are stuck with anything, you are still entirely free to use whatever else you want with native software or hardware or fluffyware.
And the mixers are so good that I simply ditched my hardware mixer, which clears alot of space for synths and goblins, with absolutely no compromise in mixing quality. You can still use all-VST plugins and mix with the mixers if you want, you can use as many VSTi's as you can on your CPU, and shove them straight to SFP thru ASIO, with or without VST plugins in between, etc etc.
That's a few reasons why I think rewriting the whole thing natively would be a complete waste of time. You say everything is moving towards native, but the *exact opposite* is happening with graphics hardware. Processing is moving mostly out of the CPU, with boards now supporting multiple graphics cards. And there are Physics Processing Units that should be coming out pretty soon, to, yes, you guessed it, take the physics processing *out* of the native CPU. Why you, or anyone else, would consider this to not happen with audio is completely beyond me, as the last 20 years and more of computing has been going exactly the opposite way of trying to cram everything in the CPU. The Amiga proved this was the preferable architecture more than 20 years ago (well roughly 20 years ago =P.)
Creamware have always been pioneers in the digital audio field. In 1995, there were exactly (at least according to this copy of March 1995 Sound on Sound, which also featured a preview of a keyboard-version of the Oasys =P - it would have lasted longer this way too) 2 (sorry I guess this is getting to be a bit repetitive) sound cards in the world with a proper digital interface: the CardD from DAL, and "the mysterious TripleDat from Germany."
As a final note (hopefully, I swear I try my best to make it short!) I have friends who really weren't impressed with the firewire PowerCore. They kept the PCI PoCo, but ditched the firewire one. Also, a firewire solution would end up costing alot more than a simple PCI card. Would you pay 3000 euros for a Pulsar2-level card that would run less reverbs than what you have now? Somehow I doubt it. The only thing I can think of that vaguely would approach a Scope-in-a-box thing is the Symbolic Sound Kyma, and it's just a tiny bit more expensive for the same amount of processing than, say, a Scope Pro (admittedly, it has memory which is pretty cool, but maybe not 3000-euros-coool.) A PCI card solution is simply much cheaper, which is, I think an advantage for everyone.
As for "the real world" (I knew it wasn't the last paragraph damnit,) you are probably a bit tired of hearing this, but some pretty expensive consoles use these cards (Fairlight Constellation (anyone can get um at cost? pm me! =P)), so they're definitely seeing some use in the "real world", where people actually produce records and soundtracks, and don't just send some MP3s to their friends or have them play on 128kbps streaming radios.
So that's my take on it, my personal opinions and views on the subject. Don't take it too personal, as I think it's great that you are here to raise the debate and I prefer having you around to share your perspective and ideas, than not.
Yes, I agree too, and I am running a hybrid system now with synths as VST and Scope, mixing in Scope.
My original P2 card has now had 3 different PCs around it - each one more troublesome than the last (until now, with a motherboard switch).
I agree the cards are quality and will last.
Due to lack of interesting new things on Scope, my interest has strayed to the VST world.
I think there is a big element of 'curiosity' with computer based systems - or even hardware - where things are bought to try out.
On the Fairlight, did anyone buy the summing mixer comparison CD, which compared the various systems, such as software like Protools, various hardware desks etc. I think the conclusion was, they are all different but no-one could say which was 'best' as it is subjective...
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: geoffd99 on 2005-07-05 05:12 ]</font>
My original P2 card has now had 3 different PCs around it - each one more troublesome than the last (until now, with a motherboard switch).
I agree the cards are quality and will last.
Due to lack of interesting new things on Scope, my interest has strayed to the VST world.
I think there is a big element of 'curiosity' with computer based systems - or even hardware - where things are bought to try out.
On the Fairlight, did anyone buy the summing mixer comparison CD, which compared the various systems, such as software like Protools, various hardware desks etc. I think the conclusion was, they are all different but no-one could say which was 'best' as it is subjective...
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: geoffd99 on 2005-07-05 05:12 ]</font>