I am worried about Pulsar 1 !

steffensen · Post by **steffensen** » Sat Sep 04, 2004 12:50 pm

i am about to buy a pulsar 1 for a good price, but after reading on this forum that it only can go down to 13ms in latency etc.. it gets me worried. what if i am about to make a bad buy? is there a very big difference in pulsar 1 and 2? perhaps i shoud not buy the pulsar 1 at all?

pleease help me to calm down, someone?

[ This Message was edited by: rougie on 2004-09-04 13:57 ]

Joxer the Mighty · Post by **Joxer the Mighty** » Sat Sep 04, 2004 1:41 pm

Be warned, you're going to wish you had more DSP power than what the Pulsar 1 has to offer. Some of the CW synths are quite DSP hungry, you might only get one note or two of polyphony out of a Pulsar 1. I'd go for the 2.

ChrisWerner · Post by **ChrisWerner** » Sat Sep 04, 2004 2:08 pm

It depends on what you want to do.
I have the Pulsar I with an additional Pulsar SRB board, eight DSPs in all.
I only use one or two Pulsar Synths at once or the Modular but I mostly produce my music with VST.
If you want to produce a whole track with Pulsar or now Scope synths the Pulsar I will not have enough DSPs for you. Or it will take a longer time because you have to record them to audio tracks before you start the next synths.
The newer Pulsar II has a better structure somehow and can handle more than the old Pulsar one.

I have no probs with 13ms by the way.

[ This Message was edited by: ChrisWerner on 2004-09-04 15:13 ]

steffensen · Post by **steffensen** » Sat Sep 04, 2004 3:14 pm

well, i know that i want more DSP power already.

i plan to buy another pulsar later on.
the thing is, that i pretty much do most things with VSTi also, but i want to be able to run the protone with pulsar, and saturn perhaps. i hope there is enough DSP power in it so i can atleast run 2 protone's and 1 saturn?

glad to hear that you dont have problems with 13ms latency.

also reliefing to understand that thats the only thing the differs them out, besides the DSP.

by the way, does pulsar 1 run smooth in XTC mode? or is XTC something you dont recomend perhaps?

[ This Message was edited by: rougie on 2004-09-04 16:16 ]

___crisis___1 · Post by **___crisis___1** » Sat Sep 04, 2004 4:04 pm

well, i just bought a pulsar II/ scope perfomance pak. bumping the polyphony on one instrument to 3 or 4 eats major dsp power... i couldn't believe the difference it made...

alfonso · Post by **alfonso** » Sat Sep 04, 2004 5:21 pm

On 2004-09-04 16:14, rougie wrote:
i hope there is enough DSP power in it so i can atleast run 2 protone's and 1 saturn?
.........................
by the way, does pulsar 1 run smooth in XTC mode? or is XTC something you dont recomend perhaps?

For 2 protones and a saturn I don't think a P1 is enough.

I would say go with a P2 to start, then you can add other cards later.

I don't use XTC mode at all, nor I use Vsti's,but I have a lot of dsp (25), and latency is not an issue for me, although I have recent cards with my old P1 and I could have low latency, I keep it at 13ms, as it doesn't affect Scope synths, that are always realtime.

But If you want to use Vst instruments, you need the very low latency, otherways they are not usable (playable) at all. so expecially in this case you need at least a newer card for the low latency.

steffensen · Post by **steffensen** » Sun Sep 05, 2004 12:58 am

well, i dont have enough money for a P2, so i take a chance with the P1 i guess.. if its crap i guess i have to sell it.

then again, i have sort of promised to buy the P1 from the dude who sells it, wouldnt be fair to back out of it now.

if scope synths have 0 latency and vsti's have about 13ms, doesnt that latency between the synths show inside the seq, like Logic for example? i mean, can one actually hear the vstis are lagging behind?

Stubbe · Post by **Stubbe** » Sun Sep 05, 2004 1:48 am

Cubase SX (version 2 or 3) can compensate for the latency, and I guess that Logic and Sonar can as well.

Go on guys, you know you want it

I lived happily with a PI for a long while, and only bought 2 PII SRB's for the added polyphony. In my experience 13 ms is no problem at all - sure, 4 ms is better, but you will learn to deal with 13ms in minutes.

[ This Message was edited by: Stubbe on 2004-09-05 02:53 ]

valis · Post by **valis** » Sun Sep 05, 2004 1:50 am

Actually you're in luck. If you buy the pulsar1 now, when u can afford the pulsar2 not only do you get the combined dsp of the pulsar1 & pulsar2 (10 dsps) but you will also get the latency of the pulsar2 (provided you read the manual and set everything up so SFP sees the pulsar2 first

). The only caveat is the Pulsar1 converters aren't capable of 96k (adat or analog-afaik) but the dsp will work just fine.

nprime · Post by **nprime** » Sun Sep 05, 2004 1:55 am

You will be glad you bought it!

R

steffensen · Post by **steffensen** » Sun Sep 05, 2004 2:12 am

thanks guys, we'll see what happens. the dude i am buying it from seems odd, cant really say if the buy is ON or not.

if not, i'm gonna look for a P2 instead.

well as said, thanks a lot. made my view much clearer.

mrvinyl · Post by **mrvinyl** » Thu Sep 09, 2004 9:55 am

i use a pulsar 1 card and have done since they were first released, pretty good if you aint using many of the pulsar synths, and just using vst plugins etc
but if you plan to use all the pulsar virtual studio, think dsp!!!