PlanetZ forums - scopeusers.com

Hi everyone. I´m new to this forum although I´ve been here before deciding to buy my first Scope card; Well, I´ve bought it! A humble Pulsar 1.1. Before starting to shoot questions, I just wanted to say that I hope that my experience with the Scope environment can be as good as that from you veterans out there. From what I´ve noticed, people in this forum seem to be really wise and colaborative, so I´m glad to be a new member here. Now, to the questions...

1 - I bought the card at Ebay and received just the hardware (meaning, the PCI card and cables). Here is a pic of what I´ve got. What do I need to do to install the latest Scope 4.5 system into it? I assume I can´t just plug the PCI card into my PC and hope that it will work, as I need device drivers and the scope platform installed on my hard drive, correct? From what I´ve learned in older posts here, I´ve sent Creamware and email with my info and card´s serial number. After that, what is supposed to happen?

2 - I´m a little puzzled by this card´s I/O capabilities. As I´m more of a musician/composer than an audio engineer, I´m not familiar with these plugs. I own an E-MU 0404 that doesn´t have balanced inputs. Could this hindrance be solved by Pulsar? Can the two cards comunicate so I can multiply my sound card´s I/O? I assume I need additional cables/adapters for that, right?

3 - Do I need to buy one of the software packs to get started or the Scope Environment alone comes with some basic plugins that I can use to get started?

Thanks in advance for reading this long post and helping me out.

Cheers!

without pasying more money, 4.0 is the latest version you can use unless 4.5 keys were already obtained by the last owner. when you register, creamware will email you the keys to unlock whatever software is registered to that card in a file called allkeys.skf. you'll use that allkeys.skf file to install the software. maybe the original owner has that file andf can email it to you. otherwise, don't expect to hear from cwa until monday or tuesday at the latest. if you don't hear back, you may have hit the antispam software, although Ralf(a good guy for sure) sometimes gets overwhelmed with work to do...

2. there are balanced and unbalanced options for i/o. the card you purchased is unbalanced. don't worry, it sould be a big improvement sound-wise anyway. one thing you will need as the new owner of a studio is to become more of an engineer(you don't have to be less of a musician, although it may seem like that for a minute while you learn what you need to know). whether you should use balanced or unbalanced connections depends on what other gear you have to connect to, rather than how it sounds. if you use th adat connections, many ad/da converters such as the creamware a16 and behringer ada-8000 offer balanced connections...

3. this is a good reason to purchase 4.5 if you don't have it on that card, you'll get to choose a pack in addition to adding plugins from the upgrade. for 198euro it's cheap. otherwise, yes, you should have basic studio tools. those first cards had a very basic toolset, but in it's time, there were many opportunities to upgrade or just by additional plugins, so it's difficult to say exactly what you should have. you should be able to make good use of the card either way.

stardust wrote:some water in the wine: Your pulsar 1 will reach 24ms lowest latency (only) and it has 4 DSPs. .

pulsar one can have 13 ms of latency @44.1 khz (i have used it for years)

garyb: Thanks for the answers. I think I´ll just have to wait for Ralf´s reply to decide what I should do next, right? Anyway, I intend to use the Pulsar in the mix n´master function. I don´t wish to buy any synths for a start, as I plan to use my another machine + FX Teleport as a VST host.

About engineering: I already know some stuff to be honest, but my wisdom lies on the software realm (EQ, compression, effetcs.. I´m ok with that). I´m a really newbie when it comes to hardware, adat cables and routing, but I´ll learn it little by little. Although I´m a composer first, I like the technical side as well

Let me get this straight: If I buy a Behringer ADA8000, for instance, I´ll have 8 balanced inputs that can be routed to the Pulsar via adat cables. Therefore, the Pulsar will route the signal to my sequencer´s input and, since the AD/DA conversion is made by the ADA8000, I won´t need the E-MU unless I want higher sample rates or to use the built-in DSP. In which case I´d be trading a higher sample rate for a noisier signal ( since the E-MU inputs are unbalanced). Is my thinking correct or I´m missing something?

stardust and djmicron: Yeah, I´m aware of the latency, but I won´t be using it for synth anyway. And I´ll try to respect its limits regarding effects

Thanks for the answers. I think I´ll just have to wait for Ralf´s reply to decide what I should do next, right? Anyway, I intend to use the Pulsar in the mix n´master function. I don´t wish to buy any synths for a start, as I plan to use my another machine + FX Teleport as a VST host.

ok, but don't forget that scope synths are generally quite a bit superior to anything in the vst realm and that use of the synths doesn't affect use of mixers, compressors effects, etc.

About engineering: I already know some stuff to be honest, but my wisdom lies on the software realm (EQ, compression, effetcs.. I´m ok with that). I´m a really newbie when it comes to hardware, adat cables and routing, but I´ll learn it little by little. Although I´m a composer first, I like the technical side as well

well, it's just a matter of reading some books, posts, magazines and most importantly, manuals and then trying stuff. you'll get it.

Let me get this straight: If I buy a Behringer ADA8000, for instance, I´ll have 8 balanced inputs that can be routed to the Pulsar via adat cables. Therefore, the Pulsar will route the signal to my sequencer´s input and, since the AD/DA conversion is made by the ADA8000, I won´t need the E-MU unless I want higher sample rates or to use the built-in DSP. In which case I´d be trading a higher sample rate for a noisier signal ( since the E-MU inputs are unbalanced). Is my thinking correct or I´m missing something?

yes, and 8 mic pres as well. there's absolutely no reason for higher sample rates unless it's just for the emu's instruments. if the signal chain is optimal, there's very little audible difference in a balanced or unbalanced signal. a balanced signal is less susceptible to degradation..

stardust and djmicron: Yeah, I´m aware of the latency, but I won´t be using it for synth anyway. And I´ll try to respect its limits regarding effects

latency is only an issue regarding the card to the sequencer program and back(like when using a vsti in realtime). using anything in scope is essentially latency free, in and out of the computer.

Thanks again, garyb. I´ll just wait for Ralf´s answer and then try to make my card work before asking questions again.