PlanetZ forums - scopeusers.com

I havent purchased Scope(yet) As i am new here. However i am a prodominatly Cubase-vsti composer, I have been making music since the late 80's(Im 30), i do mostly hip-hop, rnb, a liitle of alt rock, and some experimental classical.

I love the whole vsti or in the box composing idea, but the sound quality i usually end up with is, to put it in one word, Sh**ty. That being said, Ive downloaded a few of you guys music, and i am impressed with the sound quality.(Im almost done typing...!)

It very well may be that it is just late and my ears are tricking me. But is there really a difference in the mix/sound quality done in a cubase mixer vs a scope dsp mixer.

all comments are welcome.


P.S. Sorry for the long post.

---Put your little hands up....put your little hands....put you little hands up...in the aiiirrr. -BJ and Friends

I see the sadness in your eyes. -Thalamus

OMG i have had these songs playing for 5 hours. LOL

It definitely sounds better... synths, FX and mixing. Sample-based processing is not its strong point though.

Hi and welcome Yish,

that's a catchy tune, isn't it? When i recorded BJ and his Friends, i had to whistle the song at least for a week even if it's not my preferred kind of music...

To your question: Yes, mixing in scope sounds better in my ears. It's not only the summing or the mixer but also the scope effects (from comps to verbs) and mastering tools like optimaster, psyQ, bx_digital etc that bring transparency and the pro "look&feel" to the sound.

Cheers
Roman

your own skills and experienceare are the most important, but the sound of Scope is fantastic, yes, and like Katano says, the synths and mastering plugs are great:-)

I get the feeling of more space in the songs i have played, more realism than what im used to getting from cubase. But what I cant get pass, is the fact that scope is using a 32 bit floating point engine. Cubase uses a 32-bit float engine and I cant seem to get that ooozing, fluid, warm, seperation that I think Im hearing on some of the users songs.

also let me say this for those who say, its all about experience and skills(in general), indeed to get a stellar result that rivals your competition, skills and experience is our best weapon, but what i have been looking for since i stopped using outboard keyboards and samplers, is that same oozing quality that these products(keyboards and samplers) provided(in their rawness albeit).

I bartend at a club that has open mic nights(sigh), some of the crap that comes in their sound worst than my cat in heat. But, as mixless, and emotionless as some of the songs that i hear are, the quality in the Sonic Character beats the sonic character of my productions to a pulp. and most of them say they use an Mpc or Triton or Motif or whatever, and dont know the first thing about mixing or composing for that matter.

So yeah its important, but the sonic character of scope is what im hoping to be stellar, as far as my skills and exp. I started in analog, working in a studio with otari tape machines and ssl mixing boards, the mixes i did back then were good compared to a commercial release. Now im so frustrated with just the daw sonics sounding like shit that ive but given up on vst/itb mixing, at least untill i finaly stopped here after about a hundred passer-bys.

again sorry for the long post

Hey, "Beauty Creek" Final Cut -By Drew Man
is that done with virtual instruments? Sounds damn good, very spacious and transparent.


I have offically been up souring the net on dedicated DSP Mix cards for 20 hours, i.....need slee....zZ zZ

Scope is 32 bit fixed and 40 bit floating point ... a bit of both.

Scope is 32bit integer. TimeWorks claims to have their eqs working with 64bit (integer or float, I don't know) and the newer distortion amp simulation use floating point calc. to easily achieve saturation (don't know, at which bit depth).
.. and please don't start to discuss the differences float vs. int again

cheers
Wolfgang

Really I fully aggree with what you have written in your initial post...

Also my Cubase mixes ( and I have thousands of them) all have a somewhat crappy sound...
Years ago, I used outboard gear and the mixes just had a better sound....

I don`t know if its the 40bit scope thing or something other, but Scope sounds way better.

you can even hear it with the fx...
For example masterverb pro may not be the densest reverb available.... but the scope filtering and atoms around a reverb is built from, just do the trick to put something deep inside your speakers. And so I would put the masterverb even above most native reverbs.... just because of the better sounding atoms its built on....

Since I bought my scope cards nearly every of my new mixes convinced me completly in terms of soundquality....

I can`t believe that this is all imagination....

Scope means:
+better mixing
+better routing
+better fx (than native)
+better synths(than native)
+the best best community over hre at z

the hardware itsself may be a bit outdated, but the soundquality you get out of it is definitly not...
scope is already a legendary class hardware....

from analog devices homepage:

"SHARC: You Never Have to Compromise"

"The considerable DSP power of the platform itself allows for implementing only sophisticated top-notch algorithms — we have always focused on quality. For example, the synthesizers on our platform rarely provide extensive polyphony but the sound just blows right into your face. There is, however, one more technological motive: The employed SHARC DSP was specifically designed to perform high-resolution audio processing. It always processes the audio with a 32-bit resolution, and algorithms and parameters are computed with a floating-point resolution of even 40 bits," said Hund.

"If there are no such powerful structures at hand, programmers will have to make compromises regarding the resolution (accuracy) again and again for performance purposes; so the weakest link in the processing chain will often determine the sound. With SHARCs, however, you never have to compromise — the highest resolution is maintained during the entire process without affecting the performance," Hund said. "You can hear it in the results."

this may be marketing blabla, but personally I think this is true.
And as Hund says:
You can hear it in the results.

well, from the sound of the tunes to some of the testimonies i have read here and other places, Im might have tos save up and get myself a few scope pro cards, however, i believe since this is the first day of the musikmesse, im betting that the new owners or old owners or...whatever, have some very unique stuff to unveil that will probably put me over the top.

and to Wolf, trust me I have had my fair share of that debate, im sick of it as well. This kinda proves what some say, that you can get the same results with both, its all in the programmers choice, quality vs quanity. 'Nuff said.

good night folks this site and creamware are about to make my year.
-yish


p.s. yes you can hear it in the results.

" .. and algorithms and parameters are computed with a floating-point resolution of even 40 bits," said Hund.

Algorithms ? What Algorithms ?
Parameters are async signals and have nothing (well .. very few) to do with sync (=audio) signals. Async processes, if it has time for, while sync signals are always tight to the samplerate. You don't want to have any audio signal (even a lfo) to operate, when it thinks "uhm, let's wait a bit" ..

now I don`t get your point... ?

what does the syncing of the signals has to do with the bit depth of an algo and its values....

You want a stable great sounding recording enviroment ? Use Scope synths, mixing, and FX. Then buy a cheap old gigastudio app. You will then have the best sounding samples, and synths.

be carefull if you once get 'infected' by scopedsps you want more and more

good vibes from vienna

man im twitching im my seat thinking of the possibilities with this platform. from amatuer sounding to pro how i miss the pro sound dearly.

well got to go feed the drunks, ill be back on here later guys, again thankz

shameless plug alert!!----- http://www.thaproducerz.com

tell me know what you guys think, and be brutally honest, dont hold back, i love critisism. it fuels my passion.

Well really all you're doing is taking any sound you hear in your head, or idea, and giving it an audio birth. It's the ultimate FAT sounding, creative tool I ever owned. I started w/ 1 x 6 DSP card. I now have 9 x a5 DSP cards in 3 DAW's that are used LIVE !!

These Dogs Will Hunt,

JV

yish313 wrote:man im twitching im my seat thinking of the possibilities with this platform. from amatuer sounding to pro how i miss the pro sound dearly.

well got to go feed the drunks, ill be back on here later guys, again thankz

shameless plug alert!!----- http://www.thaproducerz.com

tell me know what you guys think, and be brutally honest, dont hold back, i love critisism. it fuels my passion.

Sorry scope wont make you sound any more pro than cubase. If youre looking for a mixing engine to help your sound youre looking in the wrong place.

Scope does have some nice effects and especially good synths though. Those can help your sound obviously.

But alll the talk of better summing and different bit formats is a waste of time. Theres WAY too much of this going on in forums nowadays.

If your mixes dont sound right look at your source signals and your mixing skills.

When I'm working on my own material, I can easily tell the difference between Scope and native engines (Logic, Cubase etc... although for me Logic does sound the nicest out of the native engines). I can also tell the difference easily between analog mixing and DSP mixing in Scope. No debate/argument required, that's simply what I hear. Currently I mix on Scope, although eventually I will be moving to analog. Native mixing sounds flat and glassy to me. Some people may actually prefer this sound (I've heard it on quite a few electronic releases recently) but I hate it personally.

I'm not sure how anyone can be sceptical about differences in mixing technology. If not even 2 analog mixers sound the same as each other, then how can an analog mixer sound the same as a digital one ?

If anything is making your sound "flat and glassy" its the plugins not the mixing engine.

I stopped blaming my "digital" sounding mixes on the DAW /summing etc I actually started to focus more on the problems themselves, my mixing technique and source sounds. Now I'm very happy with the mixes I'm getting in digital, and it doesnt matter what DAW I use.

I have also done mixes in SCOPE, they came out fine but not any better or worse digital than any other DAW.

Once you stop worrying about the platform/bits/sample rate you can actually focus on what makes a difference.

I somewhat agree with both of your opinions...

From the mathematical view basically all daws should sound the same more or less, because they are digital.
On the other hand, as I am able to code myself quite a bit, I know that there are million ways in digital world to code bugs/faults into a perfect digital system.

As most of the tests fail when comparing summing engines concerning soundquality and that stuff, I decided to trust my ears as a musician and no more rely on that 1+1=2 thing.

And from a musicians point I fully agree with darkezins statement.
Nearly all mixes I did with Cubase alone sound flat or harsh in the top range and misses pressure in the bottom.
And yes I also hear it in some commercial stufff too.

darkrezin wrote: Native mixing sounds flat and glassy to me. Some people may actually prefer this sound (I've heard it on quite a few electronic releases recently) but I hate it personally.

I think I did around 1000 tracks or so in Cubase, but I always missed something.
Now the few tracks I did with scope sound way better.
Surely the scope synths sound fatter by default, but I even use some VSTi mixed via scope and they fit better into my mixes...

Maybe its all imagination, but that really doesn`t matter. It trust my ears and stay with scope, and unless I won`t find something better sounding ( f.e. a scope II ), I won`t go back to any other platform atm.
From a musicians viewing point, it really doesn`t matter if its fixed, float 16 or 64bit , 44,1 or 192khz.
and its not important if its the mixing engine, the atoms behind the fx or the better emulated synths parts that makes the better sound...
What is important is that it just sounds better.