How many Scope / Xite-1 users ?

[sonicstrav]

I've always wondered this....not everyone with Scope/Xite-1 has registered on Planetz but must be 80-90%? Plus, others have registered and now don't have a card then the subsequent owner has registered?

I'll have a guess

Scope Cards.......6,000 ?

Xite-1.......200 ?

How many in UK 500-600 ?

I know it's a silly question....

[valis]

From what I've been told there's a large number of Scope users who aren't represented by forum members at all, and this was especially the case during the first few generations of the card as (iirc) internet usage rose among computer using musicians in uk/eu/il/etc at the same time.

[Sounddesigner]

I've always wondered this....not everyone with Scope/Xite-1 has registered on Planetz but must be 80-90%? Plus, others have registered and now don't have a card then the subsequent owner has registered?

I'll have a guess

Scope Cards.......6,000 ?

Xite-1.......200 ?

How many in UK 500-600 ?

I know it's a silly question....

I do know that Sonic Core in the past has constantly sold out the batches of XITE-1's that they made each time and it seemed hard to keep up with demmand. Wich means whatever the actual number of XITE-1's sold is i don't think S|C could've sold more then that number. Whether the number is small or big, they sold all that they where capable of selling. When Sweetwater.com contacted S|C many months ago about selling XITE-1 in their store they where unable to, Sweetwater told me that Sonic Core was just too small and that Sweetwater might sell too many too fast and that Sonic Core could'nt handle this. I'm under the impression Sonic Core specifically said no to them for that reason.

All has recently changed and Sonic Core appears to keep up with demmand better now.

Like others stated i think the forums on internet still only represent a small fraction of users. So actual owners can be a lot more then you think. This thread in the XITE-1 forum suggest constant new users and possibly many - http://forums.planetz.com/viewtopic.php ... 52&start=0

Also i believe when ANY Dsp Platform gets upgraded their dsp's the initial sales will be good due to longtime loyal users, it's what happens after the initial period that one needs to carefully look at. The initial period can be fools gold if a company is not carefull.

XITE-1 is a very unique platform wich has no adequate replacement for what it offers to those of us who love what it offers and potential customers brought into the know. If Sonic Core continue to bring new features/developments i'm quite sure XITE-1 will be a success ultimately. Might forever stay niche but niche can be profitable. But imo the potential is there for any type and level of success if new developments and innovation is brought over time. In the end time will tell, i just think lack of development and too slow of development are the only big things that can really harm XITE-1 wich is why i also believe S|C will need to discontinue PCI cards in the near future, to focus more on the XITE-1 Platform. Constant development can even compensate for some advertisement-lack/marketing-lack in my opinion, it's mostly about features and soundquality brought not user-hype, raving magazine reviews, Haters, etc to the more educated. Great products sell themselves largely.


EDITED

[Shroomz~>]

i also believe S|C will need to discontinue PCI cards in the near future, to focus more on the XITE-1 Platform.

Interesting idea! If they discontinue the cards do you think they should discontinue support for them as well? Not so sure it would be a good idea tbh. Fading out the selling of hardware is one thing, but in Scope's case, fading out the support of it is another thing entirely.

[sonicstrav]

There are rumours of an Xite-1 lite version to be released soon.
If they get rid of the mic pres and just have the same outs as the Scope Pro in a smaller box with 33% - 50% power of Xite-1 (x3 - x4) power of Scope Pro at 33%-50% price of Xite-1 loads of users will make the jump then they can stop making PCI cards and phase out support for them in the next 2 - 3 years i.e no Win 8 version. Perhaps Mac OS X drivers should just be for Xite-1 / Xite-1 lite only (prob as not may Mac/ Scope users now).

[Fluxpod]

I dont think you can buy pci cards from sc at the moment.The pci bus is going to become "obsolete" soon.http://kingofgng.com/eng/2010/06/22/int ... o-pci-bus/

There will be Mainboards left with pci slots but will they be good for running scope boards?

[Warp69]

Interesting idea! If they discontinue the cards do you think they should discontinue support for them as well? Not so sure it would be a good idea tbh. Fading out the selling of hardware is one thing, but in Scope's case, fading out the support of it is another thing entirely.

Yes, I thinks it's time to drop the support for the old PCI cards. What is the motivation for SC to continue the support for the PCI cards?

[Fluxpod]

Interesting idea! If they discontinue the cards do you think they should discontinue support for them as well? Not so sure it would be a good idea tbh. Fading out the selling of hardware is one thing, but in Scope's case, fading out the support of it is another thing entirely.

Yes, I thinks it's time to drop the support for the old PCI cards. What is the motivation for SC to continue the support for the PCI cards?

After scope 5.1 and several bugfixes. Please^^.l

[dante]

I'm still on Scope 4. Its my 24 channel mixing desk with some sends. It will work for another decade on 32 bit OS. I might get a spacef modular mixer ( which I believe works on Scope 4) . Beyond this I've got native power to burn and external gear that will never obsolete ( eg Maton guitars, Rode Classic mic etc ).

If I never can afford Xite I'll still be spending the next decade finding new sounds / functionality in the sware / hware I've got. The SpaceF mixer itself would probably give me months learning curve / exploration / fiddling satisfaction.....

Hey and maybe some time to make music as well.......

[nightscope]

What is the motivation for SC to continue the support for the PCI cards?

To provide support for the customers of it's current product range. http://www.sonic-core.net/en/products/dsp14.html

ns

[dawman]

If it makes you guys feel any better......... I miss my cards. They were flawless and provided me with incredibly robust sound, extreme cashflow, all during a happy time of my life.
Now I have the fiercest mobile stage rig around, and have to play for degenerate gamblers until Vegas snaps back to its former glory.
I am fortunate and had a chance to spend time with my kid and practice for a couple of months, I needed it.
You can always tell when your playing for beer drinking local deadbeats with no money. If you have a girl singer they all hang around and do stupid stuff like asking her if she can do any Merle Haggard. In August I get the pool job again thankfully or I would be slitting my wrists.
Scope only dies when its owner loses his/hers creativity.

[Sounddesigner]

i also believe S|C will need to discontinue PCI cards in the near future, to focus more on the XITE-1 Platform.

Interesting idea! If they discontinue the cards do you think they should discontinue support for them as well? Not so sure it would be a good idea tbh. Fading out the selling of hardware is one thing, but in Scope's case, fading out the support of it is another thing entirely.

I don't think it would make much sense for any company to tech-support a product for life after discontinuing it, or at all in most cases. That is actually dangerous since tech-support is time and time is money. Support for scope pci will steal resources from other products that the company looks to survive from. Sonic Core gets ALOT of emails for tech support for SCOPE pci and they did not even sell the cards to almost all the people needing the support, S|C is paying for Creamware's sales. Imagine what will happen when S|C releases a smaller version of XITE, that will add to the support of pci and larger version XITE-1 when S|C is already extremely busy (i'm sure they get about 500 emails from pci users daily just asking when 64bit will be ready ). S|C gets ALOT of tech support requests for pci and they simply need to put all their resources for their new products if they want those new products to be great. S|C was kept so busy with tech support needs that they had to stop selling the plugin-transfer-service in the online webshop and that's something their paid for.

The late releases that Sonic Core is making for 5.1 in my opinion is proof that they are spreaded too thin. XITE-1 tho working is still in beta mode and needs alot of attention. Actually XITE-1 is a blackhole and will never have enough development due to it's complete nature, so the more they can give their newer platform the better it will be for all. Sonic Core will need their attention put on newer products if they expect those products to be well featured and innovative and top-notch. Propellerheads discontinued Rebirth cause it was stealing too much time from main products that where the future. Universal Audio discontinued the development for the uad-1 to focus on uad-2, it's a common practice and often a necessary one.

Sure as a user i want my products i buy to be developed and supported forever but from a business point it can lead to a downfall if done for older and non-profitable products. Sonic Core's newer platform needs alot more development but the older is keeping it in beta and without many new features added and if that continues it may spell disaster.

I do think it may be best to wait untill small versions of XITE-1 is released before discontinuing pci cards especially if some money is still being made from pci owners buying plugins and 5.1, etc (i doubt too much is made from pci), but they imo will need to discontinue pci soon or they'll constantly end up with several underdeveloped beta platforms instead of one great well featured platform. There is a old saying that goes "if a man chases two rabbits at once he ends up with none", i hope i remembered that correctly.

Don't get me wrong i am glad S|C is supporting, developing 64bit O/S and other goodies such as Modular 4 for the PCI and giving their users of pci one more round of growth and power to last another 10 years, it is a kind gift, one that may hurt them for giving but still a good thing to do. Hopefully S|C user-base will be gratefull to have the life of their 11 year old cards extended and even support the company who made such possible in the future. But tho i think it was nice for S|C to do that i feel they will need to discontinue the pci hardware/techsupport/software-development/etc soon after 5.1 release. After the great gift i don't think pci users can be mad at them for discontinuation of support/development/etc. Pci support will always be available at Planetz.com and i'm sure some third-party developers will still make products for pci so the users of pci will still have alot for many years to come while using their 90 Gigs of ram on x64bit .


edited

[garyb]

pci support will be discontinued eventually. S|C has done the right thing continuing support, including 64bit to now. curtrently, i don't think pci support is significantly slowing developement(actually, the opposite right now), but that will certainly change in the future.

v5 upgrades will make S|C some money for a little while longer, and there will surely be new pci-e products soon( ), which will indicate the end of pci, i'm sure. in the meantime, the problems of writing 64bit and osx versions of Scope are mostly the same pci or pci-e(afaik).

ALL THOSE WITH PCI CARDS OWE S|C A ROUND OF THANKS AND SUPPORT THEMSELVES. jmho...

[siriusbliss]

I figure Xite will probably last me until retirement.
It sits in my main rack with other gear that I've had around for 15+ years, and still I haven't hardly skimmed the surface of what it can do.
THAT is a worthy investment.

As far as I'm concerned SC could contract out to someone to put all the old PCI card inventory in enclosures with a PCI link, and sell them off that way. Compete with V-machine and Receptor or whatever.

PCI won't go away totally for at least another 5 years in my opinion. May even outlast USB . The protocol can be bridged, so I don't see a problem with 3rd party guys coming along and harvesting all that valid hardware and doing something with it.

As for the Scope platform, it can only get better.

Greg

[Fluxpod]

I think after paying almost the ammount of an xite for a Pulsar2 new around 2000-2001 i do not own anybody anything.
Its nice that the cards are supported.But i demand that.Sc wouldnt be anywhere without pci users.

[garyb]

well there's a properly cynical reply, or a couple of them...here are some facts, as i know them.

once the money changes hands, nobody owes nobody nothin.
we could certainly have a world like that, everyone can just say "fuck you", but nobody really wants or needs that. very few have given S|C any money. the cards were bought mostly before S|C. they've done their part in continuing developement, but they certainly don't have to, they could just say "here's the XITE, that's Scope, take it or leave it, and oh yeah, we have no idea what your old keys were and we don't care. 64bit? ha! buy the new device, if it's too expensive, you suck as a customer!", but actually, they have done the opposite, which is why i say what i say.

to those who say "if they took the hardline, they wouldn't make any money, because we wouldn't buy anything else from them ever again!", ok, but you're wrong. they have just barely been able to catch up with XITE production recently. there's been no chance of making or selling any thing more than they have been until now and the users here haven't been responsible for anything near the bulk of those sales. actually, the number of cards is in the tens of thousands. this little part of the world is but a fraction of the original user base.

companies, just like people have personalities, with good and bad traits. good people don't cheat you and neither has S|C. S|C has gone about the business of developing Scope with integrity, even if they have not met any particular customer's expectations or any of their own expectations. they have CARED about Scope and what happened to people's investments in the cards, not to mention Juergen and Holger's own work that was endangered by the Creamware Noah "failure". they do their best to fix problems and bugs as quickly as possible, leaving a useful product, even as development continues. ask Jimmy or any of the XITE owners who had an immediate fix when a problem was discovered(i'll never say that there have never been any problems). if you don't think that a person should get a "thank you, well done" when they do something right, but that you can freely criticize when that person does something wrong, then you would be, by definition, a jerk.

[Mr Arkadin]

well there's a properly cynical reply, or a couple of them...

You really expect anything else? Stardust's first response in this thread managed to shoehorn his one agenda in at every possible moment, completely irrelevant to the question asked. Well done.

[garyb]

[Sounddesigner]

A weird mind at its best. Its a test balloon gary isnt it ? hopefully.

Support has ended for the PCI cards a long time ago.
24months is the period.
In some cases and as a favor creamware and SC helped out later as well. A point for them.
So we might talk about paid repair and paid hotline.

The latest maintenance - not support - was scope 5.0 which is good but nothing to fall from grace since the adaption to modern PCI hosts was due - very natural.

So we paid SC and creamware with HW purchase and SW plugins during all these years. thats it.
And creamware and SC did their best to keep the customer base on board. thats it.

Now its the turn for all those among you who piss in their pants to demonstrate how loyal they are in order to receive a discount or privilege later on.
Again. SC needs paying and happy customers.
They dont need a bunch of selfcheering know it alls.

We can discuss whether SC can and should go the apple type of user community: Zealots that happily pay for anything if it only has the brand and the dummy ease of use bundled with splendid design.

There is only one thing where I agree with the pretended loyal chanpions:
Currently SC is probably at its limits of delivery.
So we cannot expect another level of support and responsiveness in these days.
There is no guarantee that this will change ever.

Well it was a polite and positive discussion until you came wich says alot. Is there a need to take cheap shots at people every chance you get? You can express your opinions without constantly taking a jab at someone else. We all are not going to agree on many things that's natural, but is there a need to get disrespectful, judgemental, and turn a community into a toilet all the time? Is your reason for being here to undercover-troll and undercover-smear-campaign or to engage in positive discussion? No matter what you say about anyone else the evidence is always clear that your the one who brings negativity into the discussions with all the cheap jabs wich is childish and sad, aswell as a insult to peoples intelligence as you try to mask it as something positive. Despite what you claim about others your the one proving to be the actual problem everytime and having some hidden bogus agenda. Need you turn every good discussion into a fist fight? We are all adults here let's act like it. Maybe i expect too much when in reality it is typical internet behavior your displaying, everyone seems to love doing the same thing when it comes to spreading misery and childish antagonistic behavior threw anonymity. It really is sad that respectfull and intelligent discussions are hard to mantain on internet. There are better things to live for in life.


EDITED

[dawman]

Customer service departments aren't actually needed on a great product as the cards have demonstrated for a decade plus now. But every now and then the occassion might arise where a customer isn't happy.
Recntly a film score/composer who uses Scope to make a living threw in the towel, and for good reasons.
We have shared projects and BETA tested devices together last year and we both noticed his meter numbers were way off and he had random loading problems. For a few months he still had success at certain projects but he decided he wanted to send the unit back to be checked out.
Since he makes money and doesn't just drop in to bleed all over everybody Holger waved any fees and even sent him a brand new XITE-1 immediately, w/o question or typical baloney like you'd expect from a customer service department like................Which motherboard are you using, it must be on your system, it worked fine here, etc. The usual Steinberg support, so if thats the support that is being mentioned, I much prefer S|C's approach. Reminds of the long gone local music stores where if you were a customer you never worried about missing a gig from a bad amp or keyboard, as they would let you walk out the door with one to stay in the groove.

While we attend our weekly classes, and learn and share, and yes even make money with our units, there's always going to be some negative folks who pretend they know something, when they have been out of the loop for a long time.
Without them, this forum would appear to be staged and faked.
So having a few bleeders around for us to correct all of the time shows compassion, tolerance and a true view of the current state of affairs.