NAMM 2013

[neuromantik]

Anyone besides Gary going?
Does anyone think something new or exciting will be presented differing from last year (ex: SDK6)

[dante]

Updates on Scope 6 and Parseq.

[siriusbliss]

I plan on going, but may get held up with work.

I'm looking forward to seeing how far Scope 6 has evolved, since last year it was only the basic 'shell'

G

[Liquid EDGE]

Wish there was a show like this in Britain that Sonic Core went to. Would go without hesitation.

[dante]

Just hop across the channel when the Frankfurt Messe comes along.

[next to nothing]

Updates on Scope 6 and Parseq.

Would love if they announced a realistic timeframe for 6, and not least an upgrade for the ones who got tricked by the 5.1 upgrade.

[Ricardo]

Just hop across the channel when the Frankfurt Messe comes along.

As opposed to hopping across the world for us folks heh Dante!
Would love to get to NAMM one day.

[timstoel]

I will be there. I am hoping for some exciting news, too.

[dante]

Just hop across the channel when the Frankfurt Messe comes along.

As opposed to hopping across the world for us folks heh Dante!
Would love to get to NAMM one day.

My problem is aerophobia. But the mrs drags me as far as Hawaii this March. I was in L.A. for a day in '05 but only got to see the Terminators at Universal Studios, no Scope stuff. It got me wondering what the Miles Dyson neural net processors would do for DSP applications though. Maybe the AI would produce better reverbs, or robot DJ's that can dance gangnam style but at the same time detect and virus infect bad native synths.

Updates on Scope 6 and Parseq.

Would love if they announced a realistic timeframe for 6

I hope not. A 'realistic' release date for Scope 6 might be 2015 given what it is and the small amount of resources dedicated to it. 'Realistic' might mean 'normal hours' as opposed working around the clock for next to nothing (pardon the pun).

[next to nothing]

Updates on Scope 6 and Parseq.

Would love if they announced a realistic timeframe for 6

I hope not. A 'realistic' release date for Scope 6 might be 2015 given what it is and the small amount of resources dedicated to it. 'Realistic' might mean 'normal hours' as opposed working around the clock for next to nothing (pardon the pun).

First of all, please excuse my bi-polar tendencies

Second, I would still like if they shed some light on how things are progressing (which i guess they will), and an official status on if they will fix the issues with 5.1 regarding non-working devices on 64bit etc. Ofcourse i am not expecting anything seeing they are focusing on S6, but then atleast they could be frank enough to say something official about it. Not offering fixes for a current platform is not a good thing, not being honest of its shortcomings isnt any better, and doesnt really help in building/maintaining a strong userbase. I mean, when i bought 5.1 it was mainly because of 64bit support. Others bought it for the devices, and some might have bought it since it is clearly stated that if you wanted future support you should atleast go for v5 as 4.5 would be (and is) discontinued. We still have devices with the extension "_x64" that does not work properly in 5.1 64bit, and nothing has been done to correct it for the last years, and are still being marketed as 64bit compatible in the shop.

I think it would only be fair if they officially stated if they consider 5.1 as a final build as is even if they still are selling it for a price which would indicate a fully working platform. And for their own sake it would be good for them to clearly state what is working andd what isn't so people dont feel screwed over.

[dante]

All you say about what they should say is fair enough. But if 6 works out to be good value in its own right, then 5.x and what they should have done with it will be history & I'll be glad they put resources into 6 rather than fixes to 5.x. For my purposes, the bonuses in 5.1 far outweigh the bugs.

[hubird]

32 or 64 bit doesn't really belong to the bugs department, especially not when 64 bit is said to work, which is NtN's point

[Eanna]

You gotta spend money to make money...

They have the ability to produce Scope 6, quickly, if they invest. With Scope 6, they stand to make money, from sales of both Xite's and of the Scope 6 upgrade, and on the devices produced that run on Scope 6.
If the principal S|C engineer gets hits by the proverbial bus, what happens to S|C / Scope?
Seems like there's barely a handful of engineers in S|C, splitting their time between requests for hardware stuff like MADI in Xite (which makes total sense) and Ferrofish products, and on the software side with Scope 6, not least the outstanding known issues with 5.1, and the production and maintenance of quality documentation. Risky business lads.

Their unwillingness to invest in the business is peculiar, be that around marketing or development.

I know they're a small outfit that don't have a ball of cash in reserves. They will stay that way if they continue to act as they do.
Any well-placed investment they make in the business will be successful, if they believe in the platform. So many Scope users believe in the platform (including myself), and we are crying out for that level of commitment from S|C.
Guess it kills me to see something for which there is talent, passion and drive (in the Creamware/S|C heritage, in the commercial and free device developers, in the modular crew, and not least us all here, the user community) being undersold and undervalued. We need new DSP talent to join and commit to the platform, and not risk losing device developers to other platforms, due to a lack of support or a wide userbase to which to sell their wares...

I'm no marketeer, or business development dude, but it seems that oft-excused conservatism is stagnating a potentially world-beating platform.

E.g. positioning Scope as a Summing Mixer idea alone is so worthwhile! Summing Mixers, for what they are, are bloody expensive one-trick ponies... If Creamware can produce Minimax a decade ago, and Modular over that decade, exhibiting their DSP-abilities, the robustness of the platform, and remarkable sonic qualities, then emulating API, SSL and Neve summing mixers, which 'just' colour audio a bit, is not beyond S|C and Device Developers. It's also not something UAD could do (well, maybe with Apollo...).
It's a different direction, I do realise, but hey it'd be an 'easy' money spinner (probably), and an excuse to get units out there for the Sound On Sound and Gearslutz types to get their grubby mits on.

I know I must be rehashing an argument that's been bandied about this great forum for years - I can't imagine what the tone of posts around these parts were when Creamware was dying out...

[Eanna]

A 'realistic' release date for Scope 6 might be 2015 given what it is and the small amount of resources dedicated to it.

Are we all OK with that?
I'm not. It doesn't anger me, doesn't make me feel like we have the wool pulled over our eyes, just makes me see that the commitment is shameful, which in itself is frustrating.

I think this is the nub of the issue.

[dante]

Maybe. But it is what it is. I know what its like to work on a product thats so innovative it won't take off. You make a choice to abandon it or just scrape a living from it, possibly subsidised by another business or two. In the end I abandoned mine, so I respect S|C for sticking to thiers.

There are a lot of businesses like that, that are great but never grow huge and just represent a labour of love. Its a legitimate business model, and in S|C its producing a great product thats still going forwards albeit slowly. And I dont think 'slowly' necessarily equates to a lack of comittment.

Better slow progress than over-leveraging, going into debt and doing another creamware. Whose going to buy them out then ? You ? Me ? UAD ? Maybe no-one.

I have nothing but support and praise for what S|C have achieved and all they will ever achieve, and I dont think that neccessarily equates to supporting mediocrity.

Frustration for the glass half empty won't further this cause, only promotion of the glass half full will.

[Eanna]

I'm not frustrated that S|C is doing a -bad- job.
I've worked with smaller companies in my time that overstretched only to hit the wall soon after...
And, I am delighted that there is a future, albeit a slow-moving one. Any attempt to resurrect a product line from the ashes is always very difficult - the banks don't like to fund that. And S|C's ideas for Scope 6 are admirable, and get my respect.

For me, the glass is two-third's full! But, call me thirsty, call me greedy, I'm looking for a full glass.

For me, the platform speaks for itself.
For example, the recent review of the Ferrofish A16 Ultra on SoS, a glowing review, spoke of the quality and the value for money.
And that's not nearly as 'sexy' a product as Xite/Scope.

I'm not looking for them to be bought out. I'm looking for a cash injection (investor/venture capital) that will support the hiring of some additional staff (business developers who know what they're talking about (not like me!), marketeers and a few devs and testers) to bring forward a commitment to a progressive delivery date for Scope 6, in order that the existing staff are not overstretched.
With Scope 6 and Parseq in place, they have a real reason to go out to the industry, to seek reviews, to market something fresh.

I know what its like to work on a product thats so innovative it won't take off.

So do I! Less first-hand experience that yourself I guess, since I was working for a company that took that road...
For me tho, they have a proven platform. The innovation is in place, it's proven, and anyone here on Planetz will attest to that. And its complete too - save the Sampler issue, this is truly an end-to-end solution, and with the demise of Powercore, Duende and LiquidMix, and the rise of UAD, there's still a space in the market.

For example, when I started to invest in my studio setup over three years ago, I remember the ubiquitous thomann.de site for Music Product sales in Europe carried Xite. I was happy with my PC at the time, and could see the benefit of buying a DSP solution to upgrade my PC - I could take those cards with me to a new PC, and I would upgrade my sound quality, increase my overall processing power, and would have something separately saleable that would hold its value better than software, if it came to it...
So, having my interest piqued in this expensive 1U box, I remember doing a web search to find out more.
I did not find much! Shockingly little! And what I found on sonic-core.net was some German Broadcaster types quoted as being delighted with their box. And barely a mention of the Synths, and no link to sound examples or completed tracks done up in Scope.
I was left with the thought - OK, this is a broadcasting thing, with fancy audio loudness processors and a well-specc'ed routing engine, not applicable to my private studio.
So what did I do? Buy UAD crap.
And is Xite on thomann.de anymore? Not for a long while...

There are a lot of businesses like that, that are great but never grow huge and just represent a labour of love.

I know what you mean. Those companies tend to be niche tho. This product is so all-encompassing (an Xite could theoretically replace all of my gear), it is not at all niche.

And I dont think 'slowly' necessarily equates to a lack of comittment.

Fair point. Guess it's a commitment to spend cash on both an aggressive release schedule for Scope 6, and a better marketing strategy and website that do more to push what the platform is all about...

I'll shut up now!

[Liquid EDGE]

On xite-1 there are two things I wish they would fix with the 5/5.1 scope software.
The step sequencers are broken like the sb404 and in modular. Also there seems to be unreliable sync to midi clock with lfos in devices.(maybe that's more to do with cubase, but mattomat syncs up perfectly) other minor bugs have solutions. Say, some of the midi cc assigned on mixers being forgotten when loading a project back up, but if you save the midi cc assignment as a preset for that mixer and on project reload then load a blank midi cc preset followed by the one with the assignments for that project then all is good.

Considering all that it offers I can forgive those two main issues on the whole. Also I think it's something to do with porting the software on to new hardware as these 2 issues do not exist on the pci cards.

But yes. For me I just want the midi sync to be tighter and the broken step sequencer thing on xite fixed. Then I would be one extremely satisfied happy bunny.

But I should imagine that scope 6 is something that is being built from the ground up specifically for xite hardware.

[petal]

I'd like to get info about a realistic release date for SCOPE 6 and SDK 6. When it was announced one year ago I would never had imagined that it would not have been released one year later.
It's not that I have an urgent need or anything, it's simply the expectation the announcement introduced in me, and I'm sure many other users.
Also the SDK 6 I have actually bought, so it would be nice to know when I can actually get it. And in addition, I think a lot of potential developers are waiting for it's release simply to not waste their effort on the old SDK/paradigm.

[Eanna]

Often times, the Midi Sync issue is caused by a poor Clock running in your DAW.
Ableton's clock is notoriously wayward for example.
The Expert Sleepers Silent Way will deliver 'midi' events (as CV/Gate signals over ASIO to Modular) with high resolution at sample-accurate clock. Also allows audio-rate modulation tricks for all you FM'ers out there..

I met a mate of mine this lunchtime, he runs a restaurant in town, he was backing up what is such a current issue in Ireland's economy at the moment, that of the banks' reluctance to provide the required cashflow to accomodate SME's (Small to Medium Enterprises). What is means is that business growth is stifled, and it's only the prudent companies that survive.
Got me thinking, this is pretty-much a Europe-wide problem, that I'm sure Sonic Core as an SME has a hard time of it too - especially after having taken the technology over from a firm that collapsed, makes investment a harder sell...

So, if the choice is a late-landing Scope 6 or the risk of no Scope 6 at all, then the former is obviously preferable.

Kudos and muchos respect to Sonic Core to keep the technology going. It must have been very tough.

We must do our best to spread the word about it, to help to attract new business. Things like videos of Scope in action - since Scope is so all-encompassing (from its bread-and-butter synths and effects, to its use in mixdown and mastering, to the whole Modular domain, to its hardware-backed routing a-la Bidule, to its excellent sonic characteristics, and to its applicability in the Live context), it's difficult to put it all into words, isn't it?!

Scope is undoubtedly the best thing to happen to my setup. It's the wire-free glue of 'it all' - I'm no longer DAW-centric, my DAW is a tool now, back to being a Sequencer more than a Digital Audio Workstation...

Really looking forward to when Parseq comes out!
Lets hope we do get that update in NAMM...

[Bud Weiser]

Second, I would still like if they shed some light on how things are progressing (which i guess they will), and an official status on if they will fix the issues with 5.1 regarding non-working devices on 64bit etc. Ofcourse i am not expecting anything seeing they are focusing on S6, but then atleast they could be frank enough to say something official about it.

Well, all companies hold back infos short before NAMM and/or Musikmesse.
They are all quiet.
S|C works on stuff regardless of speed of progress,- otherwise they´d close the doors and you´d read "sorry, we´re bancrupt" or such.

I think S|C did a good job already w/ the design and manufacturing of the XITE boxes as a piece of hardware.
It´s an adavantage not to have only a card which has to sit inside a machine,- XITE formfactor makes it rack mountable and mobile and there´s an amount of power which no one gets from any 3 PCI card combo inside any machine existing.
With improvements done one day, that amount of power will rise.

Be happy you can work w/ old cards and new software versions too and still get keys,- I am !
It enables working w/ both and swapping devices not working properly on XITE over to the card.
That´s a workaround, yes,- but it exists.

Incompatibility and restricted functionality you also find all across the native VST/VSTi world.
S|C is not the only company selling a few devices which don´t work perfect in 64Bit.

IMO, the balancing act between concentrating on new stuff and backwards compatibility as also maintenance of every small device of former SCOPE versions costs ressources at S|C.
They might have a priority list where the big synths, mixers and hi-end FX are on top.
We´ve seen more reverbs, Modular IV and Mattomat and they eventually work on optimizing Sixstring and Vocodizer.

In VST world,- you lose gear all the time.
No backwards compatibility from some piont,- just discontinued.

Most of us have different demands,- for me, realtime MIDI in SCOPE 6 would be the biggest improvement, obviously not a task of a simple fix but has to be coded all new.

In hardware, we´ve seen A16mk II and some of the S|C team were part of the developement of J.B. Solaris.
B4000+ appeared in hardware and seems to have some improvements over the old B2003.
It´s not in SCOPE yet, but maybe we have luck later.
Sooner or later we´ll see more for XTDM bus,- I hope.

ParseQ is vaporware up to now, probably because it was announced too early.
But even from fast growing Cockos Reaper we all know DAW developement needs YEARS and we knew that already before the anouncement of ParseQ.
Once it will be ready for a release, we´re eventually really happy and sell all our Cubendo, Studio 1 and other applications and have all running on only one machine without using XTC/VSTIM at all.

Have also in mind, slow progress might be the reason for backwards compatibility w/ old cards because they don´t want to lose their userbase.
Imagine there would be a larger development and marketing team,- and probably less idealism,- like in other companies ...
Could be, there were all new products on the market already now but your old cards were worthless.

Bud