PlanetZ forums - scopeusers.com

Hi, I am new here and have been considering various vendors for a high end audio card/interface. I basically do a bit of recording, love ultra low latency, squence loads on MIDI, have tons of VSTs running off Cubase SX along with a bazillion of samples, all in harmony (or counter harmony), sounding great, crisp and rich! Phew, enough said.

I have yet come across a comprehensive review covering all the high-end products. After much research and homework, I have more or less narrowed down to RME. But I want a more biased (hence Planetz) opinion on Pulsar II (as I'm about to do so on the RME)

I know it's fiddly to get it to work 100% but you guys do love it over all other high-end products, yeah?

1. Why?
2. Does the SCOPE platform matter to you? All it's proprietry plugins and such.
3. How long did it take you to get your pulsar work?

Hope you can talk me into getting a pulsar. Cheers!

Justin

1. flexibility and bang for the buck.
2. synths and plugs in sfp are very good.(better than most vsti's) plus working in sfp is more direct and closer resembles what happens in a real(as opposed to a virtual) studio.
3. it worked immediately.unfortunately,the mobo i bought first was defective, leading to crashes.if one is well familiar with computers and does the research(here on planetz is a good place to find the info you need) a couple of days to build the system and get it set up is about right.for those who are novices a week is about right (if one does the research).if one is afraid of being an engineer,or refuses to do so(or wants pro gear to work like a home stereo or nintendo box) then it'll probably take forever.

The mixing environment is awesome! I'm presently working on a piece for piano-harp-voice-bass clarinet and string orchestra (on Giga studio), and it's a pleasure to mix it through my Luna environment. The plug-ins are much more stable than any vsti I have tried and sound great, especially the synths. If you use synths, then check the modular2! This plug-in is truly amazing!

The Minimax is amazing too.

As I know, Creamware has the leadership in softsynth sounding quality with the Minimax, especially with the antialiasing processes it uses. They says it's a 1:1 emulation of the Moog, and after listening I believe them.

There's an issue with playing at 96 kHz with the Minimax (doesn't work in my system and others systems), but I think it will be soon fixed.

Scope Fusion Platform is a brilliant sofware, with some issues coz it's young. We're waiting for SFP 3.1b to come very soon, and it should be without competitors, considering the qualities that exists in SFP 3.1a (very low CPU usage, quickness and efficacity of the GUI, the best PCI bandwith use optimisation ever made by Creamware).

The only point I see that RME has and not the Creamware's cards is Linux drivers. Since Agnula isn't released yet ( http://www.agnula.org ), it shouldn't be an issue right now.

Point number 3 ("How long did it take you to get your pulsar work?"): if you're easy with the hardware music studio work, it should take you just the time to tweak your computer OS.

Say one 1/2 day or one day with a correct guiding line found on an internet tweaking website.

Recommendation was to do only music with the computer you put your Creamware's cards on, and to put only Creamware's cards on the PCI ports for reliability.

This recommendation is no more actual if you use a multi OS soft like Hyperos 2002 ( http://www.hyperos2002.com ). By having few differently tweaked OS on the same computer, you can combine reliability and versatility and use your computer at its maximum power level for every tasks you need.

point number 2 ("Does the SCOPE platform matter to you? All it's proprietary plugins and such"):

There are greats third parties plugins with Scope. And hundreds of free plugins (some are awesome).

I must write about Celmo ( http://www.celmo.com ). Every plugins of Celmo are fine, clever and not expensive. Even his free plugins are great utilities. If you know the sound engineer work you'll find amazing utilities on his website. If you know the guitarist work, it will be the same. If you want very fine synths, or a Hammond emulation for a ridiculous price, just check his website.

With all the good things that you can say about Pulsar, and there are a lot. One thing is for sure, the RME boys can really write a solid and stable driver

dave

I too thought about going RME for awhile. The only real advantage that RME has is that you can get the carbus/pci combo and use the same configuration on a laptop and desktop. Other than that, I can see no reason for RME. It is just too expensive for just a soundcard. particularly the Digi-Face - I mean, for that price and you don't even get convertors?

With pulsar, I work @ 7ms ASIO latency, can use VSTi's alongside Pulsar no-latency synths and samplers. The sound quality is top notch. The routing environment is absolutely flexible, and the LiveBar is swell also. The AD convertors are transparent and you add significant horsepower to your machine. No contest in my opinion. Of course this is a biased opinion, but that is what you wanted . . .

And regarding setup - just make sure that you have a good Mainboard. I'll break with the above comments and say that if you already have a tweaked OS for DAW work, It will take not more than an hour or so to get pulsar up and running. Toss in the PCI card, install the software, and off you go . . .

I love my pulsar and would never sell it.

if you already have a tweaked OS for DAW work, It will take not more than an hour or so to get pulsar up and running. Toss in the PCI card, install the software, and off you go . . .

true for those who have good parts and know what's up....

Or those with a Mac

Hi TonyR, are you kidding?

A friend of mine (a lawyer) has just called me on the phone coz' he's so desperate about the shitty behaviour of his 2 Macs! He loosed days of work, without warning...

Fair comments. I certainly back up the audio quality argument - I've been in VSTi land for a few weeks and coming back to the Lightwave and Prisma synths you can instantly tell the quality. Even my beloved Absynth sounds very noisy and dirty against them.

I've only two things against: one is that some of the ergonomic aspects are a bit behind the game, and the other is polyphony. Unless you write minimalist music there is no way you're going to run a whole song "live" on MIDI with effects on a PulsarII.

But as I often say, after having owned dozens and dozens of synths over the years (oh god all that money ), the PulsarII is probably the best and most versatile bit of kit I've ever bought.

. Unless you write minimalist music there is no way you're going to run a whole song "live" on MIDI with effects on a PulsarII.

true. altho thats what is great about a sequencing program that sequences audio as well as midi.you can record the parts.there's no need for them to be generated live every time....(just like a recording studio always worked )

"Why?"
I've always regarded (even before I purchased) my Pulsar II & Luna II as the backbone of the studio I would ultimately like to build.

Not as the 'buy once and you set for life' answer.

On that scale it has absolutely excelled.


"Does it matter?"
I'd be lying if I said it was without imperfections but nothing that can't be easily worked around. And the tools on offer have added more to the standard of my production than any other purchase. (Remember that I consider CW as the spine of my outfit)


"How Long?"
The first PC it went into only took a couple of hours. I then built a PC around the Cards. (makes sense, they cost more than a PC but some fail acknowledge this) using Win2K for the OS the Machine has NEVER crashed and I could count on one hand the number of times I have had to restart Pulsar/Scope (Cubase on the other hand.....)

And the Mixers.... Oh the mixers!! I happily did a 19hr straight recording session running up to 8 mics. Not 1 glitch all day.

Anyone who has seen what my DAW is capable of is always amazed. Protools users usualy only for the fact that of how cheap it is when compared to the PT option but still.

The other thing no-one has mentioned is the expandability. You can continue to build it to pretty much any necessary size (up to 96 channels !?!?)

It is really going to take something far beyond anything I can imagine to cause me to jump ship. I would recemmend it to anyone.

For the record I am a programmer. But not much of a hardware techie.