MiniMax ASB at Messe

sharc · Post by **sharc** » Thu Apr 21, 2005 2:40 pm

...and I'm sure that the Uknow with a little tweaking and ASB status would be a lot more appealling than Rolands latest effort.

johnbowen · Post by **johnbowen** » Thu Apr 21, 2005 3:18 pm

sharc,

I think it might be possible to download an 'image file' of a certain set of Modular modules...you couldn't change them in the ASB, though. It would be a fixed configuration (which is like the Nord box, isn't it?).

I don't know about the inner workings of the Modular structure, and how that gets translated to the new system, though. THere may be some other limitations. Best wait for Frank to tell us....

peace,

Ralf · Post by **Ralf** » Tue May 03, 2005 8:10 am

Yes, completely right !
My ears are completely unsuitable for rack-installation.
I saw this last year, when i was at my hairdresser.

But maybe for gound support equipment

)

cheers
Ralf

On 2005-04-15 19:23, ChampionSound wrote:
I don't think Ralf has rackears, just normal ones

darkrezin · Post by **darkrezin** » Tue May 03, 2005 7:16 pm

On 2005-04-21 16:18, johnbowen wrote:
sharc,

I think it might be possible to download an 'image file' of a certain set of Modular modules...you couldn't change them in the ASB, though. It would be a fixed configuration (which is like the Nord box, isn't it?).

I don't know about the inner workings of the Modular structure, and how that gets translated to the new system, though. THere may be some other limitations. Best wait for Frank to tell us....

peace,

If this is possible somehow, it would be a pretty damn cool compromise. Also, if actually editing a modular patch isn't possible with the ASB units, it would actually encourage people to buy Scope cards as well. I wonder why Creamware didn't get something like this together when they made the Noah

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: dArKr3zIn on 2005-05-03 20:24 ]</font>

Immanuel · Post by **Immanuel** » Wed May 04, 2005 2:14 am

I can hear the trouble already:

"You can not even edit the patches"

You don't have to look any further than to PlanetZ to see, that far too many people are more bussy at talking about limitations than about possibilities. Custommers always know better, and the price is always too high. Really - if there is a limitation, the PlanetZ society will do an outstanding job telling all the lurkers, that this is a piece of *hit, because it doesn't do this, doesn't do that and cost too much. (almost) everything always gets a negative response. I don't say, that we should not be alowed to talk about limitations, but I think we should keep things more in to the context og the specific tool we are talking about (intended use, price, etc.).

I am getting of track now. What I wanted to say is, that good as your idea is, it will be burned in public if brought to live.

darkrezin · Post by **darkrezin** » Wed May 04, 2005 8:04 am

I know what you mean.. people are too used to the comforting convenience of the VST world, and it's made them lazy and expecting the computer to do everything for them.

Of course sound quality is just not a concern any more.. I seriously doubt that programmers are bothered about making progress with sound quality when people care much more about the number of instances they can run at the same time.

johnbowen · Post by **johnbowen** » Tue Jun 14, 2005 12:15 pm

Sadly, I agree - sound quality is no longer important (and hasn't been for some years actually) to the VST community.

But that's why you are here at Planet Z using Creamware boards!

cheers,

Billy goat gruff · Post by **Billy goat gruff** » Tue Jun 14, 2005 4:54 pm

Nice comment re: sound quality. And let's face it. The folks who use this gear professionally really don't have the time to hang around Z posting or reading negatives.

Spirit · Post by **Spirit** » Tue Jun 14, 2005 6:15 pm

I think a lot of the people who want the convenience of VSTi integration and good sound quality tend more toward 24-bit sample-based instruments.

The whole "VSTi" convenience issue is a huge factor in this market. And it's definitely a perceived weakness of the CWA products. You just have to do a search on KvR of Creamware and see that it comes up again and again.

Also I believe most people simply can't hear the difference between CWA quality and regular VSTi, especially on MP3 demos. And if their music will ultimately be in the MP3 format (for the most part) then they're not losing much (if anything) in quality.

This isue wouldn't be so important if most CWA users were pro studio users, but as I understand from various things CWA have said, most of its users are amateurs and home enthusiasts.

I know many people here don't see this VSTi issue as a big factor. And if you have a CWA product then you must either not be bothered by it or work comfortably without it. However I believe it has and continues to seriously hold back the platform.

The hobby world is VSTi. The main alternative or adjunct is the "genuine hardware" users. But CWA products don't comfortably sit in either of these worlds.

That's a big problem especially now since the old CPU argument is no longer decisive and new VSTis are so good sound-wise and have features that you just won't see on any CWA synth. And that's why I think CWA is currently on its knees.

So good luck to the new hardware !

decimator · Post by **decimator** » Wed Jun 15, 2005 11:25 am

The ASBs in a shop should be attractive or eye catching to the pros only using hardware, it's an alluring physical presence, a CWA stand with all the ASB to come should be attractive but once the clones are done maybe time to to work with talented third parties for something new ... hmm ?
About sound quality, I'am quite dismayed when I hear ( some ) people who owned a huge set of hardware saying now : I'am moving to VST, same sound quality, more user friendliness ...
Are they ear impaired or do they need better monitors ?
I started on VST because I had no choice and now that I have some more choices I put Sound first before convenience of use !

darkrezin · Post by **darkrezin** » Wed Jun 15, 2005 2:19 pm

I don't think that VST automatically equals big money. As far as I can see, the only plugins which make money are big-name emulations like Korg and Arturia, polished sample-based things like the Spectrasonics stuff, and unique problem solvers like Sampletank and BFD.

Don't forget that most people using VST do so because they can use either:

1. warez
2. freeware

I've used the UAD1/Powercore cards, and can quite categorically say that compared to SFP, they suck donkey balls.

I think it's much better for Creamware to do something interesting and respectable, than go for the 'lowest common denominator' approach to the market which, thankfully, doesn't always work.

Frankly, no-one in VST-land cares about sound quality or zero-latency. So it's a losing game for Creamware to go after this fickle market, filled with people who are only looking for their next free new toy, rather than delving deep into their tools.

Spirit · Post by **Spirit** » Wed Jun 15, 2005 3:16 pm

On 2005-06-15 15:19, dArKr3zIn wrote:
Frankly, no-one in VST-land cares about sound quality or zero-latency. So it's a losing game for Creamware to go after this fickle market, filled with people who are only looking for their next free new toy, rather than delving deep into their tools.

Well, that's a very big call. I think you'd find quite a few VSTi developers have a seizure over that claim.

Many VSTi synths are far more 'deep' than anything you'll find on this platform. I'm thinking here of Absynth, Reaktor 5, Miniminster & Rhino...(for a start).

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Wed Jun 15, 2005 3:40 pm

On 2005-06-15 12:25, decimator wrote:
...About sound quality, I'am quite dismayed when I hear ( some ) people who owned a huge set of hardware saying now : I'am moving to VST, same sound quality, more user friendliness ...
Are they ear impaired or do they need better monitors ? ...

well, maybe a broader viewpoint applies

I assume the quote is about contemporary stuff with at least some commercial success...

then it's almost unlikely those synths have (ever) been used on their own - read hi-quality outboard gear, big consoles, professional engineers.
in this context the quality of the original soundsource is almost irrelevant, as can also be observed in SFP: whatever you put into it (given the proper fx chain) comes out big and impressive

2nd point is that EVERY track isn't doubled, but at least squared. 4 kicks over each other aren't unlikely and a 2 minute guitar part consists of a CD full of base material.

then how's the frequency spectrum 'distributed' by importance ?
simplyfied it's bass and vocals, a snare to drive it, some midrange guitar/synth to fill (stacked of course).

While the truely deep sounds are more or less 'body sensed', the vocals are considered most important for success andd as such get the most 'attentive' and 'pleasing' part of the spectrum. What's not in the original is again stacked, eqed, overcompressed, phase and pitch shifted etc.

So the 'difficult to synthesize' part of the spectrum is already occupied - and in fact a cheapo synth sound with few low mids might even fit the mix better. For the few seconds of a solo riff you just take a proper Minimoog sample - that's it.

cheers, Tom

Billy goat gruff · Post by **Billy goat gruff** » Wed Jun 15, 2005 4:15 pm

Valid points...... obviously depends on how you work. For SOME people the quality of the source material is critical. For me, sparse arrangements show up the difference. Maybe I'm not layering as much as I could....... More learning ...... Thanks for your viewpoint.

johnbowen · Post by **johnbowen** » Wed Jun 15, 2005 5:27 pm

On 2005-06-15 15:19, dArKr3zIn wrote:
I don't think that VST automatically equals big money. As far as I can see, the only plugins which make money are big-name emulations like Korg and Arturia, polished sample-based things like the Spectrasonics stuff, and unique problem solvers like Sampletank and BFD.

Don't forget that most people using VST do so because they can use either:

1. warez
2. freeware

I've used the UAD1/Powercore cards, and can quite categorically say that compared to SFP, they suck donkey balls.

I think it's much better for Creamware to do something interesting and respectable, than go for the 'lowest common denominator' approach to the market which, thankfully, doesn't always work.

Frankly, no-one in VST-land cares about sound quality or zero-latency. So it's a losing game for Creamware to go after this fickle market, filled with people who are only looking for their next free new toy, rather than delving deep into their tools.

Actually, I heard from a fairly reliable source that the Legacy software has not brought in much money for Korg, precisely because of point #1 in your message.

As I re-read this thread, I'd also like to agree with Spirit about the fact that VSTs are getting more sophisticated in terms of what they can do, compared with things I can build in Scope DP. There are some new free VST synths (not to mention Absynth) which have amazing amounts of control over things (such as individual curvature for each segment of a multisegment envelope) that I would love to be able to do, but cannot with the current DP tools. For me as well, it seems going this hardware route (ASB type box) may be the only way to expand my market share, without getting lost among the 600+ VST synth plugins listed on KvR.
Certainly I'm investigating what options I have in the hardware direction...but I also look forward to having a new, more powerful line of cards (or a USB box?) that I can use for the current product line.

If the Minimax and other ASB products do sell well, I expect CWA will be able to step up to the next level of hardware, and provide us with a decent upgrade path for our computer systems. (I'd be happy with the basic guts of an ASB box in a small footprint design that could run my current synths on a computer.)

The main issue with compatibility, by the way, is how the host-based code is handled. For our current Pulsar/Scope systems, everything not running on the DSP is handled by the computer (and I use quite a bit of those host modules in my synths for switches and so on). With Noah and the ASB boxes, there is no host computer, so those host modules need to be replaced with other modules which will run on the replacement host chip (another DSP in the Noah system, for example). A simple ASB type box that left the host stuff to the computer should be perfect for future upgrades.

cheers,

darkrezin · Post by **darkrezin** » Wed Jun 15, 2005 5:36 pm

On 2005-06-15 16:16, Spirit wrote:

Many VSTi synths are far more 'deep' than anything you'll find on this platform. I'm thinking here of Absynth, Reaktor 5, Miniminster & Rhino...(for a start).

The tools in many cases are very deep (the ones you mention are all good and they all have their merits, I would never say they are bad tools), however the users rarely do anything but call up the presets, or wait for someone to make more presets.

This may be a good or bad thing, after all music doesn't need the musician to have great synth-programming skills. But to me, it's symptomatic of a new form of consumerism, where new free synths (warez or freeware) come out every day, and people don't feel as inclined to learn to squeeze the most out of them, unlike when you have paid a lot of money for something, or have a fat piece of hardware resting at your fingertips. I think it also ties in with the 'convenience factor' of the VST world. It all leads to a kind of laziness about music-making. Software-only productions can sound pretty good, but IMHO they lack depth and diversity - the sound is devoid of richness and expression and uniqueness, in a way (I'm talking about sonic qualities, not playing technique, by the way). On top of this, everything sounds a bit flat, like a very very good simulation but lacking a crucial dimension to be the real thing.

I realise that this is a subjective point, but well, I stand by what my ears tell me. I'm only going into this stuff because I think the VST mentality is a bit limited and restricting - totally the opposite of what it's meant to be.

What I find funniest is when someone makes something which actually can be compared to DSP or hardware in terms of sound quality (Minimonsta, DiscoDSP Discovery etc), the #1 comment is "why does it use so much CPU, why can't I run 20 instances?". It's also a major criticism of the Scope system ("why can't I have massive polyphony and loads of synths?"). Isn't it nicer to have 1 fat voice than 32 weak ones?

darkrezin · Post by **darkrezin** » Wed Jun 15, 2005 5:42 pm

@ John

I totally agree that VST synths can do certain things really well. Obviously, disk-streaming (and pretty much anything sample-based), percussive stuff (due to sample accuracy on playback) and interesting control techniques such as envelopes can be pretty awesome on VSTs. I just think that the sound quality is not there yet on generated waveforms (getting there) and filter code (nowhere near there IMHO). I also think that native mixing algorithms just ain't that good.

johnbowen · Post by **johnbowen** » Thu Jun 16, 2005 5:02 pm

I posted something in another Topic area about the new WAVES hardware, but it's sort of related to some of the stuff I've been going on about here.

Love to get anyone's response on it:

http://www.planetz.com/forums/viewtopic ... &0&start=0
______________
john bowen
zarg music

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: johnbowen on 2005-06-16 18:03 ]</font>

symbiote · Post by **symbiote** » Fri Jun 17, 2005 8:01 am

I just wish they'll put some on-board memory on their next generation of cards. 1Gb of DDR ram is dirt cheap these days, less than 150$ retail price, so I can't imagine it being a big investement to put 32/64/128 megs on the card to help with the samplers (still keeping the possibility of using the machine's memory for bigger samples or if the on-board mem is full,) convolution stuff and other random things.

emzee · Post by **emzee** » Mon Jun 20, 2005 5:48 pm

Re sound quality.... I'm not using my Creamware gear to full potential yet.... more learning....

But the sounds I can get allow me to bypass a commercial studio, with all it's expensive outboard gear and commercial hourly rate. I can develop my songs and skills without running up huge bills that may never be justified with my present body of work. And that is why sound quality is important to me. I can keep costs relative to my level of industry success.