Pulsar Instruments/Effects Sound Quality?

witchstar · Post by **witchstar** » Wed Jan 09, 2002 7:01 am

Hi,
I'm considering going Pulsar.
My main question is how is the sound quality?
I don't mean of the converters, but rather of the effects, the instruments, and also the mixer. How is it's channel summing sound quality?
Any feedback GREATLY appreciated!
Regards,
Mark

paulrmartin · Post by **paulrmartin** » Wed Jan 09, 2002 7:10 am

Check out the Music thread.
You should be able to determine the quality of the sounds eventhough some of the tunes are pretty crudely done, including mine

No, seriously, the sounds are GRAND! You won`t be sorry.

at0m · Post by **at0m** » Mon Jan 14, 2002 6:06 am

Check the http://www.neutron7.com Star Synth Demo on http://www.chillproductions.com. This guy even writes a synth before he starts the song

dxl · Post by **dxl** » Mon Jan 14, 2002 6:55 pm

some native effects sounds better but they are around 200USD....so.......
if u got urself a the newest P4 2.2 with newest P4 mother board.

GO for Native!!!!!!!!!

most NI synths sounds better than creamware's but........ all expensive

uknow007
vectron
lightwave
posion
prisma

they are very good!

samplaire · Post by **samplaire** » Tue Jan 15, 2002 2:49 am

yeah,

the mathematics says that the sound quality/price/possibilities ratio is unbeatable and most reasonable. So if you want to decide just count the prices of your fav native synths (soft or hard) and you'll see why Pulsar is the solution.

Hough!

Spirit · Post by **Spirit** » Tue Jan 15, 2002 4:51 am

Pulsar is the best bit of kit I've ever bought - and I've bought a lot.

Whether you like tweaking, playing, mixing, programming etc, it's the system.

And while there are sometimes little niggles, like "how do I...", there's lots of support here at Planet Z, and for the price you'll not find a more flexible solution.

And Creamware don;t even pay me to say this - I keep giving them money !

Spirit · Post by **Spirit** » Tue Jan 15, 2002 4:55 am

And one other thing: it's good to be in a minority. EVERYONE uses Reason and that's reason enough for me NOT to use it.

My logic for this is that if you're using the same gear as everyone else then you have to try a lot harder to sound different.

I've always maintained that a certain number of songs automatically "fall out" of new gear. Well, just about all the obvious stuff has already fallen out of Reason and as time goes on you have to push its boundaries more and more. If it's not a very flexible system then those boundaries will eventually start to close in.

I'm exagerating the scenario here so you can see what I mean.

But of course this is more philosophical than actual...

witchstar · Post by **witchstar** » Tue Jan 15, 2002 7:28 am

Hi guys, thanks for all the feedback!

Does anyone have any opinions on how the sound quality is if you use Pulsar's mixer to mix a lot of channels down to a stereo pair?

Thanks,
Mark

paulrmartin · Post by **paulrmartin** » Tue Jan 15, 2002 7:45 am

Digital sound is digital sound. The only thing that can degrade it is the guy sitting in the chair. The sound that comes out of the Pulsar mixers is entirely up to the person running it. I may sound nasty but that's my 2 cents.

witchstar · Post by **witchstar** » Tue Jan 15, 2002 11:01 am

On 2002-01-15 07:45, paulrmartin wrote:
Digital sound is digital sound. The only thing that can degrade it is the guy sitting in the chair. The sound that comes out of the Pulsar mixers is entirely up to the person running it. I may sound nasty but that's my 2 cents.

Man, I wish it was like that!

Unfortunately, it's not.
When you have to mix a bunch of channels of digital audio, there has to be a mathematical equation (algorithm) to do it, and a process by which the algorithm is handled, and both of these are slaves to how much power you have to do this with. All the different software apps have their own algorithms and processes which were written/designed by some really smart people. And they're all different! If you use enough different audio apps on the same high-end system, you start to hear the differences. Of course, this explanation is oversimplified, mostly because I'm not one of the really smart people.

For instance, I love Nuendo, but to my ear, the way it sums audio channels sounds like shit compared to the way Logic does it.

Anyway, I was just wondering if anybody had an opinion of this particular function of Pulsar compared to some of the other popular audio apps.

Regards,
Mark

subhuman · Post by **subhuman** » Tue Jan 15, 2002 11:09 am

For instance, I love Nuendo, but to my ear, the way it sums audio channels sounds like shit compared to the way Logic does it. 

Totally agree - and Logic is cheaper and has a way better MIDI engine...

dxl · Post by **dxl** » Tue Jan 15, 2002 2:59 pm

Pulsar's DSPs are already out dated......
why still selling that expensive.........
it's so limited.......

sandrob · Post by **sandrob** » Tue Jan 15, 2002 3:11 pm

For instance, I love Nuendo, but to my ear, the way it sums audio channels sounds like shit compared to the way Logic does it.

Totally agree - and Logic is cheaper and has a way better MIDI engine...

p.s. yes, logic is cheaper

btw. i use cubase

[ This Message was edited by: sandrob on 2002-01-15 15:14 ]

subhuman · Post by **subhuman** » Tue Jan 15, 2002 3:32 pm

Pulsar's DSPs are already out dated......
why still selling that expensive.........
it's so limited.......


Outdated, how? You are not paying for a stack full of DSP chips, but rather, the way they are implemented into a DSP farm, onto a PCI card, with low latency ASIO, MME, GSIF, DirectSound, etc drivers, along with a TON of really nice sound algorithms including synths, mixers, and samplers. All of this runs at zero latency. With each update, Creamware continues to add more devices and features usually for free (only Luna users had to pay to go to V3, but they also got a bunch of devices including masterVerb), remember, this is the audio industry - where people still praise the miniMOOG for it's sound...

Spirit · Post by **Spirit** » Tue Jan 15, 2002 5:09 pm

DSPs outdated ?

I suppose that means synths like the MS2000 are outdated because of their DSPs as well ?

I think it comes down to this: if you want to do audio you must pay money for the components to make it happen. You can pay for real hardware (including DSP boards) or software. Sometimes a mixture of both.

You want to go all-native then go for it. You want 100% hardware - why not ? You want a hardware - software mix, fine.

In the early 90s analog gear was cheap because everyone said analog was outdated

Michu · Post by **Michu** » Wed Jan 16, 2002 10:01 am

dxl,

Pulsar is not perfect as nothing is. i admit Creamware pissed me of once or twice to the point i considered selling my card.
but i just counted what should i get to replace it and decided to bite the bullet and use this outdated piece of junk

so i think you are just trying to talk us into selling our gear to you cheap

dxl · Post by **dxl** » Wed Jan 16, 2002 3:12 pm

the DSP......... 60MHz......... there are new DSP over 300MHz or even faster

well.. when it first time comes out....... it's really amazing because i can really do more things than just the CPU at that time.....
but now.........see............... P4 2.2A
AMD's XP1900...............

think guys THINK...............
they should lower the price somehow

Spirit · Post by **Spirit** » Thu Jan 17, 2002 1:54 am

ahhhh... lower prices. Well I agree with that

Although it's funny - here in Australia Pulsar XTC costs exactly the same as Reaktor (US$550). If you're talking about costs then which one is expensive? Surely Reaktor should be way cheaper than hardware ?

Michu · Post by **Michu** » Thu Jan 17, 2002 5:15 am

and i would not consider Reaktor as better just different (btw recently there has been update to SynC modular adding VSTfx functionality, and it is just 50$)
i also would love prices to fall, but there are still guys willing to pay for second hand cards.
if they would be worthless prices on eBay and such would be much lower.

try looking at it as an outboard gear that integrates nicely with your computer

kimgr · Post by **kimgr** » Thu Jan 17, 2002 11:06 pm

On 2002-01-15 07:45, paulrmartin wrote:
Digital sound is digital sound. The only thing that can degrade it is the guy sitting in the chair. The sound that comes out of the Pulsar mixers is entirely up to the person running it.

You don't have a very broad experience in digital audio, do you ?
There are HUGE differences in the quality of digital mixers, from Cubase to the Sony Oxford console. (The worst and the best I've tried).
Fortunatly the Scope/Pulsar mixer is one of the best in the sub 10.000$ pricerange, comparable to a Mackie d8b.

Kim.