Help for a buying-decision ... round three ...

[Trööt]

Hello friends and foreigners,

We can see that in the moment a lot of Sonic Core / Creamware cards are sold on eBay. Well, I think, all the sellers (or at least some of them) are planning to change to SCOPE XITE-1, and say "bye-bye" to old equipment to have the 3000 Euro for this fine new machine.

I am thinking about buying a used PCI-card with 3, 4, or mabe 6 DSPs, best with much much much registered software on it.

My problem is: I am uncertain about when I shall buy it. Shall I buy it now, in fear that in three months there will be no more used cards available in eBay, or shall I wait some months in hope that prices will go down after XITE-1 is available? What do you think?

And .. by the way .. what do you think how a fair price for a PCI card should be calculated? How much is it worth now? I am a beginner on this platform, and it is not easy for me to decide how much I shall bid in eBay without looking like somebody who throws money out of the window. So I am happy for some hints and tips.

Would be nice if anyone would give his comment.

Bye!

[geoffd99]

If you have 3000 eu for a new sytem, get that or a powerful native system.

The old PCI cards are still great, and very cheap. You need more than 6 dsp to do anything. I used to have 21. 9 is minimum really (P2 plus Luna)

I am selling a 6 dsp card and a lot of plugs, this has no I/O but you can get a very cheap Luna (about 120-150 eu) with I/O. That gives 9 dsp, and stereo in/out and midi.

I have:
1/
I have a P2 6 DSP card with no I/O, this can be added to a normal set up to add DSP, the plugins on it are:
Synthesizer Package 1
Synthesizer Package 2
Poison FM
Volkszampler

Effects Package 1
Effects Package 2

SCOPE 4.0 Software
Scope Fusion Platform
Main Studiotools Package

I am after £299 free Uk post for this one (tested all fine). Cheaper with plugs purchase.

2/
I also have a huge set of plugs with transfer fee paid from another card.

OFFERS PLEASE! I will split this huge list up if anyone is interested in some of the sets, eg Dynatube, the synths, effects etc. Can work out any extra transfer fees etc. The whole set has transfer fee included (55 eu).

Please pm me until we can work out a price, it is an auction, not first come first served, thanks everyone.

dynatubeJM
dynatubeFT
dynatubeMB
dynatubeVX
dynatube Bundle
Vinco DT

proTone
B-2003
Pro-12
Prodyssey
Six-String
MINIMAX
SB404
Vectron
Poison
EDS 16i

OrbitoneSynChrome (synth)

SPLAttacker
SPLTransDesg

Vinco
Vintage Compressor

OrbitoneImpressor

OrbitonePsyFi effects x 3

Polteq eq
RMX160 reverb/chorus

Adern FleXor
Modular 2
Modular III

PSY Q
Vocodizer
Optimaster
SBC
Master Verb Pro

Interpole

VDAT

Graph EQ

ARP01
ARP02

Mixer Package 1
Mixer Package 2

Main Studiotools Package
Effects Package 1
Synthesizer Package 1
Synthesizer Package 2
VolksZämpler SFP
STS-2000P
STS-3000
STS 4000
STS-5000
Pulsar Software
Scope Fusion Platform

Ends

[Trööt]

Sorry, geoffd99, but your answer is a little bit off topic .. I had seen your advertisment already, but that's not what I asked for.

[astroman]

Stardust is right - you got to be lurking around the bay and grab if something passes your way
I've been extremely lucky last year with a 15DSP card for 770 Euro, including every CWA and most 3rd party plugins before the release of Dynatube.
I even considered that offer a fraud, so good it was, and only got into it because I could pick the card up some 50 miles away.

I'd focus on 6 and 14 DSP boards as those are the most recent version (they have improved IO anyway) preferably with the Mix & Master and Synth & Sampler package included.
A 6 DSP Scope Home with both packs may be 400-600, the larger Scope Pro 700-900 as a good deal imho.
Be patient, makeup your mind about what you want to spend before and then make a single final bid a few seconds before the auction closes. You need to know the 'reaction speed' of your browser/network combi to make this succed manually, so 'practice' with some unimportant stuff, if you're not familiar with the process

cheers, Tom

[Trööt]

Thanks to astroman and stardust for their helpful comments.

For technical reasons (there is not very much room inside my computer case) I have to focus on smaller (short) cards like Luna. I think I do not really need 15 DSPs anyway. I am not that kind of power user, and if I get one later, I will buy a used XITE in some years.

Now I have two new questions, concerning the age of a used product.

1) Does it makes a difference how old the used card is?

Well, of course ... the older, the bigger the theoretical risk it will not operate one day, but that's not what I mean. I ask for technical hardware differences between a card from 1999 or 2000 and a card from 2007 or 2008. I am not sure to have read somewhere about the DSPs were getting faster? Or have this hardware been the same in all this years, and only the software changed?

If there is a difference, which minimum year of hardware production is recommendable?

2) What's about the software version of a used card?

Used cards sometimes come with Scope 4.0 instead of 4.5. What is the difference between those two versions of Operating System? What is the practical benefit of using Scope 4.5 (or even Scope 5.0 if it is released) instead of Scope 4.0?

Does it makes sense to buy a Card with Scope 4.0 (and a lot of PlugIns) and buy the update to Scope 5.0 in some months?

I would be happy if you can give me some answer again. Thank you.

[geoffd99]

I think there is a P1 and a P2 card, the P1 has 4 dsp; get a P2.

Luna is handy for 3 dsp and extra I/O but you will be mixing in the box presumably so extra I/O is not always used. 6 dsp is absolute minimum. 9 is ok, 15 about right.

You will be surprised how quickly the dsp fill up, and the over fill dsp error messages from Scope can crash the system, so it all gets a right pain, better to have too many than try and save a few quid.

I had a year 2000 P2 which worked perfectly every day and still is fine, it was the sound card in a multi use pc so was on (and off) almost everyday. This is very reliable! In fact it went through 3 pcs in that time. Also I have had several other cards, all faultless. Occasional glitches have been to do with pc config, it is important to get the right pc system, see the forum for that. Not all work well.

Scope 4.5 is the same as 4.0, it came with a plugin bundle and the new SBC which is a multiband eq, I think the software was exactly the same. It was a marketing thing only, but I think the upgrade to 5 needs 4.5 which makes it more complicated.

If you want to run a system now and don't care about upgrade, 4.0 is fine.

[kylie]

It was a marketing thing only, but I think the upgrade to 5 needs 4.5 which makes it more complicated.

the free upgrade to 5.0 requires the purchase of 4.5. if you're fine with the stock plugins the 4.0 provides, you can just wait for 5.0 and decide later if it's worth the upgrade fee or not. don't know if going 5.0 after the release still incorporates the m&m or s&s pack you get when upgrading to 4.5 right now. ask ralf.

-greetings, markus-

[astroman]

well, as mentioned... you will be amazed how quick you'll use up those DSP resources
it's not really about being a poweruser - it's just convenience
Let's put it straight with a 6 DSP card:
a smart mastering compressor can use up to 3 DSPs, the probably best electronic kick on earth (Adern's free KickMe) takes 1, now add 3 voices of the Minimoog emulation and you're out of prcessing resources, oops

Of course you can tweak this and that and split processing to multiple overdubs etc etc, but it doesn't really make sense at current prices.
Keep in mind that the system (as old as it may be) has world-class audio output and (still!) eats 98% of the VST stuff for breakfast.
It has the soundprint one usually associates with (very) expensive analog gear.

Anyway, regarding the age of the card:
check the box or the label under which the card is offered: anything named Luna or Pulsar is relatively old (regardless of what it's called prcisely)
Scope Project (6 DSPs) or Scope Professional (14 DSPs) are the latest models

On the other hand the age alone doesn't tell anything about the wear of the card, so I wouldn't overestimate it, just avoid the very old 4 and 15 DSP cards from 2000 or so...

I'd rather change the computer case so it can host a full sized card - you won't regret

cheers, Tom

[geoffd99]

As for length of card, I had to snip out a chunk of the inside case to fit a 15 dsp SRB... if you fancy that. All works fine.

[Trööt]

The main criteria is that 2nd gen boards allow latency <13ms while 1st gen is limited to that.
The feature is ASIO in HW called ULLI.
Also 1st gen boards are said to use more PCI bandwidth than 2nd gen.

Thank you for this information. I even feel that I am able to understand the difference between implementing ASIO in hardware or software, if this is the difference. .

At which year precisely was the change between first and second generation? When was ULLI invented? Are there others differences between old and new boards beside ULLI?

well, as mentioned... you will be amazed how quick you'll use up those DSP resources [...]

Well, I not want to do complete recording .. I just want to play a little bit with some organs and synthesizers, just for fun. And I have only two hands ..

If you look for my other thread (http://forums.planetz.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=27054), you maybe will understand my room problem. If I would try to plug a Project or a Professional in my motherboard, I must throw away some white and black keys from my organ, and that doesn't really make sense.

Otherwise, if I buy a Luna 2, and it works (which is only a hope in the moment), I will have 9 DSPs, and this should be enough for the first time. If I see that you are right with "15 DSPs is minimum!", I will not hesitate to buy a XITE .. I promise!

Thank you for your help.

[astroman]

oops, I didn't notice you were the dude with the Wersi...
in that case if you buy any other card, you can run a regular Scope environment and use the 'Wersi' licensed board as a DSP expander.
I wouldn't even expect problems with the installation on the same disk (I've had a couple of different Scope installations 'parallel' for some time)

cheers, Tom