WHEN, HOW and WHY did you get a Creamware System?

[Nestor]

I first had a Sound Blaster 64, I’ve got it with my first computer just a few days after the official release. I had a lot of fun with the Sound Blaster with its sort of plastic thin instruments. Everything would sound like a toy, a toy drum, a toy guitar, a toy piano… so my music sounded like children’s music!

I had too, a traumatic beginning, cos there was no body to explain me anything… Got the system through the post, from London going to my before place, Glasgow, and that’s it. I felt as lost as an ant in the Madison Square!

I didn’t know how to connect things together. I was a musician and a composer of those who writes everything in music papers. What the hell was I doing in front of a Virtual Studio? I felt rather desperate, particularly when I had to compose and finish a work, which was my first one to be published about a year after. It took me about 15 days to get all the cables, a little mixer, understand all the virtual and analogue connections, learn the new and incredible powerful Cubase 3.7 at that time, and all the other threatening topics like mixing and mastering… Everything was just too much information and I was getting crazy. My knowledge was too basic to do any serious work, I just understood how things would work together, that’s it…

Fortunately, the coming up of a fantastic magazine, called Computer Music, came to live and there I’ve learned lots of things meanwhile Planet Z was born… They gave people about 30 web addresses, among them Harmony Central, from which I didn’t know anything. Well, then I started to read everything about computers, hardware, software, etc. Just after a year I can say, I’ve learned to use Pulsar, Cubase and some basic sound editing, mixing and mastering…

I feel much comfortable now after almost 5 years of using Pulsar and Cubase, but I’m just a little child on it… There is soooooo much you can do. This is what never stops surprising me about Pulsar, it’s incredible ingenious and endless, inventive power of experimentation…

I have to thank of course, like you to all of these people who answered me so kindly when I felt so lost… Cheers…

[Herr Voigt]

Maybe I was one of the 1st users of Pulsar. A dealer (friend of mine) gave me some years before a Tropez from Turtle Beach. I used a Korg 03R/W too. The Tropez was very noisy and i was looking for good synth sounds I could tweak.
My friend told me about Pulsar and that he has to sell three Pulsars to belong to the exclusive circle of Pulsar-dealers.
So I bought one and got all what I was looking for: no noise, endless synths and less cable. After buying a Fostex VC-8, I could sell my mixer and do all on Pulsar.
I'm very happy to work with Pulsar, because I'm only a musician and not a studied recording engineer. It's easy to use and brings top quality ... and fun!!!!!

Cheers, Thomas

[astroman]

I got my Pulsar about 2 years from now ??
We had a nice shop here (unfortunately out of business) where they let you try the stuff at home.
I was looking for a multichannel board to replace a SBLive and checked an Aarward card, which failed completely for latency etc so I returned it next day.
The guy from the shop said 'well, add 150 bucks and try the Pulsar, then you get something real smart...' I refused because all reviews stated it needed a big CPU for the user interface, but he convinced me '... bring it back if it doesn't work'
You guess: it turned out to be the best piece of hardware (and software) I ever bought and I'll never trade in this particular board whatever Cream offers

The dealer was happy too because he had sold that Pulsar I about a week before the release of Pulsar II to someone who got a bit upset by that fact and insisted on a refund and the new version.
So lucky me got a great price as well

Later Propack provided the missing Modular and STS sampler and I got a Korg RC168 digi mixer (good converters - but lousy analog outs, so monitored via spdif) for additional IOs.
The system is completed by a K4 as master keyboard, a TX7 for FM, a Boss DR 110, Korg S3 and DDD1 and a bunch of Casio samplers from FZ to SK, a Casio midi guitar tnx to remixme for selling it to me a Casio midi horn and of course the great synths of Stephen Hummel. What more could I ask for ?

cheers, Tom

[mr swim]

I didn't have a clue about anything. But a friend of mine recommended an e-mu card that you could sample on (which was the only thing I knew that I wanted to do - sample and midi playback thereof). But I didn't have the time, and thought it best if I waited till I finished my degree - so I would finish my degree ! But when I eventually came to buy the comp and soundcard (before this I just had my laptop and a Korg N5 EX 16 track synth) it turned out that they had stopped making the e-mu I had wanted. The chap I asked told me the best thing to replace it was the powersampler.

With a little bit of research (i think I came here once or twice and poked around) I bought it. Built a computer around it, and there we are.

Except that I realised I wanted more power, and that DSP chips were the best way of getting it, so I went and bought another Luna II board (without the sampler, obviously !)

In retrospect, I really wish I had just shelled out for the Pulsar II, but at that stage I wasn't clear enough on why it would be a good thing to have all that power.

Now I know, but I'm stuck without Mod2 or the other cool things that I would have got. Fingers crossed after the release of the mythical third gen cards, I can pick up an old (!) pulsar ii with Mod3 for an affordable sum.

[bosone]

Pulsar was my own gift for having won the PHD here in the university were now i work.
it was at the beginning of 2000. i knew pulsar from a friend of mine, who bought it to produce some dance music, but he actually NEVER used it! before going to buy my CW card i deeply tested it at my friend's home and became aware of its possibilty...
then, i buyed my pulsar 1 with STS3000, and began (well, continued to) making music for myself, with no expectation of selling something or earn money from music, just for fun (and still now i compose and play just for hobby).
meanwhile, my music system was growing, and i bought a used Luna, an alesis DM5 and a korg 03RW... and i still wonder what will be my next musical toy!
even if the money i spent on music is literally "thrown away" because i don't have any economical return, this is the only thing in which i spend my money (i don't smoke, don't drink, i don't like to travel... i just like to play music!)!

[igge]

I first started out my PC stufio with two Soundblaster AWE 32's & Cakewalk Pro Audio 7. Then I bought the SB Live!, but wanted the LiveDrive thingy, so I bought the Platinum version. I was dissappointed about the bundled version of Cubasis, but there was a neat workaround to get to the VST instruments. Then came the Cubasis Project Pack, nice little card from EgoSys. I then discovered the brilliant UK magazine Computer Music, when I got the issue where they reviewed the Pulsar II & Powersampler, I was hooked. I absolutely had to have a Creamware card. So I ordered the Luna II. It was stunning! But I wanted synths as well, so I purchased STS300 as well as the ProPack.
He, I must have been among the first to run the Pulsar 3 software on a Luna II card! Now with SFP 3.1c & Cubase 5 (educational edition, don't know why they gave me this one. I ordered the upgrade from the Live! platinum bundled Cubasis, they told me they accidentaly got Cubase 5 32 for me first. Pity they discovered that error...) I'm quite happy. No more "nil reference on side of etc..." error messages. A new Luna II for Christmas perhaps? Can't afford the X-mas upgrade offer nor the X-mas Packs...Well, I bought a Les Paul 56 Gold Top instead.

[Steve-o]

I started making music in the early seventies (not a joke, I'm 44 now) playing guitar in a local band. Hard-rocking until the mid-eighties I stopped playing live and founded a semi-pro 8-track recording studio with a friend producing rock music and commercials. We ceased that in the eraly 90's cause it didn't pay off. But we made quite a good experience with PRO24 (the 'prequel' of Cubase) and worked with it since it's initial release. We synchonized our 8-track tapecorder via SMPTE and extended the 8 tape-tracks with a rather complex MIDI-Setup (Korg M1, AKAI S-900, Proteus, D-550 and so on). Mixdown to DAT-Tape.
Still crazy about good sounding music and recording I kept on playing with my old '73 Strat and added a Paula and a PRS Custom 24 (but...nothing beats my old Strat).
Observing the market of digital recording stuff I met Pulsar I in 1998. Started with PC-based audio on a soundblaster and Cubase VST one year before. I decided to invest in the CW System because of the very understandable (for me, fiddling with analogue patchbays for ages) and easy-to-use routing GUI and the chrystal clear sound (being traumatized by the 'noise' from earlier days when this was a major concern using (not so high ended) analogue equipment). After two years working with Pulsar I (where SonicTimeworks soon filled the long awaited CW-Reverb-Vacuum) I decided to buy a Scope board - not just because of the DSP-power but the software included (esp. the mixers) - and guess what? I'm happy with it (but like Nestor stated 'will never stop complaining about it') because of the endless possibilities and the flexibility. Today I'm owning a PC-based studio with some outboard gear (TR, Triton Rack, microQ, D-550, JD-990) and tons of software producing mainly surround-stuff on Nuendo and SX ('till Nuendo 2 will be available). I now own a setup I dreamed of with my friend more than a decade ago. And after a long days work it is NOW possible what I ever dreamed of: switch on the knob(s) and dive into 'the other world' full of sounds and music!