As for the audio formats, mp3 is nearly universal. Sites that have 'real' 'wma' 'quicktime' etc are onorous and while I'm sure that we geeks here are somewhat familiar with AAC and ogg not everyone is. But hey, who am I to hold back progress? (also it seems to me that AAC does have multichannel support).
I agree Valis, there's quite a bunch per device ! but now that the contest is launched, I'll see if I can pack as much as possible into the demos
As for formats, at worst it's playable in most recent audio editors but I agree it's not the safest way.
Ogg can be played in widespread Winamp since 2.80 something and I made it played in Windows Media Player by loading oggdec.exe as plugins but maybe it could be too much too ask.
Just to get back to the original question somewhat:
i originally got Pulsar for the routing and sampling (i even bought PowerSampler card separately to my Pulsar2 card thinking it was a separate device - the product line was very confusingly marketed back then).
As time has gone on and things like SFP and Minimax have evolved then my emphasis has shifted to using it for, well, everything! Routing, samling, effects (could do with more high end extras like Vinco please), synths, synths, mixing, synths and synths. My poor hardware synths barely get a look in these days. The great thing is that SFP is flexible enought to be able to work in the way you like - even if your way of working changes over the years.
So to the negative side: as you can see i still use SFP for sampling, and it's no secret that pretty much everyone here thinks the STS range need a serious overhaul (i have even been looking at VSTi samplers of late - heresy!). Better GUI, more sample format compatibility, beat slicing, maybe some 'refill' packs of premade/premapped drums, pianos, what have you for people to get started.
To my ears SFP sounds much better than an all-native solution - this is definitely one of its strongest points.
As to marketing, how about some pictures on the CW website of the routing posibilities - whenever i am away from home and bump into a musical buddy and try to explain my CW system to him i can't actually show him a project window with all the 'wiring' (i end up using the Projects section here at the z).
Mr A
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Mr Arkadin on 2004-03-12 06:37 ]</font>
>>As to marketing, how about some pictures on the CW website of the routing posibilities - whenever i am away from home and bump into a musical buddy and try to explain my CW system to him i can't actually show him a project window with all the 'wiring' (i end up using the Projects section here at the z). <<
Yes this will be a forthcoming topic on the new website. There is really need to elucidate the concepts & possibilites of the Scope Platform.
I think for the depicting the routing possibilities on the website (and the general way SFP works as a whole), simple flash animations could work great.
On 2004-03-13 09:23, valis wrote:
I agree King Of Snake. For simple things at least.
yeah, like load a synth and patch it trough some fx and a mixer, showing how to route signals from outboard gear into SFP and of course sequencer integration.
The 'no latency'Guitar and Bass amp modellers from Celmo are for me more than enough reason to be commited to Creamware and the lovely Creamware sound .
skwawks
hi
here(italy) i have some friends(6 and 2 of these the zlinkbox too) that they have bought luna2 after they have seen my pulsar2 card but,
and which i would like explain,is they refused to work in sfp beacause mix with it is too much complicated(routing mixer etc... however i try to explain and i have mix with them using the sfp enviroments),
2 of these have try to add xtc power(3 dsp) in their pc but too much instable and few plug(dll) and few free plug(dll)
please do a good manual(and translate version,here in italy exist only a 2.0 version i know english is a relevant language but sfp isn't a plug a jack and go card)
a big variety of presets for various kind of project for example i havent find a project with asio2 driver and because they are different to asio(direct monitoring
thing)
another thing is live application;
with some little problem i have used the plattform for live acoustic gigs (brass drums guitar keyboards bass) all into the sfp with a mixer with directouts and with sfpreverb and sfpcompressor and eq an improvements in this direction can open new scenario
(a new ultra a 16 with preamp for example)
or sophisticated preamp in stm mixer
boh... just an idea,or a box for the card
with ram on board and optimizations.
high end plugin for the sound and mixing
these are the base for sound some good usefull emulations or
new kind of stuff are the solution for
marketin thing maybe.....
now i'm thinkin to buy a uad 1 cards 579 euro, because creamware doesn't offer
too much for this kind of use.
i have optimaster vinco transient(transient great and best plug for me doesnt exist another in the audio scene!!!)psy q
but need some revitalization i think
new preset and a good explanation how to use in deep.
It is interesting to me that so much of the creamware emphasis is on the softsynths when the strength of this system as a recording system is absolutely unrivaled for the price.
SCOPE gives you real time monitoring through excellent effects while recording dry for the cost of audio cards that can't do it at all. If they would build the capability to add a module to SFP that would allow you to allocate a few sharc chips to do XTC while you are in SCOPE native mode and let you use both simultaniously, you would have a perfect product. Well, except for the automation, the midi needs some work...
I was going to build a pro-tools system. I read about how it works and couldn't believe no one had made a piece of hardware that put the inputs on the card and let you monitor through effects and record dry while using your own software. Then I found creamware and built my studio around while still being able to use Cubase and the preamps I had already invested in. It's sweet but I had to do a ton of research to know about it. It's like having an analog mixer and a crapload of outboard effects only you can re-cable the thing in seconds and you don't have to deal with noise.
I guess Creamware customers are too busy making music to put up websites on how sweet it is. I haven't even tried out the synths, I use it strictly for recording. I know it is the first audio product I have bought that does everything it advertized it was capable of flawlessly. I have never had a problem. I think if the users would put up some website explaining what this thing can do and if the main website would explain what is possible with it, they would sell a lot more of these.
I'm with you rumpsummoner. The reason I bought into the SFP technology was for the routing/integration. This seems to not get as much promotion as synths etc. SFP covers such diverse range of uses it really is amazing and unique!
The reason I originally bought the Creamware card is that it ran softsynths directly off the card and not off the computer's CPU. I needed a new card to run ASIO, and after a very good experience with effects processing in Cubase via the UAD-1 card, I figured it would clean up the synth side of things. It was only after I got the Minimax though, that I realized just how high quality softsynths can be. It sounds better than any hardware synth I have ever played (and a lot cheaper!). Now the Minimax, Pro-one (now pro-tone apparently) and Pro-Oddysey are my definition of good sounding synths. You don't have to do anything to them to make them sit nicely in a mix, like compression or eq, etc. I use my outboard gear still for sample playback MIDI, but none of it comes close to the true analog sound of these synths. And it does a good job with its ASIO drivers.
However - it was not obvious from the available literature about the card just how flexible it is. The way that you can allocate standard studio components and wire them up any way you want is staggeringly powerful and easy to use. This card is so ahead of its time and underpriced it's ridiculous. It's not just a card, it's a virtual studio that you can wire up any way you want, and your hard disk recording package just sits on top of that. It comes with a wide range of effects and devices, and interfaces easily to the rest of your studio gear. It's not often that gear actually performs better than I could have hoped.
the first CW-board I bought was a pulsarII back in may 2001.
until then I was doing recordings the old fashion way to analog tape.
I was reading a lot about hard-disk recording and I wanted to give it a try
I had only some experiance with cubase on atari as far as making music with computor.
so I went to the shop and ask what I needed to get started.
It turned out that the salesman from the shop was a big fan of Creamware, and
there I went as proud owner of my new Pulsar II,
soon I discovered that Pulsar II was much more than a board to make my computor
into a studio. As I am a guitarplayer, I did not have much experiance with synthezisers
but CW really got me going into the deep with that. my whole way of making music
is completely changed with creamware!
First I was getting more and more studio tools to complete my setup, later also most of
the synth's availlible. I first bought a Powersampler with adat extension so I had a
second system purely as sampler running next to my pulsar where I was do the
recordings I bought V-Dat and later when SFP came out pro-pack, optimaster,
vinco and those great plug-ins to make my studio complete.
So in the beginning I was using Pulsar mainly as hard disk-recorder and the
great flexabillity using the routing window made it so easy to use, just like my
old hardware-studio. More and more tools got intergrated into the computer.
The only thing keeping me back was the amount of DSP's. But that's one of the other
great thing from Creamware boards, you can put more boards in one System, link them
and SFP sees them as one!!
Now I own 6 CW boards with a total of 42 DSP's and all it takes is a few PC systems,
and a few screens to have a super complete professional Studio. no more racks full
of hardware, not thinking aah I need that compressor (or verb or....) for the bass
but I also need it for guitar and the snare, just load another one!
In other words CW is the most flexable system with unlimited possabilitys
Hi fortune, scope is a very nice and powerfull platform..but i see incoming enemies like uad-1 and the tc electronic card...i think could be great a brand new analog simulation of pro audio and some of this, free old for users, to encourage to keep cw cards..i mean vintage eq and compressor...(maybe vinco free with scope version 4.0? i think it could be a graet thing for new users who think to buy this platform. uad 1 offers new free plugin with software updates, like fairchild a really amazing compressor).
This is another idea: take a great mixer like NEVE or SLL, and make a plug in based on a channel of this mixer..many studos like mine will go crazy for this!!!!!!
keywordS: ENCORAUGE, INCENTIVES
have a look for more info here: 
