PlanetZ forums - scopeusers.com

it be christmas if they'd include Transient Designer
can't imagine anyone spent money on Attacker anyway

If the new cards aren't backward compatible then what will CW do ? They'd surely have to make an updated version of almost all there devices. Otherwise it would be crazy to have a fantastic new card, but you can't (for example) run Vinco or Minimax.

And if they recreated devices, but didn't make the old and new cards compatible you'd have two competing camps in the CW world. You'd hear things like: "Minimax for SFP sounds waaay warmer than Minimax for SFP-MkII." With the reply: "No it doesn't you ignorant bag of slime." The platform isn't big enough to run two separate systems. And compatibility is what SFP is all about !

But if the unthinkable happened and CW did introduce a new, incompatible system, then wouldn't this be like Logic dumping the PC ? You'd have the same feelings of using a dead-end product, and of betrayl. The question would then be: Shall I go with CW in its new direction? It would be a crossroads and I wonder how many would go with CW ?

Also I think that all these special deals are really nothing more than Creamware dropping the price on its product line. But instead of just putting the price down, say 20%, they have a string of "deals". But it amounts to the same thing: cheaper CW cards.

Why have CW made the cards cheaper ? Who knows. Could be reduced manufacturing costs; could be god-like benevolance; could be a desperate measure to improve its customer base and bottom line; could be a new card on its way. . .

The thing you've got to remember though is PCI is soon to be upgraded/replaced most likely with PCI-X.

But it will be a long long time before PCI fully makes its exit, but they might produce a card using a new interface when it comes out,
I think it would be slighly foolish for creamware to produce another PCI card, (especially if it wasn't backwards compatible) as oppose to waiting for a new interface.

Another thing, creamware simply cannot afford to alienate its existing userbase, so it would have to be a killer new product with some aspect of backwards compatibility or a reasonable upgrade path, at some point they will have to release something new. But not for a while yet I think.

If they do release something early next year, I think it would be a stopgap product, with possibly different IO's options.

But someone can answer me this, surely analogue devices make a more powerful Sharc that uses a very similar instruction set to the ones in existing cards, so little or no extra coding is required?

Yeah, but the speed/price ratio can't stay the same forever. As technology moves on, you get more power for the same price, it happens with native processing, so if CW want to remain competitive it should happen with DSP processing as well. If you bought a Pentium three years ago, you would get a much faster one today for the same price, with Creamware, you would get pretty much the same as three years ago. Of course CW can't update their cards as often as Intel and Athlon do their processors, but it will have to happen.

I've just been harping on about this very fact in the Device/Module Wishlist forum. (probably the wrong one) The point that I was trying to make was that CW should make SFP run as a VSTi and in turn boost the user base while keeping up with CPU speeds. This might initially seem unfeasable, but if you think how many systems you could have running on inwire for the cost of a scope card it might make more sense. I'm not saying anything against the dsp approach. I just think a hybrid dsp/cpu one is more future proof. Whether this involves SFP making more use of the CPU and in turn causing more PCI problems, or like I suggested - creating some sort of VSTi <-> CW wrapper which would run independently on the VSTi compatible sequencer of your choice. I think the latter would be a better idea all round.

I'd buy a second card tomorrow if I could use CW devices <b>exactly</b> like other VSTi. But this is not possible so now I split things almost 50/50 DSP and native and this works pretty well. I would have much rather have spent my last couple of thousand $ on CW stuff, but so it is . . .

Spirit, what are the things in VST that you can't do in SFP? Or what do you do in a different way?

I make loops, mainly for a friend of mine who runs a small studio, but sometimes also just for myself. The best loop-creating app for me is Fruity - I can run masses of effects, Kontakt, Absynth etc in it and produce masses of perfect loops pretty fast.

But it can only play CW devices, not render them, so consequently "live" CW devices rarely get into the loops I produce - usually it's just samples of CW sounds played through Kontakt or as simple wavs.

That's a very specialised situation I know, but that's the way I work and that's why I like VSTi.

There are some alternative ways I do things if I really want a CW device in the loop such as recording in SF6, or triggering the CW device in MIDI in AcidPro4 then recording to a new track.

But the bottom line is the more time I spend fluffing about with apps and slicing and dicing the fewer loops I put out. So the Fruity render method is the most efficient workflow for me.

And no, I don't want to buy SX


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Spirit on 2002-10-08 22:04 ]</font>

Hey Spirit! You have to try the TapeIt VST plugin, it is like a stereo recorder. You just stick it in any of your fruity track, and it will record anything that goes thru it, including creamware stuff when used in XTC mode (they are like VSTi ?)

Give it a try, it's free and work pretty well!

Sounds interesting, thanks for the tip !

By the way, I would be very surprised if new cards were not backwards compatible. Compatibility is CW's strongest selling point, especially since they went trough all this trouble creating SFP, I really don't think they don't realise that.

I've just been harping on about this very fact in the Device/Module Wishlist forum. (probably the wrong one) The point that I was trying to make was that CW should make SFP run as a VSTi and in turn boost the user base while keeping up with CPU speeds. This might initially seem unfeasable, but if you think how many systems you could have running on inwire for the cost of a scope card it might make more sense. I'm not saying anything against the dsp approach. I just think a hybrid dsp/cpu one is more future proof. Whether this involves SFP making more use of the CPU and in turn causing more PCI problems, or like I suggested - creating some sort of VSTi <-> CW wrapper which would run independently on the VSTi compatible sequencer of your choice. I think the latter would be a better idea all round.

Well I didn't mean to suggest CW should go VST really. I think the pro's of DSP are obvious, aside from the fact that it doesn't tax your CPU which is already busey enough with all the other VST's, there is the little fact that DSP stuff just seems to sound better than anything on VST now.
I just argued that it would be inevitable that CW would release more powerful hardware for the same price, since the same happens in all the rest of computer-hardware world. All this stuff never really gets more or less expensive, you just get faster stuff for your money.

I think Spirit hit the nail on the head - and that's the basis of my thoughts that a "new" card wouldn't be all that much different than current cards... if it is even a necessary thing at all (I really don't see too many advantages or things to improve with my system).

Geez, don't spell it out for 'em sub & spirit! I'm hoping to pick up a cheap scope from the upgrade frenzy.

On 2002-10-08 23:35, marcuspocus wrote:
Hey Spirit! You have to try the TapeIt VST plugin, it is like a stereo recorder.

And if you are looking for something even nicer, try Ableton Live synced up with a MIDI sequencer - Ableton has "snap" recording - you can start and end recording at musical intervals, eg. bar 1/2 1/4 etc. - and it records 24 bit, AND you never even have to stop playback. It is *almost* as cool as export audio functions in VST sequencers. It is the best way to make samples from CW products. I do this religously now. really.
[another joel-is-a-Live-evangelist post]

I didn't know LIVE was able to record? Cool, i'll at least have a look at it, they have a demo?


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: marcuspocus on 2002-10-09 22:23 ]</font>

yes - live can record! I think it is even multi-track, but I've never recorded more than stereo, but I think it would work with 4 or more ASIO ins, just set the inputs to different channels and trigger them both.

Snap record is badass. I think it is actually *better* than export audio because you can jump in and out of recording when you find good tweaks. I was just recording in Live for about an hour and I'm all hyper and stuff, so sorry bout that. OK rant done.

demo's only limitation is that it is save-disabled and has a 30 minute time out.

The snap record features sounds extremely useful. It's funny how when some features appear you think "that's so obviously useful" and yet until that time no one was doing it.

I suppose that's the essence of good design.