PlanetZ forums - scopeusers.com

It will be easy to market against them because it is way less expensive but I think they need a marketing department and they probably won't get one.

On 2006-10-15 06:35, braincell wrote:
Gary,

The cards and software cost too much. This is something affordable.

Brain,
you're mistaken.
the cards are very inexpensive for the amount and quality of processing. it depends on your point of view. from a consumer perspective they are at the top of the price list, but still a good value compared to other products. a case in point: the digi002 rack is $1500 and gives some 8in 10out with 4 mic pres. a scope project and 2x ada8000 costs some $1200 and gives 20i/o with 16 mic pres, plus high quality effects, a sampler, a modular and synths. in the professional realm, scope is dirt cheap.

as you pointed out, marketing is the real problem, not the product.

On 2006-10-15 11:41, astroman wrote:

I'm afraid only 'live' performers among existing customers will buy it.
Of course everyone will appreciate the idea and find it cool, but who's gonna vote by the wallet in real life ?

It will be a tough marketing round against stage presence of Virus and Nord.
If you can keep it below 1K Euro with more or less complete interface it may work with a ton of the best presets spread and brought to attention everywhere.

As already mentioned my personal favourite would be the QuantumWave - it has a legendary (and highly exclusive) blueprint and some features that none of the other Scope synths have.

Tom,
This comparison to Virus has come up quite often (but not Nord yet) when I'm discussing the possibilities of a hardware Solaris. I guess that's a compliment! But the Virus sound seems pretty 'tired' to me now, and I think "Why not try for a piece of that market?". If companies always believed there was no point in releasing a competitor product, then nothing new would ever be released! For example, think of Access Virus 10 years ago, when they were just a small 'guest' in the Waldorf booth. They were going against some big companies, even Waldorf themselves, but it didn't stop them (by the way, I'll never understand why Waldorf gave Access such a 'helping hand' - it seemed to hasten the end for Waldorf, after all!).

However, it does seem most people feel Virus has answered all their musical needs, and so it's been hard for me to gauge real interest in a hardware Solaris. That's why I come here to ask questions - plus as you pointed out, what is a Solaris? Most users frequenting this forum either know directly, or from reading about it, but going out into the bigger world like the ASB systems are doing would definitely be a challenge.

As for the Quantum Wave - I could certainly think about that, but I want to see first what the newly revived Waldorf group is going to produce, which should be apparent by NAMM in January.
Cheers,
John

p.s. thanks for all your positive comments!!

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: johnbowen on 2006-10-15 21:01 ]</font>

I really don't know if people use their ears any more, sadly. The Virus TI is the worst sounding digital synth I've heard for a while. It seems to get lower quality the more voices you add, and the filter and oscs sound WEAK.

Still, the clueless majority love it for some reason, maybe it's the interface and the fact they've been raised on perhaps even more mediocre software synths (although I think the TI sounds particularly bad and makes software look good).

John, people (the mass market) didn't know what an 'evolver' was before it was announced, but I bet it & the poly-evolver have sold really well over time

I'd love to see you build a new analogue / digital hybrid Solaris or Quantum Wave with real analogue filters, although that would be a mamouth project.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Shroomz on 2006-10-16 03:46 ]</font>

On 2006-10-16 03:43, Shroomz wrote:
I'd love to see you build a new analogue / digital hybrid Solaris or Quantum Wave with real analogue filters, although that would be a mamouth project.

Yeah, using real analog filters would make this quite a bit more expensive, since I'd need 4 per voice (and what if you had 8 or 16 voices?)

hey, they don't need to be CEM chips, you could design & have made brand new filter chips cheaper than buying CEMs. That said, you've got a good point John. The price would still have to go up considerably!

Don't do that !
it was the last thing Waldorf did before filing for insolvency - and I don't want it to happen to Zarg...

cheers, Tom

On 2006-10-15 16:55, johnbowen wrote:
...However, it does seem most people feel Virus has answered all their musical needs, and so it's been hard for me to gauge real interest in a hardware Solaris. ...

Imho that is only a minor concern for most Virus customers - I still remember a comment from an interview '... next thing I'll buy is something to tweak, maybe an Access Virus...'
The Virus One was hip that time (w. electronic artists) and of course a great mixture between Avantgarde and Vintage.

Later customers were probably more inspired to make a purchase by it's (almost) stage-omnipresence - which also refers to the Nord stuff, as it simply looks cool.
I would have bought a Nordlead 1 immediately if I had some spare money in the moment it showed up in a local shop as a 2nd hand item.

cheers, Tom

On 2006-10-17 02:49, astroman wrote:
...Later customers were probably more inspired to make a purchase by it's (almost) stage-omnipresence - which also refers to the Nord stuff, as it simply looks cool.

So, if I ever get to make this hardware, I should put more money into the cosmetic looks!
(but I know what you mean...)

It's amazing but good cosmetic design can really increase sales. It's worth investing at least a little bit in that.

I can even think of a few examples where the prototype was made to look really cool to generate even more initial interest.

Sadly this market is incredibly crowded and the majority of the customer base is quite clueless.. it really helps if something looks appealing.

Creamware's asb boxes look great! my minimax sits beside my virus b and they both look and sound great. I buy all my keyboards on sound, ease of progamming and price. of course It doesn't hurt if they look good too.

I too think the asb/klang thing is just a flash in the pan. Hope it helps Creamware financially.

The future I think is in the Mixing, routing, FX and i/o department. ie the card mann the card.

Digital mixing boards are becoming more prevalent because there are increasing numbers of computers with cards in a studio. The boards will evolve into controllers which leaves... who will pick up the card market.

Creamware have a ten year start. Since zero latency is not possible with vst mixing and monitoring there will always be that demand. My 02r now is superceded by my scope as a mixing environment. My depth of sound has improved vastly (btw I never used the 02r eq/comp after the 1st 6 months)

RME made their name by being stable, rock solid drivers and clocking. This is imperative to a working studio and consumer alike (the consumer is now wising up to the need for mature drivers etc)

The market is primed for a new card with modular i/o. Since Fairlight have been using creamware cards in their Dream systems maybe they will share their new Crystal technology with Creamware.

I'd be very happy with a retro pci box for existing cards, just like the one I have now.

Now you're talking

As we ask so many things to our computers (some vsti are very hungry!) i do think that external devices can be usefull. Klangs can help on this domain. I will go for 1 ASB that gives me hardware knobs but a Klang can give you the sound of a famous synth without ciurbing your DAW power.

I am very happy (since i have only 2d generation boards) with my scope projects boards that allow me to run several P100 reverb, minimax, mixers,effecst under 48khz with any problem (pci bandwidth, etc...) but adding some external hardware for the price of 2 softwares (2 x 200€) is also very interesting. As for the "missing" knobs, if it is the price topay to get a cheap price, well it does not bother as we all have a master control surface... Of course those who already have the plugin version won't be interested in the klang one (except for dsp usage matter or for the reliability for gigs), while an ASB version can be very attractive for the knobs...

Jo

I wish there was an "open" Klangbox that allowed you to load any of your existing registrations and had multiple I/O. DSP in a stand alone box with ADAT and analog I/O with a scope studio software editor.. link up a few A16s and voila! Ultimate portable studio!