PlanetZ forums - scopeusers.com

Hello Zs! I know this has been discussed before, the question of using scope on a laptop, and on a mac. I have had some experiences in this domain that I thought might be useful for those who are thinking of going this way, and I would also like to place a couple of questions.

I always wanted to take my scope system live, as it would provide me with a mixer, fx and as many synths as the 21 DSPs would still allow. For this reason, I got a 4-slot Magma PCMCIA to PCI chasis and installed SFP on my 5 year old Compaq laptop, with windows XP. The performance was very good in terms of synths' poliphony and fx (and it seemed to do better than the desktop at SRs higher than 48Khz), but the PCI bandwidth would be completely taken after only 5 or 6 Masterverbs. This would be quite acceptable for live performances, except that I found out it would produce a very loud inteference noise when the laptop was connected to the mains socket - this is a common grounding problem with PCMCIA cards, particularly bad in that machine- so i decided to give up on this idea for a while.

When it was time to get a new laptop, and having had a good experience with compaq, I went for a 14" HP core duo, with Express card slot, instead of PCMCIA. I wanted to try Scope in it, so I got a Duel Adapter Express-card to PCMCIA adapter. But the problem with laptop PCs these days is that they come preloaded with Vista and manufacturers do not support XP anymore... no drivers, no customer assitance... After going through 8 hours of XP installation and driver hunting, I found out that these new laptops cannot handle 32-bit cardbus, and are therefore unable to load the drivers for the Magma (also tried with RME HDSP and Echo Indigo). HP support was unable to provide any solution, so I sold the damn thing, and bought a MacBook Pro.

Installing XP on the MacBook took about an hour, and I managed to get my magma box and scope working in no time: I'm running bootcamp->XP->Express card to PCMCIA adapter->Magma PCMCIA card->PCI chassis->Scope, and the performance seems to be similar to the Compaq's - 5 Masterverbs, and lots of poliphony, but this time, without any grounding noises. Better, but not much better.
But the thing is, if I get the same performance this way, I believe it could get even better if I used a Magma Express-card to PCI intead of the Duel Adpater (Magma claim it would provide at least twice the bandwidth, and you just have to change the PCMCIA card, not the whole chasis), although I would like to get some confirmation on this regarding Scope.

Also, the 4 slot chassis is a bit on the heavy side, with its 300W PSU, but the 2-slot, with the 100W PSU, is a lot smaller, and can be powered by 12v, making it a lot more portable.

So, the story is this: you can get scope woring on an MacBook Pro, running XP, using a Magma expasion chassis and an expres card to PCMCIA adpater BUT you might not be able to do the same on a new Vista-loaded laptop PC, even when running XP. Performance is lower than on a desktop, but comparable to PCMCIA standard on a laptop PC.

My questions to the Z community would be: has anyone tried the Magma Express-card to PCI adapter with scope than can aknowlege a significant increase in PCI bandwidth? Does any of you have a two slot Magma chassis that can tell me if it really fits 2 15 DSP cards? And finally, now that it is proved to be possible, isn't it time for SonicCore to come up with OSX and Vista drivers? I mean, I don't really care about Vista, and I'm perfectly fine with XP... but this OSX feels really nice, and since most apps are now Windows and Mac compatible, it's a shame having to go to XP just for scope - and registering software in two OSs counts as two licences, so there's still a choice to be made and followed.

Everyody wishes for a portable scope system, a firewire box, or something, waiting for the new SHARCS... I think that all it would take is new drivers and you could have a 12v 30 DSP system on your brand new laptop, PC or MAC.

Thanks for listening, wish you all the best, and

Much peace,

T

Tau wrote: isn't it time for SonicCore to come up with OSX and Vista drivers? I mean, I don't really care about Vista, and I'm perfectly fine with XP... but this OSX feels really nice, and since most apps are now Windows and Mac compatible, it's a shame having to go to XP just for scope -

SC asked for an OSX developer on the new site some time ago.
I wouldn't count on OSX for the next year, if ever.

sorry Tau, but if you carry a 4 slot magma around with you anyway, why don't you simply stuff Scope into a regular 3 units box, add a TFT in a 1 unit drawer and put all in 4 units enclosure (or 8 if you want converters and amps etc) ?
That makes a full powered system without installation probs and probably is even cheaper...

cheers, Tom

astroman wrote:sorry Tau, but if you carry a 4 slot magma around with you anyway, why don't you simply stuff Scope into a regular 3 units box, add a TFT in a 1 unit drawer and put all in 4 units enclosure (or 8 if you want converters and amps etc) ?
That makes a full powered system without installation probs and probably is even cheaper...

No need to apologize, astroman, you are absolutely right, of course, and it's something I also considered... I have looked for rackable pc cases, but its weight and dimensions are usually far greater than this - the 4-slot chassis is only 2-U high, and most of the weight is from the PSU - and that is a problem for me, because I have to carry and assemble everything myself, most of the time!

And I know this is not the cheapest way to go... The Magma, I got on Ebay, so it wasn't really that expensive. But the main thing here is that I need a laptop to use on the road (I travel and compose a lot in a motorhome), to do mixes, remixes, drafts of songs, promo cds, sometimes djing and jamming... I couldn't do that with a desktop, so I thought this expansion chassis might be the best solution for my situation - to get a flavour of SpaceF or Flexor in remote locations, and perform some mixing duties at gigs and jams. This level of performance is acceptable for me (even though it's a bit sad to see so many DSPs do so little), but if it really can be doubled (to, lets say, 10 Masterverbs), I'd go for the Express card adapter right now (I get 11 MVs on my desktop)...

Still, I would be happy to trade my 4-slot for a 2-slot, as it seems a lot more portable and "van-friendly" with the 12v option. I only have two cards, anyway... But it's good to know that OSX drivers will become (eventually) available, because it's good to have options! What I'm thinking is that these may be only for the future PCI-E boards, to install on the MacPros... Will they be compatible with our beloved PCIs?...

Many thanks for your answers! If anybody has some info on the Magma 2 slot or the Express card adapter, please let me know!

All the best, and

Much peace,

T

isn't noah a portable scope? it was exactly made for that, no?

best

As far as I know, the Noah can handle specially written versions of synth instruments, like Minimax, Six-String and even a Vocoder. I believe that it's not possile to use it to host normal scope devices, such as ModIII, FX, or 3rd party devices... As a synth module it's probably excellent, but what I really like to use in Scope, aside from FX, are Modular synths, SpaceF, Flexor, Pro-Wave... I don't think those can be loaded in the Noah...

cheers,

T

edit: I just found an interesting deal for a Noah on ebay, USA only... check it out: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... :IT&ih=015

Hi,

After lots of research in the net, I found out this discussion which mentions something about my problem...

I don't know If it is the correct place to post my reply here, or just open a new thread so be good with me if I'm making a mistake...


My problem:
Recently i have purchased a new laptop HP Pavilion 6000 duo etc etc with express slot card.

I have discovered it a bit later after i have tried to insert my Echo indigo dj card with no success due to the fact that indigo needs PCMIA.

Without giving a little research about this issue, I have purchased the dual adapter http://www.duel-systemsadapters.com/?productid=DP-0001 with the hope that it can work out.

I have installed the adapter and after getting the latest drivers of my sound card (indigo dj) I have tried to plunged them in to my laptop but with bad luck. Card is not working.

Forgot to mention that my laptop runs Vista Home...


Now, i don't know what to do, sell my sound card and adapter and get something else? Or there is a way to solve this problem.



Please help me out.



Thanx in advance

hmm normally it should work, but if it keeps on not working I recommend a different card with express card. perhaps there is express slot card for the echo indigo dj card. ask the support of your soundcard manufacturer.

but I have different question, tau can I change on a magma box the power supply from european voltage (220V) to the american voltage (110V) and vice versa?
thx

Hello all!

Helldriver: the PSU on the magma is a standard 300W PSU, sticker says: input 100v-240v, I can't find a switch, but I guess it should adapt to 110v-220v automatically.... it's better to contact magma directly to chek this out. Anyway, replacing the PSU shouldn't be too much of a problem!


ccc: well, I think there's nothing you can do about it. I had the exact same problem with an HP, dv 2528, an Echo Indigo (and an RME, and a Magma box) and the duel adapter - the duel installs fine, but then it says that the firmware doesn't support 32-bit cardbus. This happens in Vista and in XP, and HP cannot or will not provide any help. I think it's something to do with this particular chipset, but, like I said, HP are not very cooperative, especially if you're running XP, which you have to do to use Scope...

I browsed on the net, found many other cases similar to mine, so i just gave up, sold the laptop while it was still shiny, and took a different route. But I hope you have more luck, maybe HP has decided to do something about it since...

As for the Echo, there aren't any ExpressCard soundcards that I know of, so you might have to make do with a firewire or USB interface instead... Which is a bummer, cause they are all external, and bigger...

Tau wrote:Hello all!
ccc: well, I think there's nothing you can do about it. I had the exact same problem with an HP, dv 2528, an Echo Indigo (and an RME, and a Magma box) and the duel adapter - the duel installs fine, but then it says that the firmware doesn't support 32-bit cardbus. This happens in Vista and in XP, and HP cannot or will not provide any help. I think it's something to do with this particular chipset, but, like I said, HP are not very cooperative, especially if you're running XP, which you have to do to use Scope...

I browsed on the net, found many other cases similar to mine, so i just gave up, sold the laptop while it was still shiny, and took a different route. But I hope you have more luck, maybe HP has decided to do something about it since...

As for the Echo, there aren't any ExpressCard soundcards that I know of, so you might have to make do with a firewire or USB interface instead... Which is a bummer, cause they are all external, and bigger...

Well, thanx for taking some time to reply to me.
I will try to install it on a mac that a friend has in order to see that is fully working and if it does, i will try once more to install it on my HP.
If no success then i will try to sell it and get something else...
My HP is running vista home, but as i saw there are 32 bit. So how come they do not support 32-bit cardbus?

Just curious...


Thanx

ccc wrote: I will try to install it on a mac that a friend has in order to see that is fully working and if it does, i will try once more to install it on my HP.
If no success then i will try to sell it and get something else...
My HP is running vista home, but as i saw there are 32 bit. So how come they do not support 32-bit cardbus?

Don't know, here's the response from Duel:
"This is a known firmware/BIOS issue with some notebooks. We are in the process of getting this issue resolved as soon as we can. When a solution is available you will be able to get information on it from the http://duel-systemsadapters.com/ web site. You can also try to see if there is a BIOS upgrade for your laptop at their home page."

I really don't know what it is, it only works in 16bit cardbus mode... Could be some specific chipset or motherboard issue that could be avoided with some research, but HP is really not helpful at all, especially if you're running XP (which you have to do to use Scope...) Not only do they refuse to support XP with drivers etc, but they actually told me I should only be using HP peripherals with this laptop .

And the problem is the lack of clear information... not only is Vista being pushed to consumers in a very aggresive way, but also manufacturers getting very secret about what components they use... The "Vista factor"...

I was really lucky, and traded the HP for a Nord Modular G2 synth, and got me a MacBook Pro. It's a much better machine, and works perfectly with the PCMCIA cards in XP and OSX. IMO, these are the safest bet for a laptop these days. I always used PCs, built and restored many machines, and I'd still be using a pc if it hadn't been for this situation - just so you know that I am not a mac freak - I think that these are the most flexible laptops in the present moment.

But ask around, and try to experiment on other machines. I heard Vaios work well with the duel, even some other HPs. It's a case of seeing is believing, don't just take the words of sales people as true!

Of course, the Echo stuck on the end of the Duel Adapter is far less elegant than when it's plugged into the PCMCIA slot... You might get a better deal trading the Echo and the Duel for another soundcard instead of selling the laptop... In my case, it's worth holding on to the Duel adapter because of the other soundcards, but I'd rather get ExpressCard interfaces instead.

Hope this helped!

Much peace,

T

thanx man, really appreciate the help u are giving...

I would take a couple of days more to look around and ask ppl,,and i will finally give away the echo and due for some other sound card to check whats going on...

really very unpleasant situation... but what to do...

Same here, made the same mistake, have just bought a Duel adapter and my magma chassis don´t work either on my thinkpad T400.
I hope I can get a RMA for returning the unit.