What to use until 64 bit

[johndunn]

This thread is not anti-Scope. Most of us on this board are very much pro-Scope, including me. But some of us have been blindsided by the promise of 64 bit drivers by Christmas of last year, then the virtual guarantee they would be here by February, and so on. We have migrated to 64 bit computer setups, and are now cut off from using Scope. So here is a thread to share how we are coping as we wait for Scope-64.

I've gone back to using my Emu 1212m for the audio interface. Actually, I never stopped using it, as I used it with Scope cards and Scope Xite-1. Not really necessary when using Scope, but handy. With Scope gone, it has saved my ass, at least as far as doing digital audio. It's now available in both PCI and PCIe configurations. Totally professional digital sound interface, mixer, router. Limited but OK-in-a-pinch DSP effects. Fairly inexpensive ($170 from Sweetwater).

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/1212MPCIe/



My synth solution is the amazing E-mu Emulator X3 software sampler. It works great on my multi core, Windows 7/64 setup. It's just as powerful as the hardware version it emulates, which is arguably the best sampler ever made. Here is the E-mu website blurb:

E-MU's Emulator® X3 is the world's most powerful and complete software sampling tool in the world, featuring E-MU's new Xstream™ streaming sound engine with a up to 192kHz sampling and playback, 32-bit and 64-bit native applications for both Windows XP and Windows Vista, an arsenal of automated sampling/beat analysis/editing tools and almost unlimited sound manipulation that builds on E-MU's 35 years of synthesis experience.

http://www.emu.com/products/product.asp ... v=features

E-mu lists it at $700 but it generally sells for $500, and if you look around you can get it for a lot less. I got mine at B&H for $180.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/6 ... or_X3.html

Also, there are some great sample libraries, taken from both the E-mu Proteus series and all their hardware samplers, plus the libraries from the Ensonic samplers. All in all a terrific and inexpensive source of cool sounds. Available from Digital Sound Factory, which basically is the person who produced most of the original E-mu samples:

http://www.digitalsoundfactory.com/

You can hear some of these sounds in my "Ten Minutes of Cold" .mp3 piece:

http://algoart.com/music.htm

Full Disclosure: Although I no longer work for E-mu and have not for many years (since before it was bought out by Creative), I do have a history with them going all the way back to when they produced Modular synths. I soldered modules together, did a little design work on the digital modules, and wrote some of the first sequencer code for them as well as programs to edit the Proteus and Morphius series samp/synths. So I might be a tad biased in my high opinion of their products. Your mileage may vary.

[soylent.green]

Right now I don't use any audio interface at all. All I do is some sequencing with cubase 64 bit (version 5.5, the second full 64 bit version, yes the second...not first, not alpha, not beta and for sure not the "soon" version) and the built in sound card of my computer...And between my posts and replies to planetz I try to resign to the fact that it's - I mean the driver release - going to be the usuall sonic core christmas present rather than the summer special...if any.

[dante]

As a non 64 bit user, I'm just wondering which application you'd use a DAW for that would compel you to go to an OS that doesn't support Scope ? Is it just because of sampling ?

I have many computers ( minus one since it blew up last night ) and the Scope one would be the last to go 64 bit and only when Scope itself does.

P.S. I used to have a Proteus in the 90's, great stuff the E-mu. I loved it and was sad to part with it, maybe I wouldn't have in hindsights... but at least now I got the Proteus Refill from Digital Sound Factory and run those thru Scope, and with a proteus skin on the combinators I can enjoy the nostalgia. Apparantly you can get the lot now ( mo-phatt, planet earth, virtuose for $99 ).

Did you write that awesome Demo tune on the Proteus ? Thats a great medley that...

[Neutron]

Im just using 32 bit win7 untill then. fortunately i do not have to re-buy windows because i have Microsoft technet which is the cheapest legal(ish) way to get lots of windozes($200 for 10 licenses of every version!)
I do not use big sample libraries though, mostly MIDI and synths, so the 64 bit thing is not a deal breaker for me.

I do have an EMU 1212 sitting on the shelf from when i used a separate machine for cubase and scope, I believe the emulator software will work on it as well. Is it really that good?

[dante]

I guess any sampling platform for which migration to 64 bit = a big enough improvement to leave Scope has to be good. My only issue with sampling platforms at the moment is the great divide between 16 bit and 24 bit libraries.

16 bit legacy libraries like the DSF stuff are cheap and great for pop-rock type stuff which is what I loved the Proteus for. But for bigger life like Orchestral arrangments there doesn't seem a point unless you pay for a decent 24 bit library (eg EWQL), which won't leave you much change out of a grand.

If you have the bucks or the need to go down that path, then going X64 to support an engine capable of orchestral polyphony @ 24 bits has to be the go.

But the benefits of leaving the Scope platform for anything short of that ( eg pop/rock or electro production ) seem to me to be a bit cloudier...

[dawman]

That's great software. I loved the Z Plane FIlters they added in the '90's. Made my samples in the E5000 FAT.

[symbiote]

don't like it? sell your cards and buy something else, and please go post your thinly veiled marketing pitches somewhere where people will care.

really, people here have been whining for damn near a f* decade about anything, really anything available.

omg no osx support! even though apple hasn't release a machine with a pci slot in damn near a f* decade.

omg vst integration vst is the future dsp hardware is dying vst is the future native cpu-based processing is the future omg scope is dying omg omg cpu math is the same as native math omg.

omg scope is bankrupt they don't release 3 updates a year we all know how releasing 5 updates a year is indicative of premium awesome and superior software development lol cubase lol lololol omg scope is dying.

omg pci is dying omg usb/firewire (and look at all the awesome, industry-dominating firewire interface has been on the PC woo) omg scope is dying pci is dying.

omg vista support omg vista is the future omg scope is dying xp is dead microsoft said so omg omg vista vista.

omg omg drivers i don't understand how my hardware works omg drivers are so simple just one line of code!!! omg omg 64bit drivers omg how hard can it be omg preposterous.

omg omg i have a 3-dsp card will the scope sdk work??? why won't the sdk work on my hardware omg why would i need to pay 1k for a card when i could be buying a competing product for 20k+ and id still need to program i dont want to program omg i make music but the sdk should still work for me i mean sampling and filters are so simple more sample points mean better sample reconstuction omg my java-programmer-friend said so omg omg so unfair i want the sdk!!!

omg 64bit is the future i cant run my non-existent-multi-terrabyte-dataset-application on my home computer i bought a computer with 8gb ram even though i dont need it omg 64bit 64bit 64bit omg scope is dying omg.

and i'm sure i'm forgetting several things.

so far, scope has survived osx, apple stopping support for pci slots (GREAT IDEA CONSIDERING THEY SURVIVED DAMN NEAR ONLY ON CUSTOM HIGH END PCI AUDIO AND VIDEO APPLICATIONS), given you vst integration, survived bankruptcy 2 times, given you vista and windows 7 support, given the i-think-first and damn near only pcmica/usb/firewire dsp-based solution (ok buy buy a duende and shut up), still sounds amazing, still works fine, still is functional with modern hardware and software (yes xp and pci still are available at low cost (OK XP IS A LITTLE OVERPRICED BUT MICROSOFT NEEDS ALL THEY CASH THEY NEED EH) in this day and age, just because you HAD to buy the latest 32gb ram whatever-the-f* idiot videogame card hardware doesn't change this.)

THEY'RE LATE 6 MONTHS FOR A 64BIT VERSION OF THEIR SOFTWARE THAT YOU DONT EVEN NEED BUT S* YOU BOUGHT A MACHINE WITH 8GB OF RAM SO YOU CANT BE BOTHERED TO DUAL BOOT OR WHATEVER OMG NEED 64BIT NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW OMG GIGASTUDIO IS DEATH NOW HOW STILL I STREAM MY GIGABYTE SOUNDS OFF HARDWARE NOW HARDDRIVES SPACES IS SO EXPENSIVES OMG OMG OMG I CANST MAKETH MUSIC NOW ANYMORE OH NOES.

really, when will you whiners ever be happy?

your post is in such bad taste, i can't actually believe you own scope hardware and can't be bothered to setup a cheap 500$ desktop (or 300$ netbook) to run your cards/xite in on a 32bit machine in a remote-desktop-solution-over-gigabit-ethernet-on-a-64bit-128gb-ram computer OR EVEN JUST MIDI ITS NOT LIKE THE INDUSTRY MANAGED TO DEVELOP A WIDELY ADOPTED STANDARD YET which seems to be your bottleneck in your music-making-apparatus and have to come here and try and sell your friends' 700$ card that is awesome (e-mu is best bang-for-buck, awesome hardware and soundcards and good support, but 700$ is way more than a basic computer costs these days) but nothing, nothing close to the scope platform.

what will it be next? the 2 plugins that don't work with scope5 don't work omg i bought my scope cards for the pro-one/odyssey emu omg omg they don't work my WHOLE musicmaking endeavour and my 500k$-a-room-treatment-pro-audio-facility pro studio pro gear can't survive anymore omg omg omg scope is dying?

as a company, creamware and soniccore and given your everything, EVERY F* THING YOU DEMANDED AS A CUSTOMER, NOT WITHIN THE TIMEFRAMES THAT YOU EXPECTED AND SEEM TO THINK WERE YOUR GOD-GIVEN RIGHT GIVEN THAT YOU'VE SPENT 1/10th WHAT YOU WOULD HAVE SPENT ON A COMPETING BUT NOT-SUPPORTED-ANYMORE AND MUCH-MORE-LIMITED PLATFORM, but still everything, and even given they're like one of the smallest companies in audio hardware AND DIDNT HAVE MONEY TO DEVELOP FOR LIKE YEARS, are still at the forefront of audio hardware development.

really, and seriously, get a f* grip! "one bird in hand is better than two in the bush", you didn't follow the 5000+ years old proverb, you pay! and you don't really pay since your income clearly doesn't depend on you getting 64bit support within 2 months since otherwise you would have simply stuck with a 32bit install, it's purely a lollolololllol i installated a 64 bittes comput0r OS lolololll more bittes more better lolololol but now am stuck!!!! situation.

no i don't work/never work for cw/sc, yes i have an engineering degree, no i don't work in engeering anymore, and no i don't think i need to explain why!!!

[dante]

LOL! Man, thats the funniest post I've ever read... haha I'm gonna come back to that next time I need a laugh for sure. I'm still crackin it It's sort of like visualizing a nerd version of a Seinfeld stand-up routine...

I guess in the cold light of day though, the solution is to have 2 machines, one for hi-end sampling and one for Scope.

[yayajohn]

yup that's definitely a rant LOL!

hey John I checked out your site.....that is some outlandish stuff, cutting edge!
I liked "Spindroin" better though.....
The samples in "10 Min of Cold" sounded kind of plain to me compared to some of the stuff that's available these days (although they cost tons more)
I was just wondering what sort of advantage the 64bit OS gave you for those sounds on those mp3's?
Is it you can just load more of them at once with more ram? or is there other stuff?

[w_ellis]

I generally avoid getting involved in these threads, because they're incredibly tedious, but I did very much enjoy symbiote's post. At some point in the future there'll be an announcement. Until then, nothing's going to change. Can we move on now?

[the19thbear]

Hey... this is a "what to do while you are waiting for scope 64bit" - he is NOT whining!

[johndunn]

As a non 64 bit user, I'm just wondering which application you'd use a DAW for that would compel you to go to an OS that doesn't support Scope ? Is it just because of sampling ?

I have many computers ( minus one since it blew up last night ) and the Scope one would be the last to go 64 bit and only when Scope itself does.

P.S. I used to have a Proteus in the 90's, great stuff the E-mu. I loved it and was sad to part with it, maybe I wouldn't have in hindsights... but at least now I got the Proteus Refill from Digital Sound Factory and run those thru Scope, and with a proteus skin on the combinators I can enjoy the nostalgia. Apparantly you can get the lot now ( mo-phatt, planet earth, virtuose for $99 ).

Did you write that awesome Demo tune on the Proteus ? Thats a great medley that...

Didn't write the Proteus demo tune, but I agree all the Proteus/Morpheus demos were really well done.

As for why move from 32 bit to 64 bit, probably everyone has a different reason, but they all mostly come down to the same thing: the computing world has moved on. I personally think S/C has done themselves and their customers a disservice by 1. announcing availablility long, long before they could actually delever, and 2. by not communicating with their customers (either on their web site or on this forum) once they knew the software would be delayed. While it is true that software deadlines are sometimes very slippery, the kind of delay we are seeing can't possibly be from the drivers being difficult, it has to be because of business decisions to reallocate limited resources. This is quite understandable, but the honorable thing would have been to give the user base a heads up about how long the delay would be - especially because they know full well that many if not most Scope users have Scope as the cornerstone of their system.

As for my reason to move to 64 bit, I don't make my living from music, I make it from my software. The music I do is mostly to test my software, so I need the DAW stuff to be in the same computer as my software development tools. And my software customers are moving on to 64 bit. Many, perhaps most, elected to go with 64 bit when they migrated to Windows 7, so like most software developers, I really had to get my stuff working in 64 bit last year, and now I do all the maintenance and upgrade work on the 64 bit Windows 7 development system. We do have some 32 bit systems around for testing, but I need to develop in the Win 7/64 environment so if Scope can't live there, it's no use to me. More's the pity.

Edit: changed "As for why move from 64 bit to 32 bit" to "...32 bit to 64 bit," which is what I meant.

[johndunn]

yup that's definitely a rant LOL!

hey John I checked out your site.....that is some outlandish stuff, cutting edge!
I liked "Spindroin" better though..... :wink:
The samples in "10 Min of Cold" sounded kind of plain to me compared to some of the stuff that's available these days (although they cost tons more)
I was just wondering what sort of advantage the 64bit OS gave you for those sounds on those mp3's?
Is it you can just load more of them at once with more ram? or is there other stuff?

Well, I have to agree with you, "Spideron," which was done exclusively on Scope, with Scope synths, has much more interesting sound textures. The E-mu is really easy to use and has a lot of great pre made sounds, but no sampler can touch the texture and liveness of a synthesizer. I miss Scope and will gladly return to it when it becomes available again. In fact I'm running 2 months overdue on my next promised piece because the buzz was that Scope 64 would be delivered in June. In fact it was my decision yesterday to commence with the piece using the E-mu Emulator X3 that prompted me to write this thread starter.

[johndunn]

Im just using 32 bit win7 untill then. fortunately i do not have to re-buy windows because i have Microsoft technet which is the cheapest legal(ish) way to get lots of windozes($200 for 10 licenses of every version!)
I do not use big sample libraries though, mostly MIDI and synths, so the 64 bit thing is not a deal breaker for me.

I do have an EMU 1212 sitting on the shelf from when i used a separate machine for cubase and scope, I believe the emulator software will work on it as well. Is it really that good?

The 1212 and all the variations that use the Dave Rossum designed DSP chip is just about as good as it's possible to get because of Rossum's chip design. I don't think there is any single person who has his design chops. But the overall design of the board was done by a team, with input from Creative's marketing peeps, so you really have to look at the whole thing. For me it's always been a great workhorse, sonically pristine and flexible as hell.

[dawman]

As a soft sampler I can't see how EMU with years of hardware experience, and now having EOS and Z Planes available with a specific desgined DSP chip and software be anything but a great package.
I haven't looked at them since I stopped using their hardware and went to Gigasmpler 10 years ago.
The wireless keyboard and 64bit sampler package look very enticing if actual sampling is what one wants to do. Plus thier libraries sounded pretty nice in the demos I listened to.

30 years of experience in sampling and editing is a huge plus, especially if you were an old Giga guy. THose libraries can be used which seems to be a great way to take your 32bit Giga stuff into 64bit.

[dante]

I decided years ago to become a late adopter of these sort of technologies, basically after getting Scope. Leapfrogging instead of edgebleeding has financial advantages too numerous to mention. But even if I wasn't leapfrogging there's no way I'd be planning upgrades around promised release dates .... of anything.

[Fluxpod]

The irony is breaking my face.

[astroman]

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/6 ... or_X3.html

Also, there are some great sample libraries, taken from both the E-mu Proteus series and all their hardware samplers, plus the libraries from the Ensonic samplers. ...

Full Disclosure: Although I no longer work for E-mu and have not for many years (since before it was bought out by Creative), I do have a history with them going all the way back to when they produced Modular synths. I soldered modules together, did a little design work on the digital modules, and wrote some of the first sequencer code for them as well as programs to edit the Proteus and Morphius series samp/synths. So I might be a tad biased in my high opinion of their products. Your mileage may vary.

since we're waiting anyway... a question slightly beneath the topic:
Emu (Creative) made that basic X3 stuff a free download (Proteus 2000 I guess), but I found it really disappointing, sonically.
Can't help the impression that the modules or even samplers (like ESI) sound way better.
I still have a Proteus II (hardware and Akai lib)... is it in the engine of the X3 ?
Maybe due to samplerate conversion (the original stuff had some really strange rates) ?

cheers, Tom

[johndunn]

since we're waiting anyway... a question slightly beneath the topic:
Emu (Creative) made that basic X3 stuff a free download (Proteus 2000 I guess), but I found it really disappointing, sonically.
Can't help the impression that the modules or even samplers (like ESI) sound way better.
I still have a Proteus II (hardware and Akai lib)... is it in the engine of the X3 ?
Maybe due to samplerate conversion (the original stuff had some really strange rates) ?

cheers, Tom

There are two parts to this, the sample library and the soft sampler.

As for the free sample library they include, "Proteus X Composer," I agree it pretty much sucks. On the positive side, it's a really big library so if you are willing to hunt around there are a some gems, but mostly it's throw away.

The old Proteus and to a lesser extent Morpheus libraries were compressed down to such short samples that there isn't much room for texture beyond the tiny loop. Morpheus and beyond made up for it somewhat with the z-plane morphing filters, but they are what they are.

The best sampler libraries are the ones made for the Emulator, they are much longer samples and as rich in texture as most. I don't think they compare all that well with top line producers like EastWest/Quantum Leap, but they cost a fraction as much per library.

The Ensonic libraries are funky because they mostly were produced at 12 bits, but they do funky really, really well. I like them.

AFAIK the odd sample rates don't matter, the E-mu chip is optimized to sample convert with little or no aliasing.

As for the E-mu soft samplers, the free Proteus VX is very different from the Emulator 3x. It's basically a somewhat nerfed Proteus 2X, 32 bits only, does not handle multicore all that well. I got it to work OK on Windows 7/32, but it crashed on Windows 7/64. I didn't try to debug it because I didn't care - I just used the Emulator 3X, which works great on my Win 7/64.

[johndunn]

since we're waiting anyway... a question slightly beneath the topic:
Emu (Creative) made that basic X3 stuff a free download (Proteus 2000 I guess), but I found it really disappointing, sonically.
Can't help the impression that the modules or even samplers (like ESI) sound way better.
I still have a Proteus II (hardware and Akai lib)... is it in the engine of the X3 ?
Maybe due to samplerate conversion (the original stuff had some really strange rates) ?

cheers, Tom

There are two parts to this, the sample library and the soft sampler.

As for the free sample library included with the free Proteus VX, "Proteus X Composer," I agree it pretty much sucks. On the positive side, it's a really big library so if you are willing to hunt around there are a some gems, but mostly it's throw away.

The old Proteus and to a lesser extent Morpheus libraries were compressed down to such short samples that there isn't much room for texture beyond the tiny loop. Morpheus and beyond made up for it somewhat with the z-plane morphing filters, but they are what they are.

The best sampler libraries are the ones made for the Emulator, they are much longer samples and as rich in texture as most. I don't think they compare all that well with top line producers like EastWest/Quantum Leap, but they cost a fraction as much per library.

The Ensonic libraries are funky because they mostly were produced at 12 bits, but they do funky really, really well. I like them.

AFAIK the odd sample rates don't matter, the E-mu chip and software is optimized to sample convert with little or no aliasing.

As for the E-mu soft samplers, the free Proteus VX is very different from the Emulator 3x. It's basically a somewhat nerfed Proteus 2X, 32 bits only, does not handle multicore all that well. I got it to work OK on Windows 7/32, but it crashed on Windows 7/64. I didn't try to debug it because I didn't care - I just used the Emulator 3X, which works great on my Win 7/64.