PlanetZ forums - scopeusers.com

Hi,

I am totally new to the Scope scene and I've got into it after looking for a fresh start into the electronic based music.. I am mainly a musician trained into the analog side of things and never got into looking for DSP based plugins, but from what I hear, this is the best platform and the scope platform provides plugins and instruments that sound more accurate to their analog representation with a different touch.

Since this website seems to contain a huge load of cluttered information, and most questions have been already answered and I couldn't find a thoroughly explained FAQ, I was wondering if someone could answer my following queries..

1) Is there scheduled support for Linux based audio systems? Is this something included into the development team as a "to do" list?

2) I have the chance to buy a Scope Home with 3DSPs at a very reasonable price. If I get the Scope 5.1 update, will I be able to run any of the Modular synths that come along with it? I don't really use the effects that much. I just need a nice introduction to the Scope system and play with it.

3) Can I expand the Home Creamware card with other Creamware PCI Cards?

4) In a nutshell.. do you guys think that Scope deserves an investment of my time and money? I am sure that everyone in here invested a lot of his time to make things happen and I would really appreciate some opinions on the facts that one can achieve by using Scope.

Thanks!

Hi and welcome

Short answers:

ad1)
Don't count on it

ad2)
Yes, 1 synth with only a few voices, depending on the complexity of the synth and not too many effects (I started out with a "home"-system myself. Now I have 4 cards with 37 DSP's in total, only using 3 of the cards though because of lack of PCI-slots)

ad3)
Yes, I'm still running my original home card alongside 2 Scope Pro cards (you can buy my 6-dsp XCT-card when you get hooked... )

ad4)
That is difficult to say - it really depends on how you prefer to work with your music. Especially your workflow will be affected by how Scope works, and not always to the better, don't expect Ableton Live- or Reason-like usabilty (I'm going to be flamed for this remark ). But since you come from an analogue background you should at least be familar to how Scope works, and that might be exactly what you like.
The sound on Scope and the flexibilty is usually what is being promoted as the pros of Scope, and I'll have to agree that I've produced my best sounded material using scope.

Hope it helps!
Thomas

petal wrote:Hi and welcome

Short answers:

ad1)
Don't count on it

ad2)
Yes, 1 synth with only a few voices, depending on the complexity of the synth and not too many effects (I started out with a "home"-system myself. Now I have 4 cards with 37 DSP's in total, only using 3 of the cards though because of lack of PCI-slots)

ad3)
Yes, I'm still running my original home card alongside 2 Scope Pro cards (you can buy my 6-dsp XCT-card when you get hooked... )

ad4)
That is difficult to say - it really depends on how you prefer to work with your music. Especially your workflow will be affected by how Scope works, and not always to the better, don't expect Ableton Live- or Reason-like usabilty (I'm going to be flamed for this remark ). But since you come from an analogue background you should at least be familar to how Scope works, and that might be exactly what you like.
The sound on Scope and the flexibilty is usually what is being promoted as the pros of Scope, and I'll have to agree that I've produced my best sounded material using scope.

Hope it helps!
Thomas

Thanks for your reply Thomas and for your time answering my questions.

I am indeed fascinated by the scope environment and seems to have limitless potential due to its virtual studio environment. However i am a bit put off by the OS that it runs on.. I am mainly using Jack & Ardour and some analog equipment to achieve my results. I don't do anything fancy, i enjoy a more "live" approach and feel to my sequencing..

Are there any people using Ardour here? If they do, how do you manage to connect your windows host with a linux host? I hear that this can be done with adat? I am sorry, i am more a developer than musician and i would appreciate some input, ideas and suggestions. Essentially i would love to use scope and it's effects and get all that transferred to Ardour so i can share the workload. Windows is not such a stable OS after all..

Btw, can i get new drivers for win 7 x64 or do i have to pay for them and get the scope 5.1 as well?? In case i have to pay to even to get the drivers working for my new system, i find this move very "weak" from creamware's standpoint..

binary_drummer wrote:

petal wrote:Hi and welcome

Short answers:

ad1)
Don't count on it

ad2)
Yes, 1 synth with only a few voices, depending on the complexity of the synth and not too many effects (I started out with a "home"-system myself. Now I have 4 cards with 37 DSP's in total, only using 3 of the cards though because of lack of PCI-slots)

ad3)
Yes, I'm still running my original home card alongside 2 Scope Pro cards (you can buy my 6-dsp XCT-card when you get hooked... )

ad4)
That is difficult to say - it really depends on how you prefer to work with your music. Especially your workflow will be affected by how Scope works, and not always to the better, don't expect Ableton Live- or Reason-like usabilty (I'm going to be flamed for this remark ). But since you come from an analogue background you should at least be familar to how Scope works, and that might be exactly what you like.
The sound on Scope and the flexibilty is usually what is being promoted as the pros of Scope, and I'll have to agree that I've produced my best sounded material using scope.

Hope it helps!
Thomas

Thanks for your reply Thomas and for your time answering my questions.

I am indeed fascinated by the scope environment and seems to have limitless potential due to its virtual studio environment. However i am a bit put off by the OS that it runs on.. I am mainly using Jack & Ardour and some analog equipment to achieve my results. I don't do anything fancy, i enjoy a more "live" approach and feel to my sequencing..

Are there any people using Ardour here? If they do, how do you manage to connect your windows host with a linux host? I hear that this can be done with adat? I am sorry, i am more a developer than musician and i would appreciate some input, ideas and suggestions. Essentially i would love to use scope and it's effects and get all that transferred to Ardour so i can share the workload. Windows is not such a stable OS after all..

Btw, can i get new drivers for win 7 x64 or do i have to pay for them and get the scope 5.1 as well?? In case i have to pay to even to get the drivers working for my new system, i find this move very "weak" from creamware's standpoint..

Forget about scope-linux.Its just not happening ever.If you have a win 7x64 machine you want scope 5.1.Creamware is no more for years and sonic core the guys that took over have nothing todo with them as they are a new company.The 3 dsp cards are poop for synth work.They are ok for mixer-routing-a few effects thats it.You want minimum 6 dsp better 14 or 2x 6 and so on.Paying for Drivers for second hand hardware that is several years old and can be used under the newest(and ime very stabile) win os is fine with me as long as bugfixes and improvements flowing in the updates.Several pc s can be connected via midi-adat-s/pdif or analog.

as the other Thomas already mentioned, the 3 DSP card doesn't have much muscles...
but then it DOES have very fine converters... maybe just chance, but the 3 DSP card is the most 'silent' of all my Scope devices.
it also DOES HAVE the 'new' low latency architecture, which essentially means you can easily expand it with a dead cheap 4 DSP card.

The 4 DSP cards are so called 'generation one' and hence have higher latency, so they go really cheapo... such a thing will also add a nice pair of Adat-IOs to your existing card.
7 DSPs will do most of the synth and FX processing, but for demanding modular projects it may still be relatively tight.
Imho Scope 5 doesn't make any sense at all on a 3 DSP card, as the very, very nice reverbs will freak out and overload the board.
(those reverbs alone are worth more than what SC charges for the update, seriously.
Today even 6 DSP cards can be found very affordable, often with nice plugin bundles - ok, depend on your budget... but the stuff isn't outdated at all.

regarding Linux support... well, I wouldn't bother much.
If you like that environment (or you're used to it) have the Scope in a 2nd box and connect it via Adat...
ok, unless you happen to have the Luna Adat Expansion you can't do it right now, but for 50-100 Euro a 4 DSP card can be had any time.
On the Linux side use an RME card (afaik they are supported).

I have a similiar system with a Tualatin PIII 1.4 GHZ under Win98 hosting Scope and the DAW is SAW Studio Basic under XP on a CoreDuo.
Imho that's the optimal way for the vintage hardware... one doesn't need to be that vintage with the OS, but then...
it's a synth and soundprocessor plus a digital mixer and monitor controller... so wtf is THAT related to an(y) operating system at all ?

It 's cheap, it's silent and it works. Bingo.
It doesn't need no updates ever - it's not even relevant if Scope 3 or 4 is running.
And it doesn't matter if that's a 500MHZ P3 or a 3 GHZ P4. The OS is just a remote screen controller (basically) for the DSP functions.
My 2 systems could communicate with up to 24 channels in each direction.

That about the old and still useful stuff...
on a current system using one of the XITE products that may be a different story

cheers, Tom

depending on what developer you are we could connect over lan;

tcpip vibes

tgstgs wrote:depending on what developer you are we could connect over lan;

tcpip vibes

huh?

Btw, i just got it. It has 3 DSPs but i don't think its a home. Its a Luna instead.. Should i go for the Scope 3/4 DSP update that costs 159euros or the 239? If i get the cheaper version and then want to upgrade into more DSPs do i get a discount or do i have to pay another 239 instead? This gets a bit frustrated already with this marketing stuff tbh..

Thanks!

binary_drummer wrote:

tgstgs wrote:depending on what developer you are we could connect over lan;

tcpip vibes

huh?

Btw, i just got it. It has 3 DSPs but i don't think its a home. Its a Luna instead.. Should i go for the Scope 3/4 DSP update that costs 159euros or the 239? If i get the cheaper version and then want to upgrade into more DSPs do i get a discount or do i have to pay another 239 instead? This gets a bit frustrated already with this marketing stuff tbh..

Thanks!

You should go to ebay or the sell section on this forum and get a 6 or 14 dsp card.Forget about the rest for now.If you want to use synths and efx then do not buy the 3 dsp card.It doesnt matter if its a luna-power sampler or whatever..its the same card anyways with a different software package.Btw i am not sure what you mean with 3/4 dsp update.Oh and STAY away from generation 1 cards aka Pulsar 1, 4 dsp and the very old 15 dsp SP boards.They do not work well on modern pci chipsets and take the whole system down even when mixed with gen 2 cards.Not worth it.

Fluxpod wrote:

binary_drummer wrote:

tgstgs wrote:depending on what developer you are we could connect over lan;

tcpip vibes

huh?

Btw, i just got it. It has 3 DSPs but i don't think its a home. Its a Luna instead.. Should i go for the Scope 3/4 DSP update that costs 159euros or the 239? If i get the cheaper version and then want to upgrade into more DSPs do i get a discount or do i have to pay another 239 instead? This gets a bit frustrated already with this marketing stuff tbh..

Thanks!

You should go to ebay or the sell section on this forum and get a 6 or 14 dsp card.Forget about the rest for now.If you want to use synths and efx then do not buy the 3 dsp card.It doesnt matter if its a luna-power sampler or whatever..its the same card anyways with a different software package.Btw i am not sure what you mean with 3/4 dsp update.Oh and STAY away from generation 1 cards aka Pulsar 1, 4 dsp and the very old 15 dsp SP boards.They do not work well on modern pci chipsets and take the whole system down even when mixed with gen 2 cards.Not worth it.

Thanks for your responce,

it's too late i guess cause iv'e already bought it. I am not really interested investing in something before i play with it especially for minimal stuff like modulars and synths. Probably just play with one modular for now and see how the Scope environment works like.. This is the update i was referring to: http://www.sonic-core.net/shop/product_ ... 4-DSP.html

Alright.I see with the update.You may look first whats in the package (aka keyfile) then ask sc about the update.Good luck and have fun

Fluxpod wrote:...Oh and STAY away from generation 1 cards aka Pulsar 1, 4 dsp and the very old 15 dsp SP boards.They do not work well on modern pci chipsets and take the whole system down even when mixed with gen 2 cards.Not worth it.

absolutely correct - in fact you should stay away with any classic Scope stuff from any of the latest and greatest boards and CPUs BECAUSE they all SUCK PCI wise...

Use an XITE in that case
It's really nice that Sonic Core attempts their best to (still) support the 'classic' line, but their modern and MAIN product is called XITE.
As everyone else they can only boil with water, as the proverb goes...
NO mainboard developer or chip set designer gives a sh*t about PCI slots anymore for quite some time.

To be honest, I didn't try it all myself, but that's just the impression I get from reading the posts in problem solving and tech discussion on this board.
I have used a mixture of 4/6/15 DSP boards on a Gigabyte 946 GZ chipset under XP without any problems, but it already had had significantly lower PCI performance than the Tualatin machine (Asus w Intel 815 chipset).

if you need the DAW power of the latest machines, get current DSP hardware, too
otherwise just do one step back - it's still (imho) lot's of beef you'll get for a ridiculously low amount of cash.

cheers, Tom

the package you linked is a steal, pricewise... I've paid more for the LX reverbs alone, you'll also get another great one with the RMX
Vinco is an excellent compressor that sells for more than this package at softube (FET Compressor)

but it (really) doesn't make sense with 3 DSPs
even your 'minimal' stuff will eat up juice faster than you expect, seriously.
The sound generation is just one step above anything you know from native synths, only very few high end devices are in that quality domain. No kidding... these synth voices actually CAN stand on their own UNPROCESSED - show me a native synth that can, too...

astroman wrote:

Fluxpod wrote:...Oh and STAY away from generation 1 cards aka Pulsar 1, 4 dsp and the very old 15 dsp SP boards.They do not work well on modern pci chipsets and take the whole system down even when mixed with gen 2 cards.Not worth it.

absolutely correct - in fact you should stay away with any classic Scope stuff from any of the latest and greatest boards and CPUs BECAUSE they all SUCK PCI wise...

Use an XITE in that case
It's really nice that Sonic Core attempts their best to (still) support the 'classic' line, but their modern and MAIN product is called XITE.
As everyone else they can only boil with water, as the proverb goes...
NO mainboard developer or chip set designer gives a sh*t about PCI slots anymore for quite some time.

To be honest, I didn't try it all myself, but that's just the impression I get from reading the posts in problem solving and tech discussion on this board.
I have used a mixture of 4/6/15 DSP boards on a Gigabyte 946 GZ chipset under XP without any problems, but it already had had significantly lower PCI performance than the Tualatin machine (Asus w Intel 815 chipset).

if you need the DAW power of the latest machines, get current DSP hardware, too
otherwise just do one step back - it's still (imho) lot's of beef you'll get for a ridiculously low amount of cash.

cheers, Tom

Sorry mate, can't afford it atm.. I am just up for checking out how Scope works.. I am a total newbie to the audio routing stuff, but really eager to consume information!! I think i will do the step and get the scope 5.1 update for my card, test how things run and if i find my self adjusting to the environment easily, i will go for the xite. As i said, i will not need the effects atm, maybe just the delay + a synth. I hope that scope + synth + delay, could possibly fit in the 3dsp luna.. or maybe not?

LOL - you haven't heard those reverbs yet, let alone the infamous Chorus Delay
of course you can try it out 'as is' and the routing stuff is cool to have anyway...
The warnings aren't intended to drag you into the XITE direction at all.

It's just to explain why there are problems (possibly) and why the company CANNOT spend too much resources on solving them.
I'm using my 4 DSP Card (paid 1100 Marks, as it was the last of it's king in the local shop) for > 10 years in a system that's constantly powered up (except when no one is in the house for a longer period than half a day).
It served me well, and I had almost no update costs over all those years - of course I bought more cards as soon as I could afford.
Currently it's a combo with a 15 and a 6 DSP card... for big one I paid 850 Euros with licenses of every plugin that was available at a certain time (demo board from a big shop), the 6 DSP card was an incentive with a 100 Euro sync plate, supposedly dead.
Well, it had one of it's slot lines damaged... (probably during installation) easy repair.

There's really cheap stuff out there - just be reasonable in setting up the system.

cheers, Tom

(just for completeness: the 2 cards mentioned are relatively 'late' aquisitions... I spent about 2-3k Euro on plugins before that, supporting both the company and 3rd party developers)

binary_drummer wrote: I hope that scope + synth + delay, could possibly fit in the 3dsp luna.. or maybe not?

It will depend entirely on what synth. A Modular patch can have few or many modules, one or many voices. All with different loads.

In Modular, there are delay modules, so you could build a basic synth starting out with 1 voice. Ive written some stuff here about re-building a patch from an older Modular version 2 :

http://www.hitfoundry.com/issue_07/modular.htm

You can see in this example, theres Delay and Chorus modules in the synth. But this is a 4 Oscillator synth, so to fit on 3DSP card you'd probably be best just starting with a 1 osc synth at 1 voice poly, then adding (either polyphony or modules) till your DSP gets used up.

dante wrote:

binary_drummer wrote: I hope that scope + synth + delay, could possibly fit in the 3dsp luna.. or maybe not?

It will depend entirely on what synth. A Modular patch can have few or many modules, one or many voices. All with different loads.

In Modular, there are delay modules, so you could build a basic synth starting out with 1 voice. Ive written some stuff here about re-building a patch from an older Modular version 2 :

http://www.hitfoundry.com/issue_07/modular.htm

You can see in this example, theres Delay and Chorus modules in the synth. But this is a 4 Oscillator synth, so to fit on 3DSP card you'd probably be best just starting with a 1 osc synth at 1 voice poly, then adding (either polyphony or modules) till your DSP gets used up.

As my username indicates, I am all about distorted drum machines and weird rhythm sounds :p I want to use this as a virtual environment in order to learn the real process of using modulars rather than starting spending money on actual gear.. I hope that my plan will be sufficient, for now... and will see how it goes..

binary_drummer wrote: As my username indicates, I am all about distorted drum machines and weird rhythm sounds ..

Check this out then :

http://www.hitfoundry.com/issue_06/glchmast.htm

Its some glitch fun on an Elektron Drum Machine + Scope. WouterZ is the man to talk to bout that... http://www.insanic4.com/

then you should get Adern's KickMe free Bass Drum - and you'll KNOW what the sound quality blurb is about
it will probably use 1 DSP for the kick... but WHAT a kick...

cheers, Tom