Modular2002

Ben Walker · Post by **Ben Walker** » Thu Jun 27, 2002 3:05 am

Hi,
just read about an event taking place here in the UK at the moment (26th - 28th June):
http://www.modular2002.com/

Systems represented this year will be: Nord Modular, Sync Modular, Max/Msp, Csound, Reaktor, VAZ, Pure Data, Kyma.

Rob Hordijk from Nord will be there.

What a shame CW aren't in this list.

I wish I'd found out about this earlier - would have been great to have gone to last night's concert.

If this turns into an annual event, CW should definitely get themselves there.

Ben

Spirit · Post by **Spirit** » Fri Jun 28, 2002 2:01 am

ModV2 deserves a much higher profile. Reaktor may stomp on it regarding the number and inventiveness of its components, but the ModV2 definitely wins in the sound quality department. Unfortunately it seems that virtually no one outside the CW user community knows it.

[ This Message was edited by: Spirit on 2002-06-28 03:02 ]

Post by **Guest** » Fri Jun 28, 2002 3:40 am

no One knows CW?
are you joking?
how many ads creamware had put into various magz in UK?

[ This Message was edited by: Late on 2002-06-28 04:40 ]

Ben Walker · Post by **Ben Walker** » Fri Jun 28, 2002 4:05 am

I think Spirit's message was:
'No one knows much about the CW modular', not no-one's heard of CW.

Has the Modular (v1 or v2) ever received a proper review in any of the trade mags?

SoundOnSound regularly review Modular software and hardware, but I hardly every see a mention of it in there.

This is getting off topic, but it's something that's been bugging me for a while. How come there's so little press coverage of CW & related products in the mags? I'm not talking about press releases, I'm talking about reviews.

A review of (eg) the Vocodiser, the Optimaster, Lightwave, Zarg's Prophet series, the Vectron, etc, could not be anything but favourable, but I see nothing in the stuff I read.

I mean a positive review of the Zarg synths (and how could a review of these be anything but positive) would do wonders to boost the profile (and sales) of the Pulsar line, but this is something (I guess) that CW and Zarg need to work together on.

Noah will probably raise a few eyebrows, but I'm amazed at how little there's been about the Pulsar/Scope line.

There's so much excellent stuff (3rd party and otherwise) available, much of it free, but the only people who know about this are the people who already use the cards.

Adverts will help, but I'm sure that its reviews that sell the stuff at the end of the day.

Cheers,
Ben

[ This Message was edited by: Ben Walker on 2002-06-28 05:06 ]

topaz · Post by **topaz** » Fri Jun 28, 2002 11:50 am

yes it is a shame, problem is the same old story.. out of at least 20 people I have demo'd pulsar2's to cant believe how out of date the polyphony is, when they see that running 1 synth with 5 notes of poly + routing and the a few fx knocks out one card they all turn there heads..

plus as far as I can see CW have not made any significant updates to mod2, midi out, no stereo filter modules etc etc..

bottom line is untill CW up the amount of dsp for bucks then less and less will turn onto mod2.

just my 2 cents.

it,s great to see VAZ there.. man vaz2010 has gone beyond what I ever thought possible..

On 2002-06-27 04:05, Ben Walker wrote:
Hi,
just read about an event taking place here in the UK at the moment (26th - 28th June):
http://www.modular2002.com/

Systems represented this year will be: Nord Modular, Sync Modular, Max/Msp, Csound, Reaktor, VAZ, Pure Data, Kyma.

Rob Hordijk from Nord will be there.

What a shame CW aren't in this list.

I wish I'd found out about this earlier - would have been great to have gone to last night's concert.

If this turns into an annual event, CW should definitely get themselves there.

Ben

Spirit · Post by **Spirit** » Fri Jun 28, 2002 4:37 pm

I was referring to the ModV2 profile, thanks Ben.

And yes, the polyphony issue is a killer for CW products in general. The saving factor always has to come back to the sound quality and flexability. Well, there's no doubt about the sound quality, but as has been pointed out some other aspects are in desperate need of updating and expansion to effectively compete. Users need to be able to say: "Well yes, you can only get five voices of this on a standard 6-DSP card, but listen to this...."

And it is odd how individual CW products are rarely reviewed. Perhaps because you can't just add a single synth without adding the entire platform ?

Calling ModV3 . . .

[ This Message was edited by: Spirit on 2002-06-28 17:55 ]

Post by **Guest** » Fri Jun 28, 2002 6:04 pm

one is because the Value issused you mentioned.
one is because it's reputation in support/sells area as well as the compatibility issues on many mobos.
but one is about the money, do you know you need to pay for getting a review in public?
Strangely CW rather put money on ads instead for getting a public review or the magz producer want a rip off from CW becasue CW is so small and not much products to review, therefore it won't be a client that will pay$$ that often, so you get what i mean?

Get real people.

[ This Message was edited by: Late on 2002-06-28 19:06 ]

Spirit · Post by **Spirit** » Fri Jun 28, 2002 6:39 pm

Good magazines don't ask for money or ads to review a product. They review products because they are products which they believe their readership will be interested in. If sales of the magazine go up then they can charge more for ads.

The cheaper magazines DO link editorial to advertising, but their credability then suffers as a consequence.

topaz · Post by **topaz** » Sat Jun 29, 2002 4:42 am

oh , i fear we have hijacked bens thread ..

sorry man..

I was just saying that maybe the reason mod2 was not featured @ modular2002 was because many people just wont buy CW stuff. anymore.

On 2002-06-28 19:39, Spirit wrote:
Good magazines don't ask for money or ads to review a product. They review products because they are products which they believe their readership will be interested in. If sales of the magazine go up then they can charge more for ads.

The cheaper magazines DO link editorial to advertising, but their credability then suffers as a consequence.

Ben Walker · Post by **Ben Walker** » Mon Jul 01, 2002 7:20 am

On 2002-06-28 19:04, Late wrote:
....one is about the money, do you know you need to pay for getting a review in public?

Strangely CW rather put money on ads instead for getting a public review or the magz producer want a rip off from CW becasue CW is so small and not much products to review, therefore it won't be a client that will pay$$ that often, so you get what i mean?

Get real people.

Well, I don't know how difficult it is to get reviews in magazines, but I have no doubt that a product of the calibre of Zarg's recent Pro series synths would generate a lot of interest in the Pulsar line if reviewed in (eg) Sound On Sound, who, to the best of my knowledge, do not charge for the review.

I think there's a fairly fundamental problem here. How many people other than Pulsar users (and maybe people who are about to buy) are aware of the HUNDREDS of 3rd party devices which have been released for the platform? I think there was a press release for the Obsidian/FXpansion line which made it into Sound On Sound, but that was probably 2 years ago.

Somehow, the level of ongoing CW & 3rd party development for the cards needs to be made known, and this won't be acheived through adverts, as these don't mention the great work being done by SpaceF, Celmo, Defex, etc, etc.

But the 3rd parties have no way of getting their stuff reviewed, unless the mags also have Pulsar cards.

I might be naive of me, but I think what is needed is some collaboration between CW and the 3rd party developers in raising the profile of the platform.

This would mean CW actually giving the magazines (eg) a PulsarII on permanent loan, on which all 3rd party devices could be reviewed. For the cost of one card per magazine, you could be helping to make sure that the SFP line got a regular mention every time a 3rd party plugin was reviewed.

'Get Real' is probably a fairly reasonable response to this idea, but I don't see how else the profile of the platform will get raised.

Failing that, I would think that a quarterly press release from Creamware themselves detailing all the 3rd party activity that's going on, sent out to all magazines, would be a boost.

The 3rd party developers are amongst CW's finest assets, and they should do all they can to make sure that they get the publicity they need - its a win-win situation if it results in more interest in the cards.

Ben

Micha · Post by **Micha** » Mon Jul 01, 2002 8:35 am

I totally agree. Is it really too much work to mention the 3rd party developers in the ads? Like: (left bottom)
New releases this month:
New PulseSynth by SpaceF.
New Pro Vintage Delay, first divice in Pro Series by Celmo.
Updates
etc.
Best with merging picture into the main screenshot.
Result:
1. Every ad looks different
2. Readers of magazines can see that way the activity of the platform
3. 3rd party developers are made public
I hope these are three good reasons to think about.
But german companys and their relation to publicity..., well...
And, most important, the 3rd party developers AWARD!!! Anually PLEASE!
Till then
Kind of unhappy pilsaring
Micha

subhuman · Post by **subhuman** » Mon Jul 01, 2002 11:21 am

I really like some of these ideas. Very well thought out responses Ben, Micha, hopefully some of these get implemented by CW marketing...

Post by **Guest** » Mon Jul 01, 2002 2:43 pm

i would say it's all about the money again because the value gets people away from it and maybe the reviewer doesn't have a good time testing/using creamware envir due to the pci overflow or projects can't be saved properly as well as the DSP speed.

Value!!!!!!! is the Problem, the biggest problem for Creamware today.

thermos · Post by **thermos** » Mon Jul 01, 2002 7:19 pm

come on!!??
theres no need to always be destructive.

get a decent computer.
not everyone suffers from pci overflow.

Post by **Guest** » Mon Jul 01, 2002 7:38 pm

How can those reviewer know which kind of pc configure will work?
those reviewer reviewed creamware long time ago and not much people know about what is absolute no good to use with creamware and creamware themselves don't tell their costomers what have already proved to be noncompatible with creamware offically.
I now can imagine the whole creamware team gets depress every day every month due to the bad decisions made from the managers. Maybe they aren't treated will so they make bugs for revange? and now they can't make bugs anymore because otherwise they will lose job.

Sorry, but this kind of thing happening in the reality yet it doesn't mean to be true in Creamware inner status, this idea just flying thru my mind.

Don't give up Creamware teams. Believe in the power of praiers but not the God.

[ This Message was edited by: Late on 2002-07-01 20:41 ]

subhuman · Post by **subhuman** » Mon Jul 01, 2002 7:58 pm

Creamware actually has the systems they recommend on their website in the Service section. They tell you which systems work best (including chipsets), even. So.. there is no guessing. Either you follow Creamware's advice as listed on their website, or you are on your own, this isn't that hard is it?

Post by **Guest** » Tue Jul 02, 2002 12:57 am

It's not very easy to find, not not catchy to eyes.
Oh, when they put such information on? before year 2001?

subhuman · Post by **subhuman** » Tue Jul 02, 2002 10:47 am

Yeah, perhaps it could be more obvious, but I'd be shocked if people just went out and bought a $1000+ audio card without first researching it a little bit. Where would you like this information printed that would make this even easier?

And yes, it's been on the site for at least 1 year, the P4 information hasn't been there all that long, they seem conservative with their recommendations (as they should be!)

Post by **Guest** » Tue Jul 02, 2002 1:40 pm

i guess they shoud put those recomandation under system requirment but due to the managers decision those critical information is hind somewhere due to the percentage of sell it will affect if its placed with "system requirment".

When i bought my card, i just keep hearing "don't buy VIA, another other things are fine" from the dealer. So i just go for intel which lucky me, the mobo i have now is working fine.

Post by **garyb** » Tue Jul 09, 2002 3:31 am

more polyphony in pulsar synths is easy.make them crappier.(use less processing power)and nearly ALL magazines(and definitely all the main ones) are about advertising.articles don't get written without paid ads.the bigger the ad,the bigger the article is the way it works.(full page ads are always placed within a page of the beginning of an article.)companies pay royally for reviews and often they write them themselves. YOU owners are the real ad agencies for this platform as no company the size of cw could afford to compete with yamaha,tascam and digidesign in the "let's spend money telling about how great this is" circuit of trade magazines.especially for the sheer scope of what cw delivers for the money.(how much does the digi interface cost and what does it do for the money?)also, if the card itself is best suited to engineers(people who are comfortable in a studio)how much more so a modular synth?real modulars are a rarity.half the music mag editors don't REALLY know what to do with the stuff anyway. now you want them to mess with a modular?for free?

anyone who doesn't see the value of adding a cw card to their computer,hasn't thought about it too very rationally.($1000 buys a sampler,mod synth,a bunch of fx,mixers,several fat synths,and most of all a universal interface between the real world and all of the virtual world devices and programs, a bargain!)and when everyone is trying so hard to get money,why do they always act like it's a crime to make it?that's what companies are supposed to do,make money.the problem starts when the people in them start to think that money is the source of all happiness.......

[ This Message was edited by: garyb on 2002-07-09 04:32 ]