SOUND ON SOUND JUNE 2003

The Power Pulsar card we were sent for review is just one of many cards that are part of Creamware's SFP platform. If you're on a budget, the baby of the family is the Luna II (right), which features three DSP chips, stereo analogue I/O via quarter-inch jacks, co-axial S/PDIF I/O, MIDI I/O and Z-Link. I played around with a Luna II on one of my machines prior to this review and found it to be perhaps the best soundcard for the composer who's working on a single workstation. While the three DSP chips are soon exhausted, there's enough power for low-latency operation, the extensive signal routing (ideal for anyone looking to use Gigastudio on the same machine), a good reverb, and a few other effects or maybe a synth.   In terms of software, the Luna II is bundled with the main Studio Tools package, Vocodiser and, for Windows users, Volkszampler. However, the Luna II is also available in the guise of Creamware's Power Sampler system, which is basically the Luna II card with the optional STS sampling software range. If you need more audio input and output options with the Luna II, Creamware offer a 16-channel ADAT I/O expansion board, which is included with either a Luna II EX or Power Sampler II EX bundle. However, if additional analogue I/O is what you're after, there's the Luna 2496 I/O Box that connects to the Luna's Z-Link port and provides eight unbalanced RCA ins and outs.