I never used STS much, but some years ago, I had them running stable under 64bit on a clean installed windows. I had to make sure, that there is no other soundcard in the system, thus disabling all drivers for onboard sound. Unfortunately, I used some other devices (VDAT ?) and a series of bluescreen ruined the system.
So I think, there is no problem in general, it's just bugs.
I scope was open source, someone (or me) might have fixed them.
no need to cry after sts samplers, vst does it also better
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nebelfuerst
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Re: no need to cry after sts samplers, vst does it also better
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Re: no need to cry after sts samplers, vst does it also better
the STS is from a time before 64bit memory addresses. that is the big problem.
Re: no need to cry after sts samplers, vst does it also better
Imho it’s not only the 64bit mode, but the whole Win infrastructure has changed.
I simultanously admire and deeply regret anyone who dares to mess with that stuff...
Matter of fact is that Native Instrument established a new sampling standard with Kontakt.
Spectrasonics took the classic Akai format to the limits with Omnisphere, Trillian and Stylus.
(by adding features impossible to implement in the old hardware)
My MPC 4000 could do essentially the same ... in 10 to 100 times the amount of time. Oops.
I don‘t mind neither the 4000 nor STS, both had their time and would still do the job for anyone who‘s used to the classic paradigm.
As mentioned numerous times: Win32 on a solid machine is fairly cheap and Scope can communicate via Adat...
To try the impossible would be waste of time, effort and cash.
Making the „old“ software run in a current environment, would still be at least 10 years behind the „goodies“ expected today.
Just my 2 Cents, Tom
I simultanously admire and deeply regret anyone who dares to mess with that stuff...
Matter of fact is that Native Instrument established a new sampling standard with Kontakt.
Spectrasonics took the classic Akai format to the limits with Omnisphere, Trillian and Stylus.
(by adding features impossible to implement in the old hardware)
My MPC 4000 could do essentially the same ... in 10 to 100 times the amount of time. Oops.
I don‘t mind neither the 4000 nor STS, both had their time and would still do the job for anyone who‘s used to the classic paradigm.
As mentioned numerous times: Win32 on a solid machine is fairly cheap and Scope can communicate via Adat...
To try the impossible would be waste of time, effort and cash.
Making the „old“ software run in a current environment, would still be at least 10 years behind the „goodies“ expected today.
Just my 2 Cents, Tom
32bit STS lover! Re: i am lucky, Re: no cry...
I don't write much, I see myself more as an observer, but here's a really nice tip from the underground >>
Loading the Akai S library without conversion is something only STS and VST Volkszamlper can do, and no other VST.
Conversions from other third-party providers are poor to unusable!
I also prefer the STS5000 Robot Stretch Algos!!!!
Akai itself once had a VST in alpha testing, I think it was called "z8." Unfortunately, it was never released.
It would have been a fully compatible SX000, including SysEx...
#################################
Please, please, stop discussing the pros and cons of 32 vs. 64!
As Gary says, Scope is 27 years old!
All sound-based system developments are discontinued!!
I still think it's wonderful that SC is trying to keep its baby alive by any means possible.
As an old WinXP fan, the current support is enough for me.
You must finally find your inner peace and admit that further development of Scope 2007 has been discontinued.
SC no longer has any developers on board! DSP licensing is blocked. Script and Win DLL programming are no longer available.
All this pushing is pointless!
It will only backfire and further scare SC from even launching anything.
We've seen it clearly in the last few years with v8! Development isn't getting out of its alpha phase because there are simply too many issues to be addressed, sorry!
Currently, there's probably a lack of positive motivation, rather than constant complaining!
Offer SC your awesome videos! Make your awesome presets available! Show your ideas in the modular area!
That would be exactly the right motivation for SC!!! Then things would continue, believe me!!
Build cool "old" subsystems with Windows XP, or get those boxes out of the basement again!
Scope is hardware and requires a stable "BIOS," if I may call the Windows XP operating system that!
Imagine John making the OS for his Solaris dependent on a third-party provider who couldn't give a damn about Solaris; that would be fatal!
Scope requires Windows XP 32-bit, that's just the way it is; everything else is an experiment that will gradually make all the cool things go to waste.
John has a DSP programmer on board. Encourage him in his forum to develop for Scope too!
We're a big family, so not everyone has to go their own way, you understand!
I love Scope 32-bit as a full-fledged band member, mixing center, and mastermind.
Declassified to 64-bit, Scope runs similarly to Windows in safe mode—that's just the way it is.
SC, please continue to support 32-bit, and especially Windows XP, so that all atoms remain accessible.
Thank you very much!
Loading the Akai S library without conversion is something only STS and VST Volkszamlper can do, and no other VST.
Conversions from other third-party providers are poor to unusable!
I also prefer the STS5000 Robot Stretch Algos!!!!
Akai itself once had a VST in alpha testing, I think it was called "z8." Unfortunately, it was never released.
It would have been a fully compatible SX000, including SysEx...
#################################
Please, please, stop discussing the pros and cons of 32 vs. 64!
As Gary says, Scope is 27 years old!
All sound-based system developments are discontinued!!
I still think it's wonderful that SC is trying to keep its baby alive by any means possible.
As an old WinXP fan, the current support is enough for me.
You must finally find your inner peace and admit that further development of Scope 2007 has been discontinued.
SC no longer has any developers on board! DSP licensing is blocked. Script and Win DLL programming are no longer available.
All this pushing is pointless!
It will only backfire and further scare SC from even launching anything.
We've seen it clearly in the last few years with v8! Development isn't getting out of its alpha phase because there are simply too many issues to be addressed, sorry!
Currently, there's probably a lack of positive motivation, rather than constant complaining!
Offer SC your awesome videos! Make your awesome presets available! Show your ideas in the modular area!
That would be exactly the right motivation for SC!!! Then things would continue, believe me!!
Build cool "old" subsystems with Windows XP, or get those boxes out of the basement again!
Scope is hardware and requires a stable "BIOS," if I may call the Windows XP operating system that!
Imagine John making the OS for his Solaris dependent on a third-party provider who couldn't give a damn about Solaris; that would be fatal!
Scope requires Windows XP 32-bit, that's just the way it is; everything else is an experiment that will gradually make all the cool things go to waste.
John has a DSP programmer on board. Encourage him in his forum to develop for Scope too!
We're a big family, so not everyone has to go their own way, you understand!
I love Scope 32-bit as a full-fledged band member, mixing center, and mastermind.
Declassified to 64-bit, Scope runs similarly to Windows in safe mode—that's just the way it is.
SC, please continue to support 32-bit, and especially Windows XP, so that all atoms remain accessible.
Thank you very much!
Re: no need to cry after sts samplers, vst does it also better
GaryB is correct, hardly surprising as he's support! The 64bit addressing messes with certain applications more than others, but even the ones that appear to work are likely doing more stringent memory management and it's not until you load enough to hit an address out of range for Scope's ability to handle that you have an issue. The driver for scope hardware (Xite/PCI) is 64bit, but the application that hosts the GUI is 32bit.
It needs a seasoned driver developer who can also handle the Scope's GUI stack to work through the bugs with Holger, and while things like Sample OSC (and there's a few delays too) that also have the STS issues could be fixed the host stability with all DAW/driver requests and some of our other bugs might be a higher priority. There was someone originally helping Holger with a beta forum, but we still seem to be the most stable forum/community solution for discussing these things, as the person who organized that is onto other things.
If we took on organizing our bug list a bit more (it doesn't need to be a wiki or etc, just a list we create here in a thread), I can give GaryB outside support in talking to Holger and perhaps we can find a way to finance the additional developer needed as a community. Thoughts?
It needs a seasoned driver developer who can also handle the Scope's GUI stack to work through the bugs with Holger, and while things like Sample OSC (and there's a few delays too) that also have the STS issues could be fixed the host stability with all DAW/driver requests and some of our other bugs might be a higher priority. There was someone originally helping Holger with a beta forum, but we still seem to be the most stable forum/community solution for discussing these things, as the person who organized that is onto other things.
If we took on organizing our bug list a bit more (it doesn't need to be a wiki or etc, just a list we create here in a thread), I can give GaryB outside support in talking to Holger and perhaps we can find a way to finance the additional developer needed as a community. Thoughts?
Re: no need to cry after sts samplers, vst does it also better
Great idea, but if an hour of programming is offered for $120 and you have no control over when, what, and how it's implemented, then I doubt it's an honest result. We're scopers, but not naive! We need an offer to weigh the price-performance ratio. Furthermore, Holger has to participate. As long as he doesn't want to disclose specifications because he's afraid of losing anything, then it becomes endlessly pointless, sorry! I don't know the SC market value; it's probably at the basement door by now, I think. What I'm saying is that we need volunteer enthusiasts, not kickoff startup money-suckers who never "want" to finish. Who would be able to monitor the process? A scope user pot must remain transparent! And who owns the result? I don't think Holger will play along here.
Re: no need to cry after sts samplers, vst does it also better
I can estimate an approximate price already myself based on similar efforts elsewhere, and what I know about Scope from being around so long. $8K as a ceiling seems appropriate. A list of requirements for all interested, and a way to escrow funds until goal reached, as well as contract upon receipt for S|C and the 3rd party who the funds would likely be paying. Holger seems capable of handling the Scope system itself.
The only question I would have is how much support from Analog Devices is needed to get the various additional things beyond the driver itself to be fixed. I've never opened up any of the samplers or sample OSC modules in the SDK.
The only question I would have is how much support from Analog Devices is needed to get the various additional things beyond the driver itself to be fixed. I've never opened up any of the samplers or sample OSC modules in the SDK.
Re: no need to cry after sts samplers, vst does it also better
they could set up a crowdfunding for some goal with a list of issues to be worked on (and before that - some voting poll to find out what's most demanded)
as for 32bit - there are no problems running 32bit software on x64 windows whatsoever. the problems start when the driver, unaware of the fact that it lives in x64 system, addresses the memory as if it was a 32bit field - and hence some of the code [randomly] works if it gets to poke at legit addresses, and some pokes at places that are not places it thinks they are, and everything gets messed up, windows issues a blue screen as of means of not being able to continue.
yet good part of scope driver bugs come from the x32 times and were an annoyance even back then on v4 - i found winxp neither glorious neither stable, and i had a ton of issues and was able to lockup the pc no problem
it's just now x64 mis-translation issues added - like vdat blue screens, xtc blue screens, wdm driver and soundcard source/destination not really fully functional.
for example, i was very able to crash modular2 / lockup whole pc by quickly changing sequencer presets in 2007 on winxp32/pentium4 and i'm perfectly able to reproduce it now on win11/i9
i have a feeling that perhaps pentium 3 on 440bx or even earlier was _the_ platform for scope where it would crash the least
yet even then the projects would be plagued by shifting phase relations between channels - no blue screen but an annoyance for sure.
i wonder what would be if they hired RME guys - also from germany - to sort out the drivers hehe.
as for 32bit - there are no problems running 32bit software on x64 windows whatsoever. the problems start when the driver, unaware of the fact that it lives in x64 system, addresses the memory as if it was a 32bit field - and hence some of the code [randomly] works if it gets to poke at legit addresses, and some pokes at places that are not places it thinks they are, and everything gets messed up, windows issues a blue screen as of means of not being able to continue.
yet good part of scope driver bugs come from the x32 times and were an annoyance even back then on v4 - i found winxp neither glorious neither stable, and i had a ton of issues and was able to lockup the pc no problem
it's just now x64 mis-translation issues added - like vdat blue screens, xtc blue screens, wdm driver and soundcard source/destination not really fully functional.
for example, i was very able to crash modular2 / lockup whole pc by quickly changing sequencer presets in 2007 on winxp32/pentium4 and i'm perfectly able to reproduce it now on win11/i9
i have a feeling that perhaps pentium 3 on 440bx or even earlier was _the_ platform for scope where it would crash the least
yet even then the projects would be plagued by shifting phase relations between channels - no blue screen but an annoyance for sure.
i wonder what would be if they hired RME guys - also from germany - to sort out the drivers hehe.
Re: no need to cry after sts samplers, vst does it also better
Keyword: contractual commitment! Forget about company installers! They could, but they aren't allowed/will not.
STS is surprisingly unrelated to DSP when it comes to "analog devices". Perhaps those who bridge the gap between sys/dll would have more success here if they had dollar signs in their eyes...
STS is surprisingly unrelated to DSP when it comes to "analog devices". Perhaps those who bridge the gap between sys/dll would have more success here if they had dollar signs in their eyes...
Re: no need to cry after sts samplers, vst does it also better
Both of my Scope 7 machines are the most stable they've ever been, but there are some things I cannot use on them. DAW compatibility with full 64bit memory address stability seems the biggest priority for most, and it would help VCV Rack 2 Pro run in my case too.pranza wrote: Sat Sep 13, 2025 2:56 am i have a feeling that perhaps pentium 3 on 440bx or even earlier was _the_ platform for scope where it would crash the least
yet even then the projects would be plagued by shifting phase relations between channels - no blue screen but an annoyance for sure.
Re: no need to cry after sts samplers, vst does it also better
all good, but there are some things that are not correct.
"All sound-based system developments are discontinued!!"
not true. its all very, very slow. whether or not anything will come of it is not determined.
"SC no longer has any developers on board! DSP licensing is blocked. Script and Win DLL programming are no longer available."
developers are contract only. licensing for most Scope devices/products are owned by SC. Script and dll programming is possible with the appropriate funding.
"John has a DSP programmer on board"
not exactly true, not exactly false. SC has been involved in the programming.
i don't think that Analog Devices is needed much.
the driver knows it's in a 64bit environment. memory addressing for the async devices that use memory like STS and wave oscs is an issue.
the driver needs further work for use with some 64bit only apps, again because of memory adress issues. this probably requires some reworking of atoms.
Scope was made to address 32bit addresses because there were no 64bit systems in existence back then. it's unclear how much of the application needs to be updated(unclear to me) to allow the driver to fully comply(it's good enough for m$ to sign off on it). i suspect, not much.
the rest of the comments are great.
"All sound-based system developments are discontinued!!"
not true. its all very, very slow. whether or not anything will come of it is not determined.
"SC no longer has any developers on board! DSP licensing is blocked. Script and Win DLL programming are no longer available."
developers are contract only. licensing for most Scope devices/products are owned by SC. Script and dll programming is possible with the appropriate funding.
"John has a DSP programmer on board"
not exactly true, not exactly false. SC has been involved in the programming.
i don't think that Analog Devices is needed much.
the driver knows it's in a 64bit environment. memory addressing for the async devices that use memory like STS and wave oscs is an issue.
the driver needs further work for use with some 64bit only apps, again because of memory adress issues. this probably requires some reworking of atoms.
Scope was made to address 32bit addresses because there were no 64bit systems in existence back then. it's unclear how much of the application needs to be updated(unclear to me) to allow the driver to fully comply(it's good enough for m$ to sign off on it). i suspect, not much.
the rest of the comments are great.
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nebelfuerst
- Posts: 581
- Joined: Tue Jun 23, 2009 10:55 am
Re: no need to cry after sts samplers, vst does it also better
I don't know the software architecture of scope, nor am I familiar with driver development under W10/11, but I did similar stuff with linux.
All control communication runs through the card's driver on the OS-side. Focus is required on DMA-transfers by the card. (Here I wonder, why masterverb works on 64, while STS is unstable. I would expect both to do quite similar accesses, althouth STS will use more RAM.)
On linux, old software (32bit or with different OS-requirements) can be run by using emulators/containers. Accessing PCI devices is possible, too.
Maybe using this approach is a way to migrate ?
All control communication runs through the card's driver on the OS-side. Focus is required on DMA-transfers by the card. (Here I wonder, why masterverb works on 64, while STS is unstable. I would expect both to do quite similar accesses, althouth STS will use more RAM.)
On linux, old software (32bit or with different OS-requirements) can be run by using emulators/containers. Accessing PCI devices is possible, too.
Maybe using this approach is a way to migrate ?
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Re: no need to cry after sts samplers, vst does it also better
i just did some testing by trying to load vdat via scope environment or stuff via xtc - vdatmot.sys, tplay.sys - these are for vdat exclusively; then universally - scscope.sys MArrFifo.sys, complaining about irql not less or equal or unhandled exception or paging fault in non-paging area
funny stuff is that it would all work fine at some point - like one boot out of ten i'm definitely getting working XTC plugins via vst - even with ASIO of another card!
also, when vdat would load without crashing i can open and play projects, and record on it too!
a few years ago i copied adat tapes using vdat and that 9pin control cable for the alesis deck - on x64 system! when it works it can work flawlessly.
my bet is that if it doesn't get memory allocated at an 'unreachable' address it can go on..
there is some info in it here:https://www.forums.scopeusers.com/viewt ... ss#p333829
it's interesting though that reverbs, although they should be using DMA for going back and forth to system RAM because scope cards have almost none - yet they don't crash!
funny stuff is that it would all work fine at some point - like one boot out of ten i'm definitely getting working XTC plugins via vst - even with ASIO of another card!
also, when vdat would load without crashing i can open and play projects, and record on it too!
a few years ago i copied adat tapes using vdat and that 9pin control cable for the alesis deck - on x64 system! when it works it can work flawlessly.
my bet is that if it doesn't get memory allocated at an 'unreachable' address it can go on..
there is some info in it here:https://www.forums.scopeusers.com/viewt ... ss#p333829it's interesting though that reverbs, although they should be using DMA for going back and forth to system RAM because scope cards have almost none - yet they don't crash!