What Creamware needs.....

Tim Taylor · Post by **Tim Taylor** » Mon Aug 09, 2004 6:44 am

Hi,

I´m using the Scope-PLattform from the early beginning on.
When the platform was introduced euphorically years ago, the world got a revolutional concept.....

The last years Creamware was beaten in absolutly every developing-discipline by firms like TC-Works,digidesign,...

What´s up with Creamware ?? I payed over 5000 € for my equipment and now they only develope synth-emulations, not great Plugins for PRO-Audio !!!

The Scopeplattform seems to degenerate to a Rebuilt-Synthplattform more and more.
We have now the 1000th emulation of a Prophet-5 for Scope ... I ask you all: Who really needs this ??

It seems to me, that CW doesn´t develope products that fit to the market and the buyers. The Products are too weak and/or too late available.

e.g the Elektra-Board: Who needs such a weak board just for using it to calculate a modular-Synth ? -> Out of production after 1,5 years

The Powersampler-Board: Came much too late -> Out of production after 2 years (In the meantime Steiberg and NI had developed their native solutions)

Pulsar 1 : all 4 DSPs were filled even/just with the Demo-Project ! Hey guys that is totally crazy to sell such a weak board for 1000 € -> out of production and changed for a 6 DSP-Board that is much too weak.

NOAH: Only the "Extreme-Edition" has acceptable DSPpower to use it in a professional content.
.....

What Creamware/the Scope-Plattform needs:

- New professional Hardware with newest and faster DSPs, or port the platform completly to native ... we have 4 GHz CPUs in February 2005, nobody can tell me that this is not enough !

- Tools and PlugIns, that can be used in professional content (the one and only PlugIn useable in a studio is VINCO) What we really need is a professional Reverb.
Look what MAGIX developes for Samplitude and Sequoia ... THIS Reverb is a Tool that needs DSP-Power !

- massive developements for surround-features: -> Look at companies like WAVES what they have developed !!

- what about a Time-Strecher, a Decrackler, Denoiser ? ... We need things like the "No-Noise" by Sonic-Solutions !!

[ This Message was edited by: Tim Taylor on 2004-08-09 07:44 ]

Plato · Post by **Plato** » Mon Aug 09, 2004 7:07 am

Hmmm, you can't have looked very far if you think the only usable plugin is Vinco.
Surely one of Creamware's strong points is that it's open platform: some of the best stuff available has been created totally indepently of Creamware.
Also, name another platform which gives you half the routing possibilities of Scope...you'd be hard-pushed.
I agree the boards are possibly a bit under-powered relative to today's CPUs, but you can always expand with extra DSPs....OK it's expensive, but compared to Digi-design it's a snip.

Warp69 · Post by **Warp69** » Mon Aug 09, 2004 7:20 am

Hey,

Please define "professional reverb" - have you tried p100 and a100 from Sonic Timeworks?

Other cool plugs are TD & Attacker - not available on other platforms

Kind regards

Counterparts · Post by **Counterparts** » Mon Aug 09, 2004 7:34 am

I'd like to add that CPU clock speed is not the limiting factor in PCs. FSB speed and the behaviour of the operating system have a great influence on the capabilities of any native system. Merely ramping up the CPU's clock doesn't necessarily give equal increases in overall performance. Also, the Pentium 4 processor has really quite poor floating-point calculation capabilities (e.g. compared to the Athlon processor). One might even be slightly suspicious as to why the thing needs to run at such a high clock speed...

Royston

bbrian · Post by **bbrian** » Mon Aug 09, 2004 7:44 am

Yes Warp69's reverbs are fantastic, nothing but a professional sound. Also Interpole is great as a distortion, filter, autopanner/tremelo/gater. Celmo also makes some excellent devices, I really love his EchoreQ2, a must if you like the guitar and keyboard sounds of Pink Floyd and other bands from that early 70s era. I do agree about needing more DSP power though. I constantly run out of DSP resources on my PulsarII. I do not think CW should go trying to make audio editing software or denoising type plugins, there are already so many good solutions here that have been developed for years by other companies. Mainly I think CW should improve its public relations and release the SDK and fix some bugs in SFP4. It seems like they are not in the best position financially, but greater publicity and interest in their products would hopefully give them enough funds to start developing more plugins at a faster rate, and maybe even develop some new hardware solution.

gedas · Post by **gedas** » Mon Aug 09, 2004 7:46 am

IMO where Creamware has definitely failed is in marketing this platform, attracting serious users to it, who would be willing to pay for pro plugins available for the platform. It's beyond comprehension how such an excellent verb like P100 couldn't reach mere 200 copies in sales. Too sad, but it appears few pros (by this I mean people working in studios for a living) use the platform.

Mr Arkadin · Post by **Mr Arkadin** » Mon Aug 09, 2004 7:58 am

New professional Hardware with newest and faster DSPs, or port the platform completly to native ... we have 4 GHz CPUs in February 2005, nobody can tell me that this is not enough !

Well actually i can tell you it's not enough. We've had many a discussion about this before and it simplified it goes like this:
DSPs are dedicated chips with dedicated software, so clock-speed isn't the only issue. CPUs are not dedicated to a single task, having to perform lots of other functions.

i still believe the CW platform sounds far better than any native solution and as such if it went native i doubt i would be interested unless they could preserve the current sound quality. Also within a week of a native version appearing the crack would follow and how would that help CreamWare?

i think you have some valid points about power (put across a little abruptly perhaps) and the fact that TC etc have a bigger slice of the cake (though beaten is possibly too strong a term). Also when the 4 DSP card came out it was a revolution, comparing it to later products is a little unfair.

Mr A

PS. Anyone else feel like we've been here before...

[ This Message was edited by: Mr Arkadin on 2004-08-09 10:12 ]

Mehdi_T · Post by **Mehdi_T** » Mon Aug 09, 2004 8:09 am

you probably never used the spacef echo 3 neither ....
but it is true that we are reaching the maximum possibilities of the dsps in terms of dsp/memory/pci ressources ... when the pulsar came out, it allowed things that computer power didn't allow. nowaday - 6 years later - it's the reverse situation (as far as i am concerned).
what still stands is the sound quality...

[ This Message was edited by: Mehdi_T on 2004-08-09 09:25 ]

Mr Arkadin · Post by **Mr Arkadin** » Mon Aug 09, 2004 8:28 am

Mehdi wrote:

when the pulsar came out, it allowed things that computer power didn't allow. nowaday - 6 years later - it's the reverse situation (as far as i am concerned).

Not so sure about that - i don't see any delay as good as Echo3 in native (you may blush now).

Mr A

[ This Message was edited by: Mr Arkadin on 2004-08-09 09:29 ]

Mehdi_T · Post by **Mehdi_T** » Mon Aug 09, 2004 8:34 am

that's true

(blush blush)

Mehdi_T · Post by **Mehdi_T** » Mon Aug 09, 2004 8:40 am

(blush again) hehe.(blush again).
ok, now, I'm wondering, what am i going to remove from synthetic dx to make useable by the most of you ?....mmm, nothing i suppose

- too bad for the luna... not sure about 4 dsp cards, i hope 6 dsp are enough. ok, well, gonna finish that animal now....

[ This Message was edited by: Mehdi_T on 2004-08-09 09:45 ]

King of Snake · Post by **King of Snake** » Mon Aug 09, 2004 9:02 am

On 2004-08-09 08:46, gedas wrote:
IMO where Creamware has definitely failed is in marketing this platform, attracting serious users to it, who would be willing to pay for pro plugins available for the platform. It's beyond comprehension how such an excellent verb like P100 couldn't reach mere 200 copies in sales. Too sad, but it appears few pros (by this I mean people working in studios for a living) use the platform.

Warp69 · Post by **Warp69** » Mon Aug 09, 2004 9:15 am

On 2004-08-09 08:46, gedas wrote:
It's beyond comprehension how such an excellent verb like P100 couldn't reach mere 200 copies in sales.

Well, here's the real number : 46 (This could be alittle more, like 2-8 units).

Not much...................

Cheers

Post by **hubird** » Mon Aug 09, 2004 10:10 am

On 2004-08-09 08:58, Mr Arkadin wrote:
PS. Anyone else feel like we've been here before...

indeed

Tim, it's your first post, so i think you're new here.
Do a search on this forum, there are several extended threads discussing all and everything you're mentionning.
Or just go on if you and others like it, not my pain

cheerz

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Mon Aug 09, 2004 10:47 am

On 2004-08-09 07:44, Tim Taylor wrote:
...or port the platform completly to native ... we have 4 GHz CPUs in February 2005, nobody can tell me that this is not enough !
...

I can and I'll do

about one percent of professional programmers are capable of driving the Pentium to it's limits.

this means (as Counterparts already suspected) that there's a reason why CPUs are clocked that high

And while those chips might be able to add a few numbers at lightspead, they'll completely fail on processing a real time data stream.

Those apps exist as we all know, but do they really deliver the true performance of a 4 Gig CPU

I'm absolutely convinced that an optimized program on a 400 MHZ CPU WILL run faster than a regular one at 4 Gig.
And all Sharc-code is highly optimized by Analog Devices (!) - CWA may have written the atoms for SFP, but the basic DSP math library existed way longer.

oops, I forgot: considering the market situation in the pro audio segment, there isn't even a glimpse of a chance to port SFP to native CPU processing.
Even without any math problems (which WILL appear...) it would be far too expensive - and simply take too long.

cheers, Tom

[ This Message was edited by: astroman on 2004-08-09 16:08 ]

bbrian · Post by **bbrian** » Mon Aug 09, 2004 3:55 pm

Forgot about echo3! Another must-have device, most versatile and featured delay I have ever seen in software. ISON EQ is very good as well. I wouldn't really want to see more compressors for the SFP since the UAD-1 already owns that market. It is really surprising that CWA can't take a few minutes of their time to post on this forum or talk to their customers about issues like this. Ignoring customers will only hurt their reputation, a problem I had with Universal Audio for a while, until they finally started communicating with users. Now their sales are better than ever.

valis · Post by **valis** » Mon Aug 09, 2004 4:15 pm

Various Creamware employees (including Frank) do periodically drop in from time to time. I'm not really sure what they could add to this thread that we don't already know.

While it would be nice to see 'updated' boards (heck who doesn't like new toys?) I think we all know of CW's situation this past year. I agree with those who say that the best thing for CW (probably) is to get their marketing head above water and start to get some real press as a rather choice integrated studio solution.

TC & UAD might give XTC mode a run for its money but nothing, not even pro tools, has the flexibility of routing that SFP offers. Sound quality is a bonus

siberiansun · Post by **siberiansun** » Mon Aug 09, 2004 4:37 pm

On 2004-08-09 10:15, Warp69 wrote:

Well, here's the real number : 46 (This could be alittle more, like 2-8 units).

Not much...................

Cheers

you're not serious?!?
i tried the p100 demo and i consider it awesome!
i'm however stuck with a single Luna II card so putting such a device in my projects would pretty much wipe out all my other devices..

i really hope things will turn around for you Warp69.

Shayne White · Post by **Shayne White** » Mon Aug 09, 2004 4:39 pm

I do most of my mixing on Scope. Optimaster is excellent, so is PsyQ, and I love the Timeworks plugins. Anything else I need here or there I can patch in via ASIO and the external effect module; also I can patch in external hardware effects latency-free! You're not going to get that anywhere else. The Timeworks EQ is as good as just about anything else out there; the tube saturation effects are great are so are the compressors. I haven't yet tried the P100, but perhaps I'll get it someday when I get some money.

Yes, I agree they need new DSP chips and better marketing, but the DSP chips would benefit synths more than effects, since effects don't take up much power.

Shayne

Shayne White · Post by **Shayne White** » Mon Aug 09, 2004 6:11 pm

OK, I just tried the P100, and I think it can hold its own against Lexicon's Pantheon! Way better than the 4080L. I've added it to my future buy list.

Shayne