What Creamware needs.....

[astroman]

On 2004-08-11 13:19, Mehdi_T wrote:
... Considering Astroman, I would prefer that he gets a new rope. ...

thanks for your care, Mehdi
no need to worry as I actually don't have much time to practice. But even if I had, I'd never use that old 'tie' in the alps.

In that region the preferred way is twin ropes - they clip pretty fast under tension and if stuck behind an obstacle

cheers, Tom

[Michu]

heh
quoting 5000 $ for routing system is a bit of a stretch those days...
if you want just routing you can get 3 or 4 dsp board and a couple of luna boxes or like marian adcon adat converters.
you get ultimate patchbay that way at a bit lower price.
Second, comparing scope synths with almost anything native is imho moot.
creamware boards calculate stuff in a brute force way (every signal is audiorate, and calculations are done on per sample basis) which may be less efficient than ways used by native synths, but allows results impossible otherwise. that of course makes sense if you are into synthesis and sounddesign, but as somebody said "if you are not, you are better off with couple of sample cds"
Seriously tho, only thing that i cannot get over about cw's policy is total incosistancy concerning modular (imho strongest point of the system). at the moment you have several possible configurations without overall compatibility. this certainly ain't good situation and not much is done about it.
but it has been discussed already too


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<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Michu on 2004-08-12 10:44 ]</font>

[blazesboylan]

On 2004-08-12 10:42, Michu wrote:
heh
quoting 5000 $ for routing system is a bit of a stretch those days...

First of all, I'm surprised that any Modular fan would "misunderestimate" the value of routing. (Sorry I had to throw that word in there, you don't know how long I've waited to say "misunderestimate".)

Also it was 5000 Euros, but not paid in today's market. If anyone paid that much for a single card, ever, then they're dumb, or a Digidesign customer.

5000 Euros at 2000 prices would have given you:

- A 14 DSP card (2200 Euros)
- 2 A16 Ultras (2400 Euros)
- A few cool plugins

Throw in another 5000 Euros for some preamps, some mics, lots of cables, hardware to hold everything up, some furniture and some acoustic foam, amp and reference monitors -- and you have a professional studio for 10,000 Euros.

In 2000 prices, you would have had ONLY THE AUDIO CARD from CWA's only competitor, Digidesign. Then you would have had to spend another 7-8,000 Euros on A-D / D-A and all the other studio gear. 17-18,000 Euros for Digidesign.

If you had replaced SCOPE with all outboard gear (mixing console, effects, and cables) you could have bought the outboard gear for only 3,000 Euros if you shopped smartly. The gear would be cheap but decent. Then you would have to pay at least another 1,000 Euros for cables and patchbay. For 9,000 Euros your work would just be starting.

In today's prices you could assemble the entire studio, SCOPE card and A16 Ultras included, for not much more than 5,000 Euros. If you purchased carefully.

Digidesign will *still* run you 12-15,000 Euros.

Anyone who has ever tried routing withOUT an audio card knows how expensive and time-consuming it is. CreamWare provides the same flexibility that a closetful of cables and a soldering iron gave you in the old days. You can route signals to side chains, generate test signals, go to outboard and back again. You can send the aux returns back into individual channels on the mixer. You can chain together as many mixers as you like. And you can use Modular to build your own devices!

If anyone can show me how to do all of this on any competitor card or software, I will send them a Coke and a bag of crisps.

(The crisps are getting a bit stale at this point, but the Coke would survive a nuclear blast.)

Routing is everything in a studio. If you don't believe me then I suggest you're not using SCOPE to its fullest potential.

Grumpf,

Johann

[Liquid EDGE]

Well i belieive that the creamware is of absolute class. the only thing they have done wrong is shit advertising, public awarness..

in a way i'm glad as only people who put in the research and have a brain get the scope platform...

i reckon maybe that creamware should offer some redicuoulsy low price for colleges and universities and such that teach Music tech.. and well i bet that nearly all students that used it would gag to buy one.

But i personally rather that not be the case as i don't wan't every tom dick or harry to have one, it's a secret ingrediant, but i do wan't creamware to expand and well develop.. i'm ranting againg so bye..

[valis]

I agree that Creamware's achilles heel is its marketing...but its definately a hard beast to market. The one upside is that 4-5 years later many people are a lot more well versed in PC-based music. SFP is still a lot more complicated than your average M-audio mixer & control app, but I suspect people are more able to get their head around what SFP offers these days.

Many of the most sought after pieces of vintage music gear are from people that excelled at innovating but were less skilled at business. Creamware seems to have at least 1 foot in that boat and to be sure I'll be using my cards in the studio for years to come even if it means stockpiling old p3 parts (already done ).

Hopefully Creamware does make a bit of a marketing push though. With not much r&d going on to spur their existing market into buying new products they need some way to expand their cash pool. Also I've been thinking about the Timeworks reverb's poor sales and it occurs to me that its probably almost entirely sales driven by this website alone. I'm fairly sure I've only seen the barest mention of it anywhere else.

I would hazard a guess that at least the majority of CW users have either never seen these forums or perhaps have only visited a few times during random moments of searching out info on their systems. Creamware's own site is rather poor on 3rd party info unless you're willing to dig through the shop, and relying on a tiny blurb on Harmony Central and perhaps a quick 1/8th page listing in FM isn't exactly going to put someone's devices in front of the masses of the Creamware users. I think that our active userbase here tends to represent the end of the userbase that is perhaps slightly poorer but with more free time to converse online....

[decimator]

Tim, if you haven't read the big post of Frank Hund when they were " reloaded " : http://www.planetz.com/forums/viewtopic ... 5&start=40 ( at mid scroll )

I'am sure they wish to move way faster or on schedule but ...

Feel free also to read the other posts from Frank

Next week to make a better bump ( tired, busy WE ... etc )

[Michu]

First of all, I'm surprised that any Modular fan would "misunderestimate" the value of routing. (Sorry I had to throw that word in there, you don't know how long I've waited to say "misunderestimate".)

hehe, glad to be of service
of course scope board with 32 pairs of I/O is not to be misunderestimated in any aspect,
but 5k$ is kinda astronomical quote for me
thus i can imagine like P1 board with 8 or 16 pairs much easier, hehe

[darkrezin]

Apart from anything else, the support from Digidesign is absolutely pathetic considering the money you spend on their hardware. Not only do they refuse to support the PT Mix products any more, but in the UK, if your hardware is over 1 year old, you have to use a premium rate (£1 per minute) support line!

I've personally had nothing but great support from CW in the past - even recently when they have been down to 1 support person I've had very good experiences.

If you think there are no good FX plugins for the CW platform, then you clearly have not checked out the Sonic Timeworks plugins (Series III/Sharc One and the newer P100 reverb), the SPL Transient Designer/Attacker, the Orbitone Psy-Fi, Vorb and Impressor devices, and Creamware's own Psy-Q and Optimaster processors. Also, Adern Flexor is amazing for signal processing, even for someone completely brain-dead in Modular patching (like me), and the possibilities are limitless. There may not be the variety (or marketable brands) that the Digi platform has, but the prices are a lot nicer, and the quality is just as good.

[garyb]

seems obvious to me....

[MrV]

Hello ,
Must say I agree totally with LiquidEDGE comments on SFP , it's a wonderful platform and what blazesboylan says about routing is spot on ! ....try patching all these devices in any other environment with such ease...I don't think so . With my mixing setup I can do practically anything I need , CubSX w 2xPowerPulsar+1xP2 . btw,the P100 is great ....(surprised by those sales figures but) Digidesign they aint...good ! Cheers, Michael

[decimator]

One thing that shouldn't cost too much for CWA is minimum ultra basic communication on their site not only in Planetz as in :

The ProTone disappearing for a while from the shop ( not a word I recalled on their site )

No more demos available and ?????

The plug in transfert thing ( some words as they put here would have helped a little )

The flood : once again the occasionnal visitor to their site might think they are really incompetent not able to fix a lasting " technical " problem which is not.

All those little things put ends to ends make people think that they just don't give a shit and again it won't spend an employee day's work to put some carefully chosen words.


Otherwise well done on the device price reductions and bundles bargains however maybe some inertia as usual to make outsiders realise that CWA stuff is less expensive than it used to be.

CWA is pro sound within hobbyst grasp or not that much rich pro they should push it in that direction and be : The Bargain !

They should put more emphasis ( though they do in a backpage ) that the reason the devices are hungry is that they put all on sound quality, no compromise.

For the synths, since they really like too much vintage they should balance their act by putting some lights on the Wavelenght synths that are somewhat modern classics, Solaris 2 that is an another monster bargain ... etc, etc.

I'am afraid occasionnal visitors may tag CWA as the vintage only company since most of the third party are mostly located in a dusty closet kind of page.
They should post at least some Ads at place like sonicstate or other places where analog hardware troups regroup.

What CWA doesn't do but is available somewhere they should expose and no apartheid in the shop : group by synths, effects ... etc then CWA and links to third party shops.

I suspect many people to associate some third ( no very well known name ) party with third rate plugs. They are wrong but that will be hard to change ...

Concerning the marketing : I think they have kind of given up thinking it's a niche market, too complex ... etc
I totally disagree : it's complex if you want it to be ... only it has ( IHMO ) to be better explained step by step, way more examples of projects, thinner manuel, getting started PDF, flash presentations ... pedagogy at the right places could do wonders.
I'am not implying this is easy but it would be worthwhile.
Right now it may appear indeed too much intimidating.

Otherwise for 2005 I have some realistic HW dreams giving more power to the people, more sales of devices and well ... more of everything.