Is Scope Obsolete?

[Atomic Marshmallow]

Hello,

I have already written this in another thread, but it is more suited to this section. I just asking for some thoughts.

After 6 years I finally have a stable Scope system (so far).

I am so shocked that my last 6 years of trying to get a stable Scope system basically boiled down to faulty RAM that was installed when the PC was first built. No doubt a computer geek probably would have spent no longer than a weekend solving what took me six years (on and off). I am not a technician, but a musician. As a result I have instead been making music on a laptop in all this time and it has made me think, should I bother with Scope? Has it become obsolete?

Firstly, there is the issue of it getting harder to find motherboards with PCI slots. Sure they are still around, but if you want to run 3 cards it is not so easy.
Maybe a blasphemous thing to say, but I find my soft synths far more versatile and easier to use than the synths I purchased with Scope. What is the point of using something like STS 5000 (which has a cumbersome interface in my opinion), when Kontakt is far more flexible and easier to use? CPU wise my 1.8 Centrino laptop outperforms my 3.06 Ghz desktop which houses my Pulsar cards. I have got so used to the simplicity of using my laptop that I find the desktop/Scope not so straightforward.

Should I give up on Scope or persist with it now that it is finally running?


Thanks

[Fluxpod]

Well its best to start using it for a while and then decide if its something you want to use and like,or not.Dont bother using the sampler at first but check out the synths.

[astroman]

first of all Scope is a concept
it integrates external gear, output from native software devices and it's own (sound) generators and processors
you may or may not use any or all part of it that fits your needs

this brilliant concept suffered under heavy cuts in R&D resources during the final episode of Creamware
after (some of) the original tech heads took over Scope's legacy, there was quite some push forward

there is a new hardware in form of the XITE which was designed from the ground up
now including the most important analog interfaces in better than average quality (mic-, intrument-pre, monitoring)
with a faster and system independant digital bus (PCIe) and laptop compatibilty (saving the infamous Magma devices)

the basic DSP software was adapted to the latest generation of chips
all this done with highest possible compatibility to the existing hardware in mind

that a sampler featuring the vintage Akai interface isn't top priority is absolutely reasonable
today you have sampler engines and libs galore
such a device doesn't really benefit from DSP architecture when playing back digital waveforms
you can process any (existing) sampler output in Scope - be it external or via software connection

but you can't expect SC to put sparse developement resources into a device that suppliers of libraries give for free
who'd buy that after all ?

that the announced Mac OSX support comes at snail speed is pretty normal if you see Apple's OS hops (so to say...) in the software domain
they are not as straight forward as they used to be when earning their reputation.

Anyway, imho Sonic Core fullfilled their promise to give the system back it's vitality
So this is a clear vote pro Scope - the mixers, synths and processors are excellent, as is the routing.
You can drive the Scope system much further in a creative context than any other I'm aware of.
but you only can do this, because there's a powerful concept working behind the scenes
which takes a bit more to be maintained for obvious reasons...

that there are problems with PC hardware isn't surprising at all
such things never happened at Apple when they did their own hardware - now that they are using PC stuff as everybody else they have everybody else's problems, too

cheers, Tom

[sonicstrav]

Hello,
Maybe a blasphemous thing to say, but I find my soft synths far more versatile and easier to use than the synths I purchased with Scope. What is the point of using something like STS 5000 (which has a cumbersome interface in my opinion), when Kontakt is far more flexible and easier to use?
Thanks

1) Scope synths are only slightly more difficult to use as you have to route the MIDI from the sequncer to the synth and the audio back to sequencer - also freezing doesn't work. But worth it for the sound - the filters are excellent. However, doing FM / additive stuff - it's easier using VST.

2)The modular system is incredible to Scope - no VST has this functionality - you have to use this even if you use nothing else in Scope

3)I agree - Kontakt 4 is the sampler to use - there is simply no point in using Scope's samplers now

[garyb]

is a Minimoog obsolete?
is a Urei 1176 obsolete?
is a 1962 Fender Stratocaster obsolete?
is a 1957 Les Paul obsolete?
is a JBL 2" horn driver obsolete?
is a RCA ribbon mic obsolete?
is a Neumann U47 obsolete?
is a Neve mic pre obsolete?

is there even a real competitor to Scope?

no, Scope is not obsolete, especially when a 64bit version is near release, there are win7 drivers and pci slots can still be found.

[dawman]

A laptop with an XITE-1 will be the future of mobility.
I can see Kontakt and Flexor VST complimenting the XITE-1 and both are very small compared to my racks.
I have fallen for the world of Modular be it Native or DSP.
I recently heard the VSTi synth Zebra, so now I know great sounds can be had natively. I am sure Assaf will make sure this is the case too.
I listened to too may Arturia and NI Receptors so my opinion of Native synths wasn't very good. If you have no real instruments like Bass & Guitar, Drums and Horns on the stage with you those synths will work for a small automated gig, but once real instruments are used it's obvious they have a thin weak sound quality. DSP synths if made correctly have no problem on stages with real instruments. Either does Zebra, that'a a fine synth.
P55's and H57's are full of 32bit PCI's, the mATX and MINI-ITX versions use them too but not 3.
Intel always tries to use an all USB mobo w/ no PS/2, and then realizes the weakness and comes out w/ the P45 boards that have gone back to PS/2.
Same with PCI-e and 1 x PCI 32. The X58's were notrious for this, but Intel has again seen it's shortcomings and adjusted to the demands of real world usage.
I remember the RAM they were trying to force on the market years ago too, nice stuff, but it was another example if Intel trying to change a market that didn't need changing....
Hang on to those cards for now as there's a whole new era for Scope coming.
I think you'll enjoy seeing what these guys are doing. They are developing in areas that their strengths lie, such as Modular. Next move just might be hardware control surfaces and OSC.
Developers are what rule IMHO, Native or DSP, it's still software.
Whoever has the best sound, and ideas wins......

[Shroomz~>]

is a refrigerator obsolete?
is a cooker or stove obsolete?
what about pots & pans, cutlery, crockery?
is a wooden door obsolete?
What about a door handle?
What about a pane of glass?
is fresh air obsolete?
is ground to stand on obsolete?
What about clothes? (personally I don't think women should be allowed to wear them)

is there even a real competitor to Scope?

no, Scope is not obsolete, especially when a 64bit version is near release, there are win7 drivers and pci slots can still be found.

Fixed that for you Gary!

[garyb]

is a refrigerator obsolete?
is a cooker or stove obsolete?
what about pots & pans, cutlery, crockery?
is a wooden door obsolete?
What about a door handle?
What about a pane of glass?
is fresh air obsolete?
is ground to stand on obsolete?
What about clothes? (personally I don't think women should be allowed to wear them)

is there even a real competitor to Scope?

no, Scope is not obsolete, especially when a 64bit version is near release, there are win7 drivers and pci slots can still be found.

Fixed that for you Gary!

yes you did!!!

[JoPo]

The Creamware concept is impossible to become obslolete : it's the same to say a recording, mixing, rehearsing, composing music studio with a shed full of synths, fx devices, mixers on 5 stages is obsolete ! It has no sense.
Sure, I was the very first to say that the pci dsps were becoming old, I did it already 4 or 5 years ago ! But right now, you have the Xite-1, ok one may say it is expensive but in fact, for all what it offers, it is the best value for money of the market. I'm using this concept from the very begining and I'm still using it because it is going to be impossible to offer a better electronic music gear at a better price. And believe me, at the begining, it was really hard to use !! I remember the first reverb !
Maybe you should take advantage of the SC chrismas offer to get an Xite... You won't find it obsolete... Now I've my old 3 pci cards linked with my Xite for increasing the number of i/o and the possibilities are endless.
When the Kontakt came out, I also turn myself to VSTs... No doubt that STS series was left far behind. And it is still the sampler which I use in every music piece I make. To day, with a cpu quad thingummyjig trick thingy thing (I don't know how to call it but it's like it has 4 CPU!) + an Xite-1, I cannot see the end of the field which opens. You may use VSTs AND Scope as I do every days. You mays have untill 32 stereo asio to get back your VST's sound into Scope. I've got also a powercore which has a lot of latency, must be the same with UAD... And this f...g powercore works well only since 3 months and I have it since 6 years !!!! Just because TC is not able to make good 1394 drivers ! And a 350€ compressor, even if it is a good one, isn't it a bit expensive (799€ the same one for pro tools !) and without VAT ? I'll NEVER buy again anything to TC and I'm not the only one.

Xite-1 has put back Scope concept at the top of modern music gear. Big guy with small feet spoke.

[siriusbliss]

Just the fact the boards are still viable and in use for some of us going back 10 years (and now for you still alive after 6 years) is enough to determine that Scope is a much more worthwhile 'concept' to invest in.

I far prefer the Scope synths for the synth sound quality over any other hybrid VST/Rompler that I ALSO use - and I ALSO use a laptop with VST's.
I relegate the VST domain to the hybrid ROMpler/samplers out there (like <ahem> Omnisphere)

Now the next logical step for me is to go with a laptop and Xite, and leave the sampler/Romplers to the VST domain. This way you get the best of both worlds.

I also use Kontakt (minimally), since STS5000 never really cut it for me other than a really good loop playback device.

Meanwhile my 3-card Scope system DAW will probably live on for years.

Greg

[FrancisHarmany]

Yes. Worthless. Send me your cards.

ho ho ho

[HUROLURA]

NO

but it will be ... soon

Send me also your card

[Leper]

Obsolete? No way. Though I would -love- the ability to freeze/export audio in the sequencer.. the sound quality and flexibility of scope is 100% worth the tradeoff for me

..... for now

[Atomic Marshmallow]

Hello again,

Some interesting points. Seems like you all think my cards aren't quite obsolete yet, but they soon will be is my guess. Scope as a platform isn't dead and Xite will keep it going as long as people buy into it, but the PCI cards days are numbered. Sooner or later PCI slots won't be built, they have already started phasing them out, then where does that leave you?

If I want to upgrade my Scope system, I'd be lucky to find a motherboard with more than three PCI slots ( to house my 3 cards). Yes, you can get motherboards with 3 PCI slots, but how much longer is that going to last? My state of the art system more or less obsolete after 6 years. To me that is inherently wrong. My 5 year old 1.8 Ghz Centrino laptop has more power than my desktop.

I bought the 4 DSP Pulsar card when they first came out and had it running on an old DELL 450 mhz. It ran like a charm and It was rock solid until I replaced the Dell with my current 6 year desktop.I guess part of my gripe is that until a couple of days ago, I never really had a stable Scope system for 6 years. I have owned it for so long and never used it due to my PC problem. Fair enough that I didn't dedicate myself totally to solving the problem that a more knowledgeable person would have figured out much sooner. Actually the problem was not Scope but the computer itself. As I explained, I am a musician not a technician (though maybe in modern times you need to be both) and all I want is for things to work as they should. So to bypass the unreliability of my Scope PC, I bought a laptop and have been making music on that ever since. My laptop is reliable. I switch it on and it works.

I see the point you are trying to make garyb, except that should the day come that to be able to play a Stratocaster (or Gibson), that you would need to buy a special cable that only fits into a particular type of slot that becomes useless after a few years because another more efficient type of slot has been invented, then I would say the days of the Strat would be numbered. These things aren't obsolete because they can still work with the current technology and increase in value with age. My Pulsar cards are nowhere near the value I bought them at in the second hand market. If I could get a reasonable price I would sell them, but I'd be lucky to get more than 100 Euros a card. So I may as well keep them.

Yes they still work, but they are housed in an old PC which is getting harder to upgrade. They are only good until PCI slots have completely disappeared. I guess that is the nature of computer technology. Yes Scope is flexible and great at intergrating external gear with computer gear. But more and more I am dumping my hardware for a total software approach and I like it better that way.

Now that I have my desktop working as it should, I will keep using it until it dies on me. Maybe I will again see the true value of my cards. I hope so. I have to say that Modular III sounds cool !!!



So to finish, a couple of questions.

1) Should I buy myself a new up to date motherboard and have that lying around as a backup for come the day my current one packs up? If so what do you recommend?

2) I have forgotten a few things about connections, so could anyone tell me why I can't get a signal from my Scope synths in my Sequencer? My VST ones work fine and I can record them. I can hear the Scope synths connected to the mixer, but no signal going in the sequencer.


Thanks for all your responses.

[FrancisHarmany]

hmmm.... there will be PCI mainboards around for a long time. Soon it will become very easy to harvest them from people getting new computers

then you can survive a mainboard crash ro two and keep running your dedicated scope machine!! or SDK machine

[astroman]

LOL people still buy 15 year old Macs clocked 30 MHZ just to run Lexicon Nuverb cards (for the pre PCI 'Nubus' by Texas Instruments)
Never seen one close for less than 500 bucks (bundle).

cheers, Tom

[garyb]

you can STILL buy motherboards with ISA slots....

[Atomic Marshmallow]

you can STILL buy motherboards with ISA slots....

LOL people still buy 15 year old Macs clocked 30 MHZ just to run Lexicon Nuverb cards (for the pre PCI 'Nubus' by Texas Instruments)
Never seen one close for less than 500 bucks (bundle).

cheers, Tom

Why would anyone want to?

Ok, it seems that you think that PCI slots will be around yet, so I could be wrong about the short term demise of them. Even so, I have not found a mainboard that has more than 3 slots. I need 3 for my Pulsar cards. God help me if I run into IRQ problems and need to use other slots to swap cards around. I had IRQ problems with my current mainboard (ASUS P4P800 Deluxe), when I first got it, but had the luxury of having 5 PCI slots at my disposal.

I am not looking for an argument, just wondering about the feasibility of your claims. These slots may still be available, but not easy to get and are by no means standard.

The nature of technology tends to move forward rather than backward. Still building mainboards with ISA slots to me is akin to using a Penny Farthing rather than a racing bike to compete in the tour de France. Sure there may be a niche market that would be interested in a Penny Farthing, but on a practical level, why bother unless you are an avid collector because it won't win you any races?

Don't get me wrong. I bought into Pulsar when they first came out. It worked like a charm on my shitty little Dell. I loved it so much that I bought a total of three cards, but had the misfortune of housing them in a faulty machine. The frustration drove me to give up for a while. I occassionally tried but never solved the problem until recently when netguyjoel suggested I use memtest to check on my RAM.

I should have asked for help a lot earlier, but as I said, I prefer making music rather than solving problems. So my disappointment is largely my fault.

I will use my Pulsar setup now that it's working, but the simplicity of my laptop beckons more.

It's been so long that I am not so familiar with the platform so much. I can't remember how I used to do certain things:

For instance, how do I record my pulsar synths in my sequencer?
I bought Dynatube ages ago. I can't find it. Where can I download the files? The Sonic core site doesn't have them.

Thanks

[astroman]

you can STILL buy motherboards with ISA slots....

LOL people still buy 15 year old Macs clocked 30 MHZ just to run Lexicon Nuverb cards (for the pre PCI 'Nubus' by Texas Instruments)
Never seen one close for less than 500 bucks (bundle).
cheers, Tom

Why would anyone want to? ...

well, it's actually very simple... functionality
you want the sound of a Lexicon L300 ?
spend a few grands on the original box
or buy an obsolete Mac that runs the plugin board with the Lexichip for 500 - route your Audio via AES/EBU

you want the particular sound of Scope - or a huge digital/analog patchbay ?
plug some Scope cards into PC parts from the trashbox, 512k memory and a 1 GB flash are all it needs
route your audio via Adat

put the latest and greatest RME (or whatever) into your Multicore-Hyper-DAW
I don't get the point why everything has to be in one single box if you need several screens for convenient work anyway

if you consider this too complicated or not smart enough... buy an XITE for PCIe - it's still Scope

cheers, Tom

[Atomic Marshmallow]

Thanks Astroman for your reply.

If I were allowed to trade my 3 cards I would definitely buy Xite. I sent an email to Sonic core, the best they would offer me is about 1000 euros for two of my cards (6 DSP ones). It would still mean almost 2500 euros that I don't have yet to splash around, so I'll hold off for the time being.

I'll play around with what I have now and try to fall in love again with Scope.

But right now, I an still trying to figure out why my sequencer won't record the audio from Modular 3. I am sure it has to do with a MIDI or Sequencer module not connected properly. My VSTs record fine but not my Pulsar synths.

I realise the answer is no doubt here in these pages somewhere, but there is a lot of reading to trawl through. I can't seem to find the Dynatube bundle I bought either. Any clues to that?

Then of course I would like to try and get XTC going. Seems there are headaches with that too.

Thanks