New CreamWare products in Frankfurt

Mr Arkadin · Post by **Mr Arkadin** » Tue Apr 05, 2005 9:24 am

There was a controllerbox for Minimax, which they were toying with at last Messe, but I don't think that was a line product...

Yeah, and i think the price for that controller was about what these new boxes cost and they've got DSP on board.

Gordon Gekko · Post by **Gordon Gekko** » Tue Apr 05, 2005 9:39 am

sexy bitches

just saw on other music forum that these toys don't go about unnoticed

symbiote · Post by **symbiote** » Tue Apr 05, 2005 9:45 am

I think these are great ideas, definitely going to get one of each =P

For those who want "controller-only versions", what stops you from using any of the multiple MIDI controller boxes already on the market? If you have trouble with the knob assignment, you can either use a little paint, or do like me, tape a paper sheet under the controller (I have a Doepfer Pocket Dial), and note down what each knob does. I use one sheet per track, and this makes it fairly easy to pull out a track's sheet 6 month in the future and prevents having to remember/thinker with stuff.

interloper · Post by **interloper** » Tue Apr 05, 2005 10:04 am

On 2005-04-05 10:45, symbiote wrote:
...I have a Doepfer Pocket Dial...

I've got one too, it's built like a brick s#!&house. Works great.

Flyerfred · Post by **Flyerfred** » Tue Apr 05, 2005 10:07 am

The idea of providing "ACB" is to use the factory lines used to produce ASB... In order to have dedicated plugin controllers. Of course, most of general purposes midi controllers can do the job, but 1) it's cool to have a controller dedicated to a plugin 2) if the price is low (lower than minimax controller mentioned above), I think many CW cards users might be interested, then CW makes money...

Fred

Man-Machine · Post by **Man-Machine** » Tue Apr 05, 2005 11:46 am

Look at the little Korg MS-20 dedicated controller... I think there is a market for such thing. Korg seems to sell them fine. Of course they also come with all that software included...

I try to talk to people about how good CW products are and convince them to give it a try but I noticed two main problems: pricing and marketing. They say that they're products are too expensive and obscure to fork the money. I actually agree with them and remember before I jumped in a while ago. While doing research on CW products I had the hardest time finding reviews, hands on access to the products, decent soundbytes, etc. It was a gamble for me to fork over 1K for a soundcard + some software but I did it anyway. Luckily I didn't regret. I lot of people are more reserved about their money than I am and won't make a bold move this...

decimator · Post by **decimator** » Tue Apr 05, 2005 4:49 pm

Rather good idea to increase the visibility of CWA in shops, I think the idea is to have as much as possible CWA ASB stands everywhere, hard to avoid if most synths are ASBized !
I hope too they make ASB versions of Wavelenght and John Bowen's synths !

I'am surprised there are no issues with the Minimax one since it's a kind of Voyager rackmount at one-third of the price.

otherwise ...
6 voices ? at 96 or 192 kHz ? considering the release date I bet for a couple of 21364 chips in there, keeping the almighty 21368 for ... later !

Maybe they should add some more voices, marketingwise.
For the price, the knobs and buttons gotta be nice and reliable in the long term.
the number of presets stored are WEAK ! raise that to 512 factory ( to port those of the Minimax ) and 512 users.
Maybe they should add Firewire as well.
If the remotesoftware is fully automatable in any host : great, grab ideas from Minimonsta greater !
Clever to announce before the beginning of the Messe, more people to visit, more buzz and more feedback for CWA.

[ This Message was edited by: decimator on 2005-04-05 17:49 ]

next to nothing · Post by **next to nothing** » Tue Apr 05, 2005 7:03 pm

if they put these out as controllers, along with midi maps for every other moog emu as well (for analouge control over the original moog surface, profit surface, oddesey surface), but keeping the price at a decent level (say $300), this could mean serious income for CWA.

oh, and if THIS is what John Bowen meant by releasing Solaris on a different platform, man im gonna buy CWA shares

[ This Message was edited by: piddi on 2005-04-05 20:05 ]

Immanuel · Post by **Immanuel** » Wed Apr 06, 2005 4:36 am

It looks good. I am not into playing synths, so I will not try and be an echonomic scientist and give all sorts of clever advices (the price is ALWAYS to high - nomatter what number is used).

One other thought hit me though. These things hit a very very very extremely important target group = the music instrument shops who don't have CWA card owners on their paylist. It is my experience that many salesmen who by the majority of the custommers are considderes "wise-and-intelligent know-everything-and-have-tried-everything overlords/semigods", never bothered to spend the time and the learning curve to really get into the whole CWA thing. And if they tried, when CW released v1 and other early versions, then they would easily be put of from VIA chip set issues. I guess CWA still to some extend suffer from the initial issues with weak PC parts (motherboards etc).

2 factors where stated as important to sales: "price" and "ease of use". I would add "ease for salesmen to understand with less than 10 minutes of effort". Salesmen are salesmen. They work for the shop - not for the custommer. Some salesmen think otherwise and really care for custommer satisfaction. These people tend to get good advice - they are somewhat rare though, and they may sell less. Many shops just want to sell as much as possible as quickly as possible. CWA cards are time consuming to learn to use well enough not to be amberased in front of the custommer. And a CWA card demo takes much more time - especially, if the custommer is not used to PC music making.

These boxes will probably be dead easy to learn to navigate - and therefor to learn to sell. I am happy to see CWA come up with this new stuff and hope to see future CWA cards with new generation PCI-technology and new generation DSPs. By then I will be the owner of a vintage PCI card - groovy

Man-Machine · Post by **Man-Machine** » Wed Apr 06, 2005 9:43 am

That's true, there's definitely a big learning curve with the Scope system and that is kind of bad for marketing and sales. Even though I did a lot of reasearch it wasn't until I bought my system that I really got a good grasp of what it really was. These ASB boxes will be easy to use and give a little taste of the power of whole system. Hopefully they'll easy customers way up to the actual whole Scope platform.

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Wed Apr 06, 2005 10:31 am

though it will change little on the facts, but just for completeness sake:
SFP is in fact the most easy and comprehensive way to learn about digital mixing and studio setup.
The learning curve for a digital mixer is much higher - as I recently had the pleasure to experience myself when I sold (and had to explain it to the customer) my Korg mixer...

the integration into hardware and OS setup is difficult, and partially into the sequencer.
That's not CWA's fault, but unfortunately THEY are the ones who have to deal with it, from customer's point of view...

Anyway, since the new boxes look like instruments, they will be much more respected as such - compared to software only plugins

As mentioned the new Korg line seems to be a success and Dave Smith is said to sell Evolvers like cake. Anyone who watches eBay sales of Minimoogs, Odysseys, Prophet 1,5, VS can easily tell that those things are about to be sold for more than their original price meanwhile - and there's a huge interest.

Looks like a good move from CWA - and of course a Solaris box would be a killer

cheers, Tom

[ This Message was edited by: astroman on 2005-04-06 11:32 ]

symbiote · Post by **symbiote** » Wed Apr 06, 2005 11:27 am

I add my vote for a Solaris hardware box =P

erminardi · Post by **erminardi** » Wed Apr 06, 2005 1:10 pm

just a bit off topic... where I can get a playable demo of Solaris???
Thanks.

at0m · Post by **at0m** » Wed Apr 06, 2005 1:35 pm

eminardi, email John Bowen.

For now with Minimax everything can be loaded at once, probably using relatively simple DSP management compared to...
Solaris ASB would be superb, but for such beast (or Modular ASB for example) you need a proper OS and memory space to store all modules and dsp files.
I wouldn't mind having that portable

, I think it's a realistic next generation!

For something else... I heared rumours about possible MADI extension boards, anyone familiar with that?

at0m.

Kermit Jagger · Post by **Kermit Jagger** » Wed Apr 06, 2005 5:28 pm

The cost is too high. If I wanted a Minimoog, I'd rather go for Minimonsta + M-Audio/Novation controller.

Secondly, tabletops take space, and I'll always go for a rack option if I can.

To me the Noah was a far better proposition. Shame about the lack of development of new synths.

zzero · Post by **zzero** » Wed Apr 06, 2005 5:31 pm

Those asb boxes seem nice for ppl who dont want to get in all the technical stuff of sfp

anyways speaking of controllers, did anybody ever tried this ?

http://www.midisoft.de/

srry for the offtopic , just accidently found it on the web

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Wed Apr 06, 2005 5:42 pm

that's the (expensive) controller mentioned above in this thread - I suspect there's a kind of coop between this company and CWA, but that's of course pure speculation.

cheers, Tom

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Wed Apr 06, 2005 5:51 pm

On 2005-04-06 18:28, Kermit Jagger wrote:
The cost is too high. If I wanted a Minimoog, I'd rather go for Minimonsta + M-Audio/Novation controller.
...

the monsta uses at least half of a P4, the controller you mention isn't exactly cheapo - but the solution is for shure completely unintuitive.

Imho the ASB boxes shine in this context of a price/performance/fun ratio

don't forget they must leave much, much headroom for price battles of the large stores in their announcement - obviously anything sold for less than 30% off today is kind of cemented on the shelf...

cheers, Tom

dubcotics · Post by **dubcotics** » Thu Apr 07, 2005 3:59 am

Hi,
Will it be suitable to use it as a midi controller also? I mean being able to control scope mixer etc... If it does then that's a good investment, but if it does not then it's a real shame.

didier,

King of Snake · Post by **King of Snake** » Thu Apr 07, 2005 7:51 am

I'm sure it sends out midi from the knobs and switches.