What do we want from Creamware?

Post by **garyb** » Sat Jun 25, 2005 8:54 am

the asb has next gen sharcs and the new cards(assuming they happen) will have an even newer chip.......

of course, this is just an idle rumour....

Shroomz~> · Post by **Shroomz~>** » Sat Jun 25, 2005 9:20 am

On 2005-06-25 08:40, at0m wrote:

Legros, have you thought on how the UI for the sequencer should look like? Anyone else?

atOm, I think a couple of different types of sequencer would be the way. One could be more of a standard 'key edit' style module, while another could be a state of the art step sequencer like the one on the Elektron Machinedrum, with 'parameter locks' per step & slides between parameter locks. The midi modules on the M'drum when loaded into all 16 parts/tracks, allow for a total of 128 CC parameter locks PER STEP....this is VERY cool.. very very cool. Wouldn't b quite the same via a mouse click, but it's still a thought

Shayne White · Post by **Shayne White** » Sat Jun 25, 2005 11:01 am

On 2005-06-25 09:25, at0m wrote:
ASB has the same sharks as your DSP card. If my memory serves well (wouldn't count too much on that;), it has 2 of them.

That's not true. Frank said they're using new DSPs. You couldn't possibly fit six MiniMax voices on two Scope-style DSPs.

Counterparts · Post by **Counterparts** » Mon Jun 27, 2005 9:38 am

Thinking of DSPs...I'd rather see ones with greater capacity for rendering studio kit than faster ones (they seem fast enough to do the job at hand as they are, no?)

Given the way silicon prices have fallen generally, I'd like to see Creamware offer more DSP power per buck.

I've paid a fair bit of cash for the 12 DSPs that I have (two 6-DSP boards)...it'd be nice if they had the capacity to render more kit as each step (i.e. card that you buy) is quite steep, financially. If the cards offered more for your money like this, I'd be more inclined to buy more software to run on them.

Royston

Stevil · Post by **Stevil** » Tue Jun 28, 2005 3:00 pm

i'd always dreamed of some sort of uber interface that allows communication with gear old & new. there's things like old sync codes {fsk, CV/Gate}, synths lacking in the knob & slider dept with features you can only access via a 2x16 LED, scsi communication with samplers,
audio/midi triggered gates, lost features on random bits of gear that escape me at the moment.

stuff that could come in handy when it comes to interfacing with outboard gear beyond midi. seems the scope pool would be a fun place to connect those dots.

Bifop · Post by **Bifop** » Fri Jul 01, 2005 1:16 am

I want Creamware not to drop XTC developpement.
Even better would be if they find a way to let us use the SFP mode ALONG Xtc... (just look at EMU Patchmix).

Make the midi controllers usable in XTC mode as well (the old plugin interface let you saving those in the device itself).

Even if CW would halt the xtc developpement, at least I hope they won't totally scrape it from the Scope's software.

I bouth a CW plug yesterday and planning of purchasing three more next month. Knowing that CW intend to drop the mode I'm mainly using the Scope in, doesn't make me super happy...

I want Creamware to keep on working and innovating as they always did. If that means more paying upgrade (Scope 5.0 ?) so be it !!

kybernaut_01 · Post by **kybernaut_01** » Sat Jul 02, 2005 11:58 am

I would like to see new synths for Noah. I love the existing ones, and I was never happy with native software synthesis.

Something Roland-ish would be very cool. Why not a 303 a 106 and a JP8 ?

And while we are at it, a Matrix-12?!

just dreaming....

symbiote · Post by **symbiote** » Sat Jul 02, 2005 7:32 pm

On 2005-07-02 04:56, stardust wrote:
I am sure that sequencer integration, and there very likely VST integration, is a mandatory part for any upcoming DSP product.

Have a look on the DSP competition.
And even access music shows with the new virus integration what is the direction.

Hum. The Virus TI is 7 months late already. People on the Access mailing list are going nuts, as alot of people had pre-ordered the TI.

Guess what part is taking them so long?

Waldorf did themselves that way too, trying to integrate that AFB16 thingy into VST. Now they are gone.

Post by **garyb** » Sat Jul 02, 2005 10:01 pm

yeah, i'm fine with the external synth.

blazesboylan · Post by **blazesboylan** » Sat Jul 02, 2005 11:42 pm

Marketing and support for 3rd party developers. That's what I want.

Apart from VINCO and the standard mixers, the best CW products for me are all 3rd party ones -- by Wolf, DADEV, warp69. I'd like to see CWA throw the MatrixDelay, Mastering Comp and P-100 into plugin bundles, charge users a nominal fee for 'em, and give the money back to the developers to encourage further growth.

But I'm in the minority. I use CWA as my studio software -- for recording and mixing. I don't play with synths and samplers very often. Modular III is great, STS-5000 is great, but otherwise I'm one of the few people who could do without 1000 synth variations, expensive keyboard hardware that 500 billion other manufacturers produce anyway, broadcast / editing software to compete with a gazillion other software companies, etc.

The DSP-based audio cards & software are beautiful. That's where CWA is unique. That's where I'd like to see them focus their efforts.

$0.02.

Johann

EDIT: I can't believe I forgot to mention Celmo's Pultecator... I'm sure I'm still forgetting other great 3rd party plugs, too.

[ This Message was edited by: blazesboylan on 2005-07-05 01:05 ]

Bifop · Post by **Bifop** » Sun Jul 03, 2005 2:59 am

Symbiote, so what ? It doesn't make this direction stupid or whatever. Gigastudio 3 has been delayed for a year and then it rocked.
I really don't get your thinking.
Great that you guys love the external synths.

Why does it always have to be a X Vs Y thing ?

The way to go should be SFP WITH XTC.

[ This Message was edited by: Bifop on 2005-07-03 03:59 ]

cannonball · Post by **cannonball** » Sun Jul 03, 2005 3:20 am

blazes i'm in your side
enhancements and tweakment in the studio mixin environments and xtc vst deepin integration.

wayne · Post by **wayne** » Sun Jul 03, 2005 7:10 am

On 2005-07-03 03:59, Bifop wrote:

The way to go should be SFP WITH XTC.

[ This Message was edited by: Bifop on 2005-07-03 03:59 ]

- for you perhaps

as has been mentioned on Z recently, creamware's bread & butter is in broadcast hard/software, and Scope is bare-bones at the moment.

Get a dedicated Scope machine, and treat it like hardware - it's the way to go

Lima · Post by **Lima** » Sun Jul 03, 2005 8:43 am

I agree with most of you. Surely a Cs-80 emulation will be great (for ex.), but I think that creamware must choose to develop different things in comparison with the competitors, so not another virtual CS-80 (like the Arturia).

Why not making something that emphatize to incredible levels the better and stronger point of this board: the flexibility?
So, why not making a new midi/multitrack enviroment?

This could be great in my opinion: you turn the computer on, you open only a program, and you start to make music.

I'm thinking in something totally new: this program works as sequencer, multitrack, wave editor and routing window at the same time.
For example:
like you drag and drop devices in the routing windows nowadays, you will drag and drop (for ex.) new tracks, double click on it and you can record, cut, paste, loop export to sts etc... all extremely flexible and powerful: wanna a reverb on the first two tracks? Ok Take the two "track device" and route them thru a mixer and then thru a reverb.

I think that most of the work is altready done: STS samplers altready work on audio, a ton of effects and synthesizers is already done, etc...
So most of the code could be reused

I think that the only big thing to do is a powerful interface and some new dedicated devices.

Keeping in mind that a lot of people works with the VSTs, a dedicated device could import them in the project. These will not run in the Pulsar dsps, (also the interface will not run in the dsps), but in the pc processor.

Under certain aspects this is like watching the steinberg (or cakewalk) enviroment of these days from a reversed point of view.

This, in my opinion, could make the difference

symbiote · Post by **symbiote** » Sun Jul 03, 2005 11:43 am

On 2005-07-03 03:59, Bifop wrote:
Symbiote, so what ? It doesn't make this direction stupid or whatever. Gigastudio 3 has been delayed for a year and then it rocked.
I really don't get your thinking.
Great that you guys love the external synths.

Why does it always have to be a X Vs Y thing ?

Eh? It's not a X vs Y thing at all, what are you talking about? I'm talking about trying to integrate hardware units into a sequencer thru the VST protocol, and I'm just saying it's not the right protocol to do it, not that it's a bad idea. Do Digidesign use VST to integrate their DSP-driven plugins? No, they use their own TDM/STDM protocol to do it. VST being the wrong protocol, because it's designed and made for *software plugins*, not something that runs on a DSP a bit (or quite far) from where the software itself is running.

I agree that the *idea* to integrate hardware with software is a good one, I'm just saying VST is pretty much the wrong way to do it, that's all. What this translates to, in practice, is oversized development costs to the company, which ends up bankrupt because the development cost too much (i.e. Waldorf.) That was my main drift with my comment.

You mention Gigasampler, which is a *software unit*, not a hardware thinger that runs on a DSP in a box, which are completely different beasts. VST is perfectly fine for software-based stuff. I know development sometimes/usually takes longer than planned, and is sometimes successful, but there's already one awesome synthesis company gone because they tried to integrate hardware thru VST, and I really doubt Access is currently delaying the TI's release because they're trying to make hypersaw oscillators work correctly or tinkering with the FX unit to try and squeeze one more algorithm in there.

My point is, since VST isn't right for the job, companies invest alot more energy and money in development time, which either leads to going bankrupt, or gets pushed onto the consumer, you.

You will notice the only successful DSP-driven VST plugins are dedicated PCI cards that *do not* work realtime, and cannot function without a VST host software (supporting PDC is you want the plugins to be of any use). Getting something realtime like a Virus TI or CWA's SFP to properly integrate thru VST is a completly different story.

That's why you will probably never see SFP and XTC mode at the same time. There's some technical reasons why you have to run XTC mode dedicated and can't do XTC and realtime SFP stuff at the same time, and not all of them (if any) are Creamware's fault.

To get what you want, companies would need to develop and agree on a real high-resolution protocol intended to integrate hardware, which I doubt will happen any time soon, sadly, unless they decide to upgrade MIDI to all 32 bit values for everything (or 64, just to play it safe.)

Bifop · Post by **Bifop** » Sun Jul 03, 2005 3:56 pm

Sorry Symbiote, it seems I misunderstood what you meant...

Very true about the specific case of CW's SFP who gives a realtime environement DSP based contrary to UAD & Poco (and the scope cards in xtc mode) who double the host's latency.

But at least one case exists where you can access the dsp environement from both sides of the sequencer signal path (before + inside). The latest EMU line of cards offers this ; realtime DSP + vst plugins (with the induced latency to roundtrip the audio). It's a perfect compromise ! Sure the dsp on the Emu is a joke, especially compared to the Creamware's sharks (let's not talk of the SFP platform alone compared to the meagre Patchmix) , but they managed to do this !!! And this feature came later on, at 1.5 version.
At least we know it's feasible. Now, at what cost... I have no clues.

The Xtc mode with absolutely no front mixer is lacking, IMO, something to be fully operating.
For serious tracking, I have to report all the synths & Fx's to audio, then exit Nuendo, launch Sfp... Ok, It's not too bad and it's certainly not enough to discourage me from using this card.
I'm sort of having a second honeymoon with the Pulsar and I can't see myself doing without at the moment.

On a side note, It's a pity all the past financial troubles CW had is somehow limiting everybody's ambition concerning what could or could not be asked.
It's a bit like the parents nearly divorced, and now we kids behave, by fear of seing them split again...

sharc · Post by **sharc** » Mon Jul 04, 2005 4:47 am

As far as synths go, we've already got the Prodissey and Minimax...I'd like to see an Octave Cat as I've always preffered it to those other two.

symbiote · Post by **symbiote** » Mon Jul 04, 2005 7:43 am

Well Bifop, there is a bit of a hack that will let you insert Scope plugins in the middle of VST plugins, while running in SFP mode (so you can have your mixer. Logic Audio has this little plugin called Audio Helper I believe, which will let you forward a signal to an ASIO channel and back. You can then load the plugin you want in SFP and use it in the middle of a VST signal chain. Cubase has something similar, and I figure Sonar and others can also do the same. Of coutse, it's not as practical as having the plugin's interface as a VST, you have to switch to SFP to tweak it (or MIDI-automate it), but still do-able, and you'll still have the ASIO delay which won't be compensated thru PDC.

And even tho they stopped developing XTC-mode, I also agree that they should leave it in there.

On a bit of a tangent and add-on to my VST rant, the current VST/VSTi protocol *isn't* 64-bit compatible. From Cakewalk's Sonar64 FAQ (http://www.cakewalk.com/x64/faq.asp) :

The DirectX/DXi plugin specification was designed to be 64-bit ready. Therefore only DirectX effects and DXi instruments can be recompiled for 64-bit today. Unfortunately, the VST/VSTi specification cannot currently support 64-bit plug-ins.

I agree VST mixers would be pretty nice, but again, it doesn't seem the VST protocol design took this into account.

On another tangent, people shouldn't let my random technical ramblings stop them from making suggestions about how what they'd want from CWA/Scope, however ideal or impossible it might be in the current state of things. Most of the last century tends to prove that "today's impossible is tomorrow's take-it-for-granted". As the company gets better financially I'm sure they can hire a few nice engineers to do some more miracle hacking, or at least pickup a few nice ideas here and there.

Finally I have to say I really love blazesboylan's idea about better 3rd party plugin integration, as this would benefit everyone involved - more exposure for 3rd party plugins developers, more flexible/diverse plugins bundles for the consumer, both of which would help CWA get more customers (as I'm sure alot of potential buyers are put off by the apparent lack of development / quality plugins, even tho they exist -- like I've heard stuff like "there's no quality reverb for Scope" which is patently untrue (even tho those same persons complimented me on some reverbs in my tracks, which incidently were from the standard masterverb -- go figure =P)).

Spirit · Post by **Spirit** » Mon Jul 04, 2005 9:28 am

I have always wanted, and still want, CWA devices to be able to integrate smoothly into the VST environment.

If you do a "creamware" search on some of the big music forums such as KvR you'll see a common theme: Creamware synths are fantastic (a widely accepted fact), but the lack of VST integration then immediately wipes them from buyer consideration.

I suppose that's to be expected on a VST forum like KvR, but that's a big slice of the potential CWA market that gets turned away by technical non-compatibility.

Maybe its technically impossible, but Big Wish #1 remains VST integration.

Minor wish #2 is for some synths that go beyond the usual substractive or FM standard design. Something like Absynth.

If wish #1 is impossible then wish #3 is for a looper / mangler / wav exporter totally within the SFP environment. If I can't inegrate with the VST world then at least let me make nice wav files within SFP to export to the VST world.

jabney · Post by **jabney** » Mon Jul 04, 2005 10:31 pm

What I want from CreamWare.

Simple things (perhaps):

1. A replacement for the VRC designed to work with the Alesis HD24. HD24 users have been crying for the promised "Director," the BRC replacement for some time time now. Perhaps an opportunity for CreamWare.

2. Shift-click selection of VDAT tracks to allow two tracks to be selected for stereo editing in the editor of one's choice.

3. The ability to name all devices, not only hardware I/O.

Not so simple things (pure wishing):

1, 2, & 3: An audio/MIDI recording, editing & sequencing program with the look and feel and functionality of Studio 16 + Bars n' Pipes on the Amiga - but with CreamWare's digital & ADAT I/O and > 16/44.1 specs.

best,

John