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Forums - Computer music & technology
Subject: How are the Creamware synth cards?
Original Message Date: 26-Sep-00 @ 09:41 PM - How are the Creamware synth cards?
Hi,
I am sort of interested to get a Pulsar 2. I looked at the manual and wow the recommended (as opposed to minimum) requirement is pretty high. What happens if my VDO card only has 4Mb AGP and my system has only 128 Mb RAM. Will it be a real drag in using the card to make music?
Also, I wonder how the synths' filters sound. Do they even self oscillate? Can they compete with outboard DSP synths like Nova, Virus, etc. in the aspect of oscillator quality?
I am sort of interested to get a Pulsar 2. I looked at the manual and wow the recommended (as opposed to minimum) requirement is pretty high. What happens if my VDO card only has 4Mb AGP and my system has only 128 Mb RAM. Will it be a real drag in using the card to make music?
Also, I wonder how the synths' filters sound. Do they even self oscillate? Can they compete with outboard DSP synths like Nova, Virus, etc. in the aspect of oscillator quality?
Message 11/38 01-Nov-00 @ 09:25 PM - RE: How are the Creamware synth cards?
Errh.... 244 voices of B3 modelling? I haven't even thought of using one B3 voice in my life. Numbers don't lie but you have to look at what they mean too. Try the polyphony of the same synth architecture, say, 2OSC+VCF+VCA, on the two cards then.
Message 12/38 01-Nov-00 @ 09:52 PM - RE: How are the Creamware synth cards?
Again, all of the numbers are there. Look if you're curious!
Of course, most of the synthesis types available on the OASYS PCI aren't available on the Pulsar at all!
Also - I can completely understand if *you* don't use B3 sounds, but you presumably also understand that you don't speak for the marketplace on that point - as evidenced by the large number of devices which *only* make B3 sounds (from everyone from Oberheim to Emu)!
- Dan
Of course, most of the synthesis types available on the OASYS PCI aren't available on the Pulsar at all!
Also - I can completely understand if *you* don't use B3 sounds, but you presumably also understand that you don't speak for the marketplace on that point - as evidenced by the large number of devices which *only* make B3 sounds (from everyone from Oberheim to Emu)!
- Dan
Message 13/38 01-Nov-00 @ 10:29 PM - RE: How are the Creamware synth cards?
The only synths that appear to match fairly closely, feature to feature, are the Miniscope (Pulsar, 10 voices) and the Mini Synth (OASYS PCI, 8 voices).
I'll add that I've heard the two, along with a real Minimoog; the Mini Synth and the Minimoog sound pretty much identical, and the Miniscope...sounds like the first-generation synth that it is.
The other analog synths on the two systems have different feature sets. Pulsar's Inferno (14 voices), for instance, has features similar to the OASYS PCI Analog 1 Osc (22 voices), but there are differences as well: Inferno has ring mod, chorus, and distortion (all global, I assume - basically built-in effects) while Analog 1 Osc has a noise generator, glide, and LFO mod of cutoff. Add the effects, and you still would get more than 14 voices.
OASYS PCI's Analog 2-osc, on the other hand, has 14 voices - similar polphony to the Inferno - and includes ring mod, noise generator, resonance and cutoff mod from LFO, and multi-mode, multi-pole resonant filters.
Pulsar's EZ synth has 16 voices and looks a lot like a 303, with the addition of and lfo and chorus and distortion effects. OASYS PCI's KB-303 also looks (and sounds) a lot like a 303, has 28 voices, includes modeling of the "accent" and "slide" functions, but with no effects; again, add the effects and you're still above 16 voices.
Then there's the question of sound quality, and of the many synth and effects algorithms available on OASYS PCI that aren't available on the Pulsar...but that's a different conversation.
- Dan
I'll add that I've heard the two, along with a real Minimoog; the Mini Synth and the Minimoog sound pretty much identical, and the Miniscope...sounds like the first-generation synth that it is.
The other analog synths on the two systems have different feature sets. Pulsar's Inferno (14 voices), for instance, has features similar to the OASYS PCI Analog 1 Osc (22 voices), but there are differences as well: Inferno has ring mod, chorus, and distortion (all global, I assume - basically built-in effects) while Analog 1 Osc has a noise generator, glide, and LFO mod of cutoff. Add the effects, and you still would get more than 14 voices.
OASYS PCI's Analog 2-osc, on the other hand, has 14 voices - similar polphony to the Inferno - and includes ring mod, noise generator, resonance and cutoff mod from LFO, and multi-mode, multi-pole resonant filters.
Pulsar's EZ synth has 16 voices and looks a lot like a 303, with the addition of and lfo and chorus and distortion effects. OASYS PCI's KB-303 also looks (and sounds) a lot like a 303, has 28 voices, includes modeling of the "accent" and "slide" functions, but with no effects; again, add the effects and you're still above 16 voices.
Then there's the question of sound quality, and of the many synth and effects algorithms available on OASYS PCI that aren't available on the Pulsar...but that's a different conversation.
- Dan
Message 14/38 06-Nov-00 @ 11:06 PM - RE: How are the Creamware synth cards?
dan,
numbers are one thing, sound is another. releasing driver updates is something that worries me about the korg card, and the only way to convince me otherwise is to let time tell whether the oasys will be supported well for PCs. also, it seems like moving from a creamware setup to a (more expensive) oasys setup better offer a lot more than a couple more voices, etc.
1. is there a modular synthesizer for the oasys, and if so, what types of modules are available? i know it comes with some way to develope devices, can you talk about that or give screen shots of how it works?
2. is there a sampler for oasys as a plugin or just included? the pulsar comes with a decent akai program sample player (and using the free wav2akai you can make programs to drop in). also the Creamware STS4000 series samplers are really pretty nice, anything like that for oasys?
3. are there any third party plugins or synths for oasys (i know about zarg) and can you give the addresses so we can check them out?
finally, i suppose this thread is not a good outlet for talking about the Oasys. perhaps you could answer these questions in a fresh thread.
instead of arguing about which card is better, perhaps more information would let the BUYER decide which will fit his/her needs more closely.
numbers are one thing, sound is another. releasing driver updates is something that worries me about the korg card, and the only way to convince me otherwise is to let time tell whether the oasys will be supported well for PCs. also, it seems like moving from a creamware setup to a (more expensive) oasys setup better offer a lot more than a couple more voices, etc.
1. is there a modular synthesizer for the oasys, and if so, what types of modules are available? i know it comes with some way to develope devices, can you talk about that or give screen shots of how it works?
2. is there a sampler for oasys as a plugin or just included? the pulsar comes with a decent akai program sample player (and using the free wav2akai you can make programs to drop in). also the Creamware STS4000 series samplers are really pretty nice, anything like that for oasys?
3. are there any third party plugins or synths for oasys (i know about zarg) and can you give the addresses so we can check them out?
finally, i suppose this thread is not a good outlet for talking about the Oasys. perhaps you could answer these questions in a fresh thread.
instead of arguing about which card is better, perhaps more information would let the BUYER decide which will fit his/her needs more closely.
Message 15/38 07-Nov-00 @ 12:01 AM - RE: How are the Creamware synth cards?
It looks like the performance figures for the pulsar quoted above are infact numbers for the original pulsar, not the new pulsar II. If I am correct, the biggest difference between the two models are DSP-power. Pulsar I has 4 SHARC processors while Pulsar II har 6 of them. Also, the figures were for the synth including the 24 channel digital mixer app running at the same time.
Does anyone know if it it possible to run the pulsar software on the cheaper elektra or powersampler cards? The hardware looks similar in specs except for the number of SHARCs...
Does anyone know if it it possible to run the pulsar software on the cheaper elektra or powersampler cards? The hardware looks similar in specs except for the number of SHARCs...
Message 16/38 07-Nov-00 @ 02:05 AM - RE: How are the Creamware synth cards?
> numbers are one thing, sound is another. releasing driver updates is
> something that worries me about the korg card, and the only way to
> convince me otherwise is to let time tell whether the oasys will be
> supported well for PCs.
We've already released an update for the PC, and two updates for
MacOS, all available for dowload from our website. I don't see
why you would be worried about support!
> also, it seems like moving from a creamware setup to a (more
> expensive) oasys setup better offer a lot more than a couple more
> voices, etc.
It most certainly does, including:
1. Many more synthesis algorithms
2. Many more effects algorithms
3. High-quality sound. OASYS PCI sounds as good as or better than
any other hardware synth. (Please compare the sound of the two
systems - you can download almost 100 mp3s of OASYS PCI from
www.korg.com/oasyspci.htm).
4. Ease of use.
5. Low system resource requirements - OASYS PCI uses very little host
RAM or CPU power.
> 1. is there a modular synthesizer for the oasys, and if so, what
> types of modules are available? i know it comes with some way to
> develope devices, can you talk about that or give screen shots of
> how it works?
SynthKit offers a full, modular development environment for synths
and effects (of all types - not just analog!). SynthKit is currently
in beta, available to pretty much anyone who is interested. SynthKit
is a separate program from OASYS PCI, and currently SynthKit runs only
on MacOS.
> 2. is there a sampler for oasys as a plugin or just included? the
> pulsar comes with a decent akai program sample player (and using the
> free wav2akai you can make programs to drop in). also the Creamware
> STS4000 series samplers are really pretty nice, anything like that
> for oasys?
Creamware's samplers are, of course, pretty much software samplers which
then run through the Pulsar I/O. They use system CPU processing, and use
up a disk I/O channel for each sample-playback voice.
OASYS PCI v. 2.0, currently about to enter beta, will add sample playback
to OASYS PCI. As with other OASYS PCI algorithms, this will rely almost
exclusively on the hardware built onto the card, without burdening the
host RAM and CPU. Version 2.0 will ship with almost all of the samples
from the entire Triton library, including the expansion PCM boards. The
upgrade will be free or close to free (there may be a nominal charge for
shipping a CD-ROM).
> 3. are there any third party plugins or synths for oasys (i know
> about zarg) and can you give the addresses so we can check them out?
Zarg is currently the only announced third-party developer. When
SynthKit is publicly released, I expect that number to increase.
(Note that SynthKit is free, wheras Creamware's Scope - required for
development of Pulsar plug-ins - is quite expensive.)
Earlier in this thread, I think I talked about third-party plugins,
and their relative importance to OASYS PCI. I'll repeat some of this
below.
OASYS PCI ships with over 150 synth and effects plug-ins, which I
believe is more than are available *total* for Creamware, stock and
third-party combined.
Korg is one of the top companies in the world for synthesis, and has
been so for about 30 years. As such, we have a great deal of
experience with making synths and effects sound good, and we have a
lot of great synth and effects algorithms. The content that we
provide, in terms of both algorithms and sounds which use those
algorithms, is in my opinion the most important part of OASYS PCI.
Most other companies which make plug-in capable systems, including
Creamware, do not have Korg's experience in content. This makes
third-party developers very important for those platforms - since
without that, they aren't very usable out of the box! For instance,
the high-quality Sonic Timeworks reverb for Creamware costs somethin
like $400 - but OASYS PCI comes with our new, high-quality O-Verb
included in the package for free.
So, third parties aren't as important for Korg (and OASYS PCI) as
they are for Creamware.
Nonetheless, we are encouraging third parties with the free
availability of SynthKit.
> finally, i suppose this thread is not a good outlet for talking
> about the Oasys. perhaps you could answer these questions in a fresh
> thread.
If you like, check out the official OASYS PCI mailing list, at:
http://www.egroups.com/group/oasys-pci
Best regards,
Dan Phillips
Product Manager
Korg Research and Development
Personal website: http://www.danphillips.com
> something that worries me about the korg card, and the only way to
> convince me otherwise is to let time tell whether the oasys will be
> supported well for PCs.
We've already released an update for the PC, and two updates for
MacOS, all available for dowload from our website. I don't see
why you would be worried about support!
> also, it seems like moving from a creamware setup to a (more
> expensive) oasys setup better offer a lot more than a couple more
> voices, etc.
It most certainly does, including:
1. Many more synthesis algorithms
2. Many more effects algorithms
3. High-quality sound. OASYS PCI sounds as good as or better than
any other hardware synth. (Please compare the sound of the two
systems - you can download almost 100 mp3s of OASYS PCI from
www.korg.com/oasyspci.htm).
4. Ease of use.
5. Low system resource requirements - OASYS PCI uses very little host
RAM or CPU power.
> 1. is there a modular synthesizer for the oasys, and if so, what
> types of modules are available? i know it comes with some way to
> develope devices, can you talk about that or give screen shots of
> how it works?
SynthKit offers a full, modular development environment for synths
and effects (of all types - not just analog!). SynthKit is currently
in beta, available to pretty much anyone who is interested. SynthKit
is a separate program from OASYS PCI, and currently SynthKit runs only
on MacOS.
> 2. is there a sampler for oasys as a plugin or just included? the
> pulsar comes with a decent akai program sample player (and using the
> free wav2akai you can make programs to drop in). also the Creamware
> STS4000 series samplers are really pretty nice, anything like that
> for oasys?
Creamware's samplers are, of course, pretty much software samplers which
then run through the Pulsar I/O. They use system CPU processing, and use
up a disk I/O channel for each sample-playback voice.
OASYS PCI v. 2.0, currently about to enter beta, will add sample playback
to OASYS PCI. As with other OASYS PCI algorithms, this will rely almost
exclusively on the hardware built onto the card, without burdening the
host RAM and CPU. Version 2.0 will ship with almost all of the samples
from the entire Triton library, including the expansion PCM boards. The
upgrade will be free or close to free (there may be a nominal charge for
shipping a CD-ROM).
> 3. are there any third party plugins or synths for oasys (i know
> about zarg) and can you give the addresses so we can check them out?
Zarg is currently the only announced third-party developer. When
SynthKit is publicly released, I expect that number to increase.
(Note that SynthKit is free, wheras Creamware's Scope - required for
development of Pulsar plug-ins - is quite expensive.)
Earlier in this thread, I think I talked about third-party plugins,
and their relative importance to OASYS PCI. I'll repeat some of this
below.
OASYS PCI ships with over 150 synth and effects plug-ins, which I
believe is more than are available *total* for Creamware, stock and
third-party combined.
Korg is one of the top companies in the world for synthesis, and has
been so for about 30 years. As such, we have a great deal of
experience with making synths and effects sound good, and we have a
lot of great synth and effects algorithms. The content that we
provide, in terms of both algorithms and sounds which use those
algorithms, is in my opinion the most important part of OASYS PCI.
Most other companies which make plug-in capable systems, including
Creamware, do not have Korg's experience in content. This makes
third-party developers very important for those platforms - since
without that, they aren't very usable out of the box! For instance,
the high-quality Sonic Timeworks reverb for Creamware costs somethin
like $400 - but OASYS PCI comes with our new, high-quality O-Verb
included in the package for free.
So, third parties aren't as important for Korg (and OASYS PCI) as
they are for Creamware.
Nonetheless, we are encouraging third parties with the free
availability of SynthKit.
> finally, i suppose this thread is not a good outlet for talking
> about the Oasys. perhaps you could answer these questions in a fresh
> thread.
If you like, check out the official OASYS PCI mailing list, at:
http://www.egroups.com/group/oasys-pci
Best regards,
Dan Phillips
Product Manager
Korg Research and Development
Personal website: http://www.danphillips.com
Message 17/38 07-Nov-00 @ 03:46 PM - RE: How are the Creamware synth cards?
interesting thread! - at the new price the oasys certainly puts the cat amongst the Pulsar pigeons...
Message 18/38 07-Nov-00 @ 10:25 PM - RE: How are the Creamware synth cards?
That's probably true about the whole market wants the B3. But look at how often B3 is the topics at Dancetech. Probably once or twice in Dancetech's life. And if you look at all these little B3 boxes, they are darn cheap compared to the OASYS. You may say, well the OASYS is not cheap cos it does a lot more things than B3, but most B3 players would also want the B3 boxes to have keyboard too, OASYS would probably be down with the NI B4 in these real B3 users' wishlists.
And that paragraph is not even the point when we discuss polyphony of a piece of gear. The polyphony of OASYS' B3 is an outcast in statistics if you do the average polyphony from every OASYS synth models. Cut the B3 model out of the picture, the average is probably around 10 voices. Putting the B3 model back it, the average polyphony will illusively skyrocket to more than 160 voices!!! Would you rather think of OASYS a 160 voice machine? Really?
And that paragraph is not even the point when we discuss polyphony of a piece of gear. The polyphony of OASYS' B3 is an outcast in statistics if you do the average polyphony from every OASYS synth models. Cut the B3 model out of the picture, the average is probably around 10 voices. Putting the B3 model back it, the average polyphony will illusively skyrocket to more than 160 voices!!! Would you rather think of OASYS a 160 voice machine? Really?
Message 19/38 07-Nov-00 @ 11:38 PM - RE: How are the Creamware synth cards?
Average of 10 voices?
Ummm.....you might want to try your math again.
At any rate, let me repeat....
OASYS PCI is *not* about having tons of voices. Nor is Pulsar. However, OASYS PCI does offer high-quality, unique sounds which are not available on any other instrument, software, hardware, or DSP card. For some people, that is worth *any* price. For others, it is not. I see no need to make apologies either way; if you want it, great, if you don't, that's fine too.
If you're interested in hearing what OASYS PCI users think of the instrument, check out the mailing list and ask them:
http://www.egroups.com/group/oasys-pci
- Dan
Ummm.....you might want to try your math again.
At any rate, let me repeat....
OASYS PCI is *not* about having tons of voices. Nor is Pulsar. However, OASYS PCI does offer high-quality, unique sounds which are not available on any other instrument, software, hardware, or DSP card. For some people, that is worth *any* price. For others, it is not. I see no need to make apologies either way; if you want it, great, if you don't, that's fine too.
If you're interested in hearing what OASYS PCI users think of the instrument, check out the mailing list and ask them:
http://www.egroups.com/group/oasys-pci
- Dan
Message 20/38 08-Nov-00 @ 03:46 AM - RE: How are the Creamware synth cards?
-???,You mean a pci l/O, donīt you?, the sample is send from the system ram to the card so l donīt see where the (hard) disk (drive) enters in the equataion, and well, acording to creamware they use mostly dsp and only a litle bit of cpu, anyway l have the powersampler and the sts makes no noticable cpu usage (atlhon 750).
>OASYS PCI v. 2.0, currently about to enter beta, will add sample playback to OASYS PCI. As with other OASYS PCI algorithms, this will rely almost exclusively on the hardware built onto the card, without burdening the host RAM and CPU. Version 2.0 will ship with almost all of the samples from the entire Triton library, including the expansion PCM boards. The upgrade will be free or close to free (there may be a nominal charge for shipping a CD-ROM).
-Fine, but a problem arises, you have been good guys and put ram into your card wich advoids the nighmare of creamware products, the infamous pci overflow wich makes them bad friends of most of via moboīs and so of atlhon systems, well, you have been gnerous and have put 24 mb of ram, a lot to process reverbs and all that, but too few for sampling purposes, also if the ram is used for sampling we must say bye to reverbs, isnīt it?, the whole thing is , why not use system ram?, l am doing it with the powersampler (384 mb of ram in my system) and it works perfect, better than gigastuff because it hasnīt interfernces with h.d. so l can use sampling and audio on the sequencer with no glitchs like it hapens with giga.
Also l guess that the sts - 5000 )wich ships actually only with the scope) is the best sampler, software or hardware, what do you think?
-l readed you are triying to allow the use of two oasys in the same system, these mean the dsp usage is scalable, so , why donīt you make like creamware (or protools) and ship dsp exansion cards?, they look like a cheaper solution.
-Take these as constructive critcism, l like the idea of dipose the best synth in a soundcard format, l donīt understand why the things wich may help to make a worthy use of it would be considred blaming the product.
- A last sugestion, make (like some vst/direct x plugins) a dual version of synths/fx , one full quality, like acctually and another one with lower quality and less dps hog, in a mix we donīt need all the sounds to be top notch, and desktop muscians donīt want to acquire a lot of out gear to make it, mostly if someone has payed a so expensive card would like to have the choice to make a full theme with it and itīs cpu.
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