zircon Posted June 8, 2006 Share Posted June 8, 2006 Anyone here have any experience with these? I'm looking at a few now, and it seems like there's not a lot of motivation to buy them as you could practically build a new, top-of-the-line computer for the same price. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sgx Posted June 8, 2006 Share Posted June 8, 2006 Blind does. He loves it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Compyfox Posted June 8, 2006 Share Posted June 8, 2006 Depends on how many you want to spend, which DSP system, and especially which plugin? The UAD-1 for example is getting an overhaul. UAD are the first ones along with TC who aim for PCI-E cards (before, only PCI and PCI-E cards existed). But both use the most different setups and are shipped with the most different packs. It's always a matter of preferences here, and what budget you have. You can't go wrong with either of them, however TC offers a bit more in terms of proper metering tools. Also ask yourself "do I really need a DSP card, or can I still work with Freezing?!" unless you say "nah I'm all real-time working, and my CPU can't take it anymore". You can get away with UAD for fairly cheap (I guess in the 399,- range), but additional plugins cost extra, while TC with the "regular powercore" (the one for 999,-) comes with a shitload of plugins for daily use. Blind might be able to go a bit more in-depth on that. But personally if I had the money, I'd get a Powercore sytem. And here it also depends: Firewire (if you work on a Laptop) or PCI (desktop). BTW: I'd also take a look at Lexicon's PC Hardware Module (bundled with a Lexicon Reverb), MOTU, afaik M-Audio has a DSP system too. But the Waves "DSP solution" is totally overrated. Every time I go to my local music store and do some smalltalk, we come to DSP cards too. And all I hear is negative critism about this system: too expensive, and way too less stable for what you "get" (which isn't much). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zircon Posted June 8, 2006 Author Share Posted June 8, 2006 To be clear, I wasn't asking for recommendations on which card I should get.. I was asking if people had personal experiences with the cards, and what motivation I should have to buy one. For $1100 I could build a top of the line music PC or get two premade Dell PCs that match my current one in power. I could then use FXTeleport to farm out exponentially more plugins than I could run on a $1100 powercore card. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Compyfox Posted June 8, 2006 Share Posted June 8, 2006 FX Teleport is overrated, seriously. I'd get a Receptor instead. Way more bang for the buck, and the "UniWire" system is way better in my opinion, too. Also MIDI Cascading works better if you run everything through a mixer, or use one PC for recording anyway. (Jared Hudson might help here, he has a dedicated PC for an orchestra only - afaik cascaded via MIDI). Well like I said. It depends what your preferences are. Real Time Editing, huge arrangements and CPU issues, go with Powercore. If you can go with Freezing, then stick to what you have unless you really want to free up your CPU. Here the strong sides of a DSP card shines through. Nowadays DSP vs. Native, there's no big difference anymore. Neither with so called highend shit (Waves), nor with low budget stuff (Freeware like Kjaerhus, Voxengo, etc). It's really a matter of preferences or if you believe those many "big star engineers", who swear upon DSP systems but still produce that same boring crap over and over. It's true that hardware (analogue) sounds different than plugins. But no matter if DSP or Native, both are on the same level, no matter if tey're CPU powered with special cards, or if they use the CPU of your PC. They're still digital. It's as with clothes: Noname jeans look and fit as good as Wrangler Jeans (of course the price differs, and Wrangler is a big firm). Both can be used the same way. But it depends on the rest too, if you look good in your jeans or not. Same with Plugins. You can get the most expensive stuff on planet earth. But whether or not you can let your tracks sound good with it or not, is another thing. Why not go to a local music store and compare the usability for yourself? Does it give you advantages in certain sections, or does it limit you, etc. Don't just rely on feedback from others alone. Especially if it's a budget question. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zircon Posted June 8, 2006 Author Share Posted June 8, 2006 There are no music stores in my area that stock these cards so that's not an option. I don't think I've seen them in ANY store, actually.. you don't usually see software plugins ready for demo purposes. Maybe it's different in Europe Anyway FXT worked fine when I tried it, and it's a lot more cost-efficient than a $1000-2000+ piece of hardware, no? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Compyfox Posted June 8, 2006 Share Posted June 8, 2006 Sure it is, pal. But sorry to say that, but since FX Teleport was released, the engine pretty much stood still compared to everything else. It also needs a 1GB LAN to work "fluently". Receptor's UniWire system however works on a 100MBit LAN, with similar if not better results than FXT. Here I could really recommend MIDI cascading (and maybe a digital mixer, if you don't use SPDIF cards on both PCs for interchanging audio) if you want to use a studio LAN setup (1 Recording PC, 1 dedicated rompler PC for example). It depends. What is really important to you, Andrew? Everything in one PC, being able to expand on samples, or very fluent engineering without CPU/RAM issues? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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