Pulsar II V.3

H

Hogus

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$1,444. It almost seems worth it.

Form the specs you'd believe that it could replace a whole studio, if you already had a VST source such as Cubase. But can it? And is it really worth that much?

For this price I could get myself a Midi interface, an allright soundcard, A reasonable second hand midi controller, and a Waldorf Micro-Q (Which with the new OS update contains a hell of a lot of effects and even an excellent Reverb unit)

I'm only short a mixer. But I'd still need a mixer with the Pulsar, and to really get it to shine it would have to be a digital mixer.:rolleyes:
 
I own a Pulsar II (6 DSP 20 I/O) and I love it.

I have to say I spend more time tweaking projects than making music though.. its the only problem. The modular 2 is excellent.

You may need a mixer, maybe not... You can buy a LUNA soundcard (plus you gain in DSP power) or an analog multi I/O box and plug all your external stuff to it... and use the mixers on the screen (OS 3.0 comes with some amazing ones!). You can also buy a fader box to "feel" those sliders by hand.

I don't have 3.0 installed yet (comes out in 2 weeks! yay) but 2.04 is already pretty nice. The UI is a bit slow, but it should be fixed in 3.0.

Im not sure what to tell you... Reply to this thread with any question you have about the beast, etc.. I'll frankly advise you depending on what you want to produce, what you like etc..

-mano
 
I heard from a reliable source, that a Luna break-out box with better input options might be coming out in the near future (the current Luna 2496 box only has RCA in/outs = sucks).

If & when that becomes reality, I'll sure expand my Pulsar system with a Luna 2 and the box. With TRS & XLR inputs that would really make it a full feature digital mixer. In 24-bit & 96khz all the way !!! :D

Plus, finally, V.3 will have a decent reverb (or is it? anyone tried Masterverb?).

Toni L.
www.mp3.com/NativeAlien
 
I'm mainly aiming at a cross-over between Psy-trance, techno and some hard-house influences.

So I'll need to be able to produce some of the weird, scratchy and clicky sounds. So I absolutely have to have a synth that allows for modular routing and isn't just the typical, pick one to three oscilators, apply filter, apply modulation, apply glide kind of thing.
Maybe Reaktor would be fine, but I haven't had the chance to really look at it and see how it handles extreme frequency ranges.

I need a decent bass synth. I'm not that worried about power since you can always boost it, but if possible a bit of warmth and character would be nice there.

Strings, Pads, and the likes aren't very important to me.

I want to create widely distributed sound-space sothat there can be a lot going on, but you always get the feeling that there are silent gaps in certain directions that get filled unexpectedly with interesting sounds sweeping through them, especially at the higher frequencies.

;) Ok.. I'm not going more specific than that for now.
But it's not that important that I can generate it all at once. Recording layers will do fine.

You also have to bear in mind that I've caused myself a whole lot of trouble by listening to the Q, and now yearn for one on a daily basis. I can't help but wonder how much I'd be paying off if I put it on budget on my credit card. :(
 
You may have a lot of fun with the Pulsar then :)
you may not even need a mixer. As I said, a fader-midi-box will do the job to control the faders on the screen.. if you can stand this system it'll work :)

I found the Modular 2 to be one of if not the best device on the Pulsar... It is gorgeous, and it does not use too much DSP power.

Mya dvice is to record everything you can that's final as AUDIO TRACKS in cubase (or your sequencer) to free up DSP power for the device you currently work on... compose, record, on to the next device, or track.

Following me?

The effects on the Pulsar are nice. I like the decimator and such. The 3.0 comes with all these great new effects, and since you will be a new customer, you'll get the STS-3000 sampler, the HUGE mixer (made from the mighty Pulsar/SP mixer), and a bunch of other things.

I think its totally worth it. Make sure your machine has the latest chipset on the motherbaord though (the old VIA ones suck! believe me i ran a pulsar for a year on one, nothing but trouble). My advice: a 100% intel machine.
 
Well, I own a Pulsar1+ (with AES/EBU + XLR analog) and a Luna2 + the I/O box(8 in/8 out). That give me 7DSPs, 2 midi in, 2 midi out, 1 midi thru, 1/4"stereo out, 1/4" stereo i/o, 2adat i/o, 1 Z-link (firewire for luna i/o box), . BTW, the Luna I/O box is of great sound quality, more than Alesis Adat for example. And those rca are no problem to me. Well, 1/4" could be nice also. And contrary to ADAT, the lunabox works at 24/96 all the way, with 105db dynamics.

The Luna, or Pulsar software all works at 24/96 internaly, for everything. No degradation after treatement at all. And the ULLI is pretty cool, you can adjust latency as low as 3ms (theoreticaly), but a realist setting would be 7ms.

And i can affirm, that this card has no equals for the price, hardware, or software. I can do ANYTHING i want with it, the STS3000 sampler is at least equals to an Akai S3000, plus has more parameters, the STS5000 has and 16 individuals outputs and realtime pitchshifting+timestretching+formant+25 differents filters. You can't find this anywhere! The modular2 can do whatever you want in term of analog synthesis. Some path are so great! One guys at planetz even created a guitar synth. A patch that controls a real synth from audio source, you can control the synth with your voice for example. As for synths choice, you'll have more than you can have time to test in a 1 month full-time testing spree! :eek: I download new synths, effects, modular2 patch everydays.

Flexibility and modularity are the words here. If you need more power (Pulsar2 has 6DSP) you can always put new DSP upgrades in. You can upgrades to somethings like 45DSPs (3x15DSPs) if you want. That's even more power than a full blown protools. :cool:

The routing is so incredible, every drivers are multiclients. I'm sold totally on this card. Can't image working with anything else now that i have this kind of power. :p
 
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Yep, I agree with marcuspocus.

Except for one detail : Pulsar processes everything internally in 32-bits, not 24. So even better ;)

The GUI is very slow (it can take 1 or more seconds for a knob-twist or fader slide with the mouse on the pulsar mixer or synths to be registered) when the host CPU is under heavy use, but hopefully some of that will be fixed in v.3. We'll see soon won't we.
:victory:

Toni L.
www.mp3.com/NativeAlien
 
I think I'll wait and see what v.3 is like. Maybe see if I can meet someone in South Africa that's given the card a bash, maybe get a demo and read some user comments when it comes around.

I can't afford to buy another PC just for this card at the moment anyway... Seeing as I'm running on a:
AMD-K6III-400Mhz at the moment and I don' t think it will cut it.

Besides. I decided to buy myself a midi-controller, and seeing as I was spending the money anyway I decided to get something that produces some sounds aswell. So. I got the Korg DW8000 today. A very well looked after second hand synth. It's old but its got all the essential Midi functionality, including aftertouch.

I also love the sound it produces. It's funny how you can listen to so many new v/a synths and then somethinig as simple as this comes along to surprise you.

lol.. I might just buy some more old second hand synths in the future ;)
 
oups AMD?

what kind of motherboard do you have, what is the chipset on it? VIA chipsets for older processors have problems... not just with pulsar, but with Video equipment as well as most high-end solutions.

INTERESTING DISCUSSION!!

Nice to see you here MarcusPocus! bring more pulsar people over! :):)
 
i was warning him because he has the older AMDs... meaning the older VIA chipset i assume as well. those DO mean problems with pulsar cards.

Even the not-so-old chipsets are unusable... I ran pulsar 2 for a year without being able to correctly use it because my Athlon 900+AMD133 chipset were not ocmpatible.

Yeah i heard the latest-latest AMD chipsets (761 and such?) were fine with Pulsar.
 
Ok.. I had this long winded reply that got lost when I clicked on the submit button... But to sum up.

1. I really can't afford to buy myself a new PC in addition to a $1400 sound card.

2. I don't see why I should need a faster processor to transmit a little bit of Midi data when you could do the same on a 486 a decade ago, especially when your soundcard is using DSP to take the load off of your CPU. I understand the problem lies with the chipset. So in other words, there's nothing I can do about it. The Pulsar simply won't function properly.

3. After buying this soundcard I may have a lot of modules to play with but I'm probably going to have to fork out more cash to get the DSP modules I really want.

Conclusion:
If I were to spend the money, I would have a decent soundcard, at least, I assume that the pulsar functions well at normal soundcard functions. So I wouldn't have to spend the extra $400-500 on a good soundcard but I'd have to spend that amount to upgrade my PC (which I admit will have to happen sometime, but it really can't happen now)

For the same money I could get two really good rack-mounted synths. Such as the MicroQ, (which includes some stunning effects, and seeing as it accepts an audio input I can run any sound source through them.
And I'd have knobs to play with) and Nordlead.

The fact of the matter is. I don't see music creation its-self paying for all this gear. so as long as I have some units and software with which I can express myself I'm happy. Financially the pulsar doesn't make any sence to a hobbyist such as myself.

I've got to make do with what I can afford. My only condition is that the equipment is quality and will last me for at least 5 years. No computer equipment ever lasts that long before it becomes redundant or bogged down. But the 15 year old synth I have still steadily produces sounds just like it always has and still plugs into my midi setup without any hassles.

Even if I struggle a bit with Cubase and the VST instruments on my machine I can take the tracks I feel are good enough through to a friend's studio to master it.

Ok.. that ended up long winded again...

:D
 
:) it's cool it was/is a very productive and interesting discussion!

The pulsar is great but you need to get what fits your need the best. Right now I have to agree that the pulsar requires that you "play with the technology" as much as making music, which, if you dont have much time on your hand, can be frustrating.

On the other hand, I love my Pulsar really... I am looking forward to try the XTC mode in the new release (in a week hopefully!), because you'll be able then to open all the pulsar devices INSIDE cubase VST (...or any VST 2.0 host I think), and I think the "music creation" part will be much more focused on.
 
Well.. considering it took me an hour to discover that the 'in' connector on my midi cable had to go into the 'out' plug on my synth and the 'out' had to go to the 'in'... :p I can be prettty slow some days.

I only have 2 to 3 hours on week nights to work on my DJ sets, Get to know cubase, so I can start doing some actual production and learn to play the keyboard (this is a whole new forum that could be started. 'Playing Instruments', since I really don't have the time to travel for lessons. I'm figuring it out for myself)

The last thing I want to spend my time on is building PC's again... maybe one day when I win the lotto and can afford to spend all my time at home again.
 
the effects comes with pulsar II package......... many of them are not good
like the phaser, delay...............sucks

the third world's are better .............
 
Hogus, there are forums for instruments!
keyboards, percussions, strings and winds

voila :)
 
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