PC plug-ins wanted

[nat whilk II]

To take the next step up in my home studio, I need better reverb, eq, and compression.

 

I'm thinking the TC Powercore may be my best option 'cause the plug-ins are relatively cheap (esp compared to the hardware versions).

 

But what's up with the Powercore PCI? Is it not sold anymore? Sweetwater only lists the external units (with the big prices). The PCI boards are going pretty cheap on eBay.

 

If the PCI board is not made anymore, is the current crop of plug-ins for Powercore compatible with the PCI board?

 

Anyone know? Any advice appreciated....

 

nat whilk ii

[Kiwiburger]

IMHO, PCI card-based effects are a temporary technology that will disappear soon. As native processing gets faster, the need for extra processing is diminishing. If you have massive real-time CPU demands it seems to me to be a better idea to network as many PC's as you need.

 

The Firewire version appeals to me a little more - but what annoys me is these hardware devices are supposed to be like a security dongle - but you still need to jump through hoops to buy (and update) plugins. Dependency on challenge/response or the future existance of a dot.com puts me right off investing thousands of dollars in case it just evaporates.

 

I would buy a hardware reverb with s/pdif - probably sounds a lot better, and it should still be working in 10 years time, regardless of the state of the internet or the existance of the supplier.

 

Don't rule out native plugins - they are getting better all the time. Check out www.artsacoustic.com - I love this one. It even does Inverse reverbs, something you don't get until the very high end TC stuff.

[Eric Dahlberg]

The Powercore Element was discontinued due to the new Powercore PCI mk2 released earlier this year. We bought out TC's last remaining stock of Elements & have around 50 left. All Powercore plug-ins are currently compatible with all versions of the Powercore, including the original Powercore PCI that was discontinued a year or two ago. I don't think compatibility will an issue as long as TC continues to use Motorola processors.

[nat whilk II]

Thanks for the info - especially you, Eric. I'm still in love with JRR Shop since I picked up from JRR what must have been the last remaining Komplete2 special initial release offer in the universe a few months ago...

 

I looked over the TC website, but all info on the original Powercore of Elements is gone. I'm assuming there's a speed/performance boost with the newest Powercore versions, but is there a sound quality difference?

 

'Cause I almost always buy a year or three behind the new release curve in order to get great stuff a low prices....

 

nat whilk ii

[js1]

Sound qualilty is identical. But the new card can run (if I remember correctly) about 2x the plug instances than the Element.

 

Powercore plugs have to fit within a DSP. There are 4 DSPs on the Element, and some plugs take an entire DSP on the Element. The new card has much more powerful DSPs, and can run multiple instances of plug ins that use a full DSP on an Element.

 

In theory, they could create a future plug in that requires more DSP power than the Element could supply - that plug in wouldn't run on the Element.

 

js

[Eric Dahlberg]

 

Originally posted by js1 In theory, they could create a future plug in that requires more DSP power than the Element could supply - that plug in wouldn't run on the Element.

 

 

That's a good point, I hadn't thought of that possibility. Is there any reason why the processing required by a plug-in couldn't be spanned across multiple DSP's? In any case, future System 6000 ports shouldn't have a problem on the Element since that machine used older DSP's, as well.

 

The DSP's in the Powercore PCI mk2, Powercore Firewire, & Powercore Compact have 1.5 times the power of the original DSP's, as well as more on-board memory.