CreamWare Announces New Audio I/O, DSP Card

(Click for a close-up)

Anyone who may have been led to believe that the CreamWare development team was busy enough already finishing SCOPE will be surprised to hear that the boys and girls cooked up a little something special on their coffee break (well, almost). The PULSAR, a 24Bit/96kHz DSP board, is just about ready to roll and will be released in a PC version in September. A Mac version is planned, although we can't say just yet how many coffee breaks it will take until it's ready.

At first glance, you might mistake the PULSAR for just another multi-I/O board, albeit one that is MME compliant and features an ASIO driver for optimum communication with Cubase VST. It offers a total of 20 inputs/outputs, including 2 x ADAT, SP/DIF-I/O and stereo analog. There will also be a 'Plus' version featuring balanced XLR ports and an AES/EBU interface. If you require more analog inputs/outputs, the handy CreamWare converter units A16 and/or A8 will get the job done - PULSAR was designed specifically to work with these devices.

But if you toss PULSAR in with the rest of the multi-I/O heap, you wouldn't be doing it justice. Why? Easy enough, because it features 4 SHARC-DSPs by Analog Devices, currently the most powerful floating-point DSP in the known part of the universe. And in contrast to other vendors' products loaded with a DSP that much like Rip Van Winkle lays slumbering in deep sleep waiting to be awakened- PULSAR's farm hands are wide awake and raring to bust their little butts for you.

So on the one hand, PULSAR is a fully-loaded 32-channel digital mixer with 8 Aux and 16 Recording busses. For every channel you have fully parametric equalizers as well as dynamics in the form of compressors and limiters available. The mixer works with discrete, high-resolution automation, where of course the automation events can be synchronized with external as well as internal sequencers and other gear via MIDI timecode.

On the other hand, PULSAR is also a fully-fledged effects rack. It features delay, flanger, chorus, a vocoder and a host of other neat stuff. Expansions with additional effects? No problem. Not only can you chose from the upcoming CreamWare development program, a number of third-patty vendors are hard at work programming loads of cool sound-tweaking tools. One of the many unique features of PULSAR is that all internal devices are freely assignable. In other words, you aren't restricted to using effects in conjunction with the PULSAR mixer, you can route in dry signals via the external audio ins and soak 'em 'til they're dripping wet.

But wait, there's more! In terms signal routing and processing. The PULSAR comes factory-complete with a bunch of sound generators, including diverse analog synthesizers, an FM synthesizer and a physical modeling sound generator as well as a modular patch synthesizer and an Akai-compatible sample player. Akai media can be read by many CD ROM players (a compatibility list is forthcoming); a great Best Service sample CID is also included along with a hip WIZOO compilation.

And if one PULSAR doesn't meet your demands, the S/TDM Bus (Scope Time Division Multiplex), an extremely fast interface for internal connection, allows it to link several PULSARs as well as opening the way to SCOPE

And the price for all this: US retail $1298.00 (the price for 'Plus' is slightly higher). In the near future, PULSAR FX featuring a DirectX interface, without multi-I/O and SCOPE bus will be available as a compatible 'hardware DSP plug- in' for less than $1000.

Specifications:

• PCI-board for PC and MAC
• 4 x 60 MHz SHARC DSPs
• 20 I/Os (2 x ADAT, S/PDIF, analog)
• 32 bit internal bus resolution
• 24 bit I/O resolution
• 96kHz operation on analog and S/PDIF
• MIDI-interface
• S/TDM bus (SCOPE interconnect)
• 32 channel digital-mixer
• Effects: EQ, Dynamics, Delay, Chorus, Flanger, Vocoder
• AKAI-compatible sample-player!
• Modular patch synth!
• FM-, Virtual Analog- & Physical Modeling- synthesizer!
• SCOPE-compatible!
• MME- and ASIO-drivers

About CreamWare:

Founded in 1992, CreamWare GmbH gained a reputation as a manufacturer of high-quality, PentiumPC based real-time digital audio workstations. With SCOPE, CreamWare took the step to provide the world with one powerful and compatible platform. Thanks to a strong user-base and competitive products, also in the broadcast sector, CreamWare today employs over 70 people full time and has distributors in many countries around the world.