KVR Audio

twister · Post by **twister** » Wed Sep 22, 2004 4:14 pm

My "laptop" prayers have been answered

TC Electronics just announced a portable firewire PowerCore unit:

http://news.harmony-central.com/Newp/20 ... mpact.html

But, it kind of pricey at MSRP of $995

_pix_ · Post by **_pix_** » Wed Sep 22, 2004 4:28 pm

only thing missing for nirvana is PDC support by ableton...

atomic_(no)afro · Post by **atomic_(no)afro** » Wed Sep 22, 2004 4:41 pm

I'll give TC one thing, they sure do have a classy form-factor on the Compact. Damn that would look nice on top of my Shuttle. Price is still ungodly however. For that kind of money I could build another PC and link it via FX Teleport, a better option for my studio.

ATA

dreammaka · Post by **dreammaka** » Wed Sep 22, 2004 4:42 pm

wow..looking great.

should I buy this or PCI version for my G5?

original flipper · Post by **original flipper** » Wed Sep 22, 2004 4:50 pm

HI

A bit pricey (?) could you get those PLUG-INS for free if you built a PC?

The earlier thread already pointed out that you have £3-400 (at least) of quality plug-ins here, don't underestimate (Reason - Whoops- wrong thread!) the value of the WHOLE package.

Flipper.

twister · Post by **twister** » Wed Sep 22, 2004 6:34 pm

dreammaka wrote:wow..looking great.

should I buy this or PCI version for my G5?

I'm on PC laptop, so don't know much about PCI card stability in MAC (didn't even know MACs have pci bus

). Personally, I prefer portable setup to move between computers. But, at the same time with this new Compact unit out, you might be able to get a cheap second-hand Element card.

Also, check out this comparison chart:
http://www.tcelectronic.com/PowerCoreComparison

oblagon · Post by **oblagon** » Wed Sep 22, 2004 6:49 pm

that would be cool with 4, 150 mhz chips like the original. with 2, this unit is seriously underpowered.

atomic_(no)afro · Post by **atomic_(no)afro** » Wed Sep 22, 2004 7:06 pm

flipper, that's the reason I said for MY studio. I already have many soft-synths and effects that fit the bill that the PowerCore included plugs do. With FX Teleport and a second PC I could get similar results with my current set of plug-ins with a similar performance. For someone starting out, PowerCore is not a bad deal per se, but still a bit pricy. I would LOVE powercore if it was stripped of all of the included plugins, the price was dropped, and it could host standard VST plug-ins not in the powercore format. Now I know that's not what powercore is supposed to be, however that is something that I'm looking for in a outboard plug-in host. With powercore, it's all TC, not as open as formats like VST which has some benefits, but more limitations. They have the Virus plug, and that's really cool and would be the only reason I would buy a powercore. Great idea, just not implemented in a way that works with MY studio set-up.

ATA

original flipper · Post by **original flipper** » Wed Sep 22, 2004 7:56 pm

HI

The motivator with this package for ME (!) is the 'Inflator' Maximizer; which a friend is using for practically all his releases (Drum & Bass) for this genre of music level is (unfortunately) king.

But beyond that the filter plug-in looks very interesting and probably comparable to top end vst's I don't know but I think this is a contender - I need a decent Reverb, Filter and the other Plug-ins look at least comparable to the better plug's around and then there is no worrying about cpu, I will wait and see how much it goes for once the dust has settled.

Flipper.

twister · Post by **twister** » Wed Sep 22, 2004 8:33 pm

oblagon wrote:that would be cool with 4, 150 mhz chips like the original. with 2, this unit is seriously underpowered.

Yeah, I was surprised too. Even Element has 4xDSP processors (at a slightly lower clock speed). With only 2 DSPs, they are cutting down processing power by a half, which means you will not be able to run as many effects/instruments simultaneously. But, they are charging twice as much for it comparing to Element?!? Lets see what the street price is going to be.

dxl · Post by **dxl** » Wed Sep 22, 2004 8:38 pm

twister wrote:
oblagon wrote:that would be cool with 4, 150 mhz chips like the original. with 2, this unit is seriously underpowered.
Yeah, I was surprised too. Even Element has 4xDSP processors (at a slightly lower clock speed). With only 2 DSPs, they are cutting down processing power by a half, which means you will not be able to run as many effects/instruments simultaneously. But, they are charging twice as much for it comparing to Element?!? Lets see what the street price is going to be.

the small one has

faster CPU
faster DSPs with larger RAM

some plugins uses more ram than DSP
e.g on PCIversion, runing two classic reverb used up 69% of one DSP
but 100%RAM
therefor, you can't add plugins into that DSP

street price is 799usd

ericj23 · Post by **ericj23** » Wed Sep 22, 2004 8:47 pm

the ram is much larger than the pci and the chips are 1.5 times the speed so its equivalent to 3 of the pci chips

so at 44.1 you could manage -

2 classic verbs, 1 megaverb, 1 24.7 limiter, 1 master x3, 1 eq sat, 1 chorus delay & 1 voice strip (which is a compressor, eq desser etc) - all in stereo

and the ram is soo important if you want reverbs - i can get 8 of either on my pc - you'll get 8 megaverbs and 6 classic verbs on the portable thingy - so if its verbs you want theres not much difference.

but youve gotta remeber that when you deep freeze an fxfreeze wrapped plugin all the resources go from your powercore - ie you can get as many of these plug-ins as you want

- just dont use them simultaneously

PowerCore goes Portable!!!