Pulsar

Pulsar

Pulsar Overview	Pulsar III	Pulsar III Features
XTC	Pricing	Main Creamware Page

DSP Powered Music Production Environment

Mixing
The heart of Pulsar's environment is the 32-channel digital mixer. It is as powerful as many digital mixing boards costing many times the price of a single Pulsar system. Nevertheless, the Pulsar mixer is easy to operate and very intuitive. The mixer can be freely connected with external signals (outboard gear, HDR software) as well as with internal signal sources (Pulsar synths and sample-players...).

Each of the 32 channel strips boasts a graphic 4-band parametric EQ, four Pulsar effects inserts and 8 auxiliary busses or inserts for external hardware. The mixer also features 16 record busses or subgroups and a comprehensive master section. Use an external MIDI fader box to remote-control the mixer, and Pulsar becomes even more of an ergonomic and powerful mixing environment..


Routing System	Mixing

Synthesizers
With Pulsar you get an amazing suite of synthesizers - reincarnations of vintage classics as well as innovative new synth designs. And since they are being generated on DSPs, you can play Pulsar's synthesizers just like hardware instruments! There is absolutely no latency between keystroke and sound.

You'll encounter a number of classic subtractive synths with the same fat sound as the originals - but with the added features of Pulsar's pristine audio quality, full MIDI control and the nowadays essential ability to save sounds as presets. Also included in the Pulsar software package are synthesizers for FM and drum sounds. Furthermore, dozens of additional instruments are available for the Pulsar/SCOPE platform.

The Pulsar II synth package includes the following:
Miniscope, Miniscope MK II: You'll know this one as soon as you see the wood side panels and familiar interface.

Blue Synth: Analog synthesis at its best.
EZ Synth: Easy to use synthesizer. And really fat.
FM One: A monster of an eight-operator FM synth.
Inferno: Ideal for fierce basses and unique sounds.
U KNOW 007: Another legend. Don't worry - you'll know it...
EDS 8i: Analog drum synthesizer with eight instruments - all realtime-editable, just like the famous originals.


Blue Synthesizer	FM One Synthesizer

Miniscope Synthesizer	Miniscope MkII Synthesizer

Modular Synthesizer	Inferno Synthesizer

EZ Synthesizer	Uknow 007 Synthesizer

Sample Players
The Pulsar Sample Players give you access to a complete world of sounds! They can read Akai-compatible samples and programs directly from the CD-ROM drive of your PC or Mac. Of course, Akai files are imported with filter settings, loop points and keyboard mapping parameters. Simply insert a sample CD-ROM, load multiple banks into the Sample Player and play them as you would with any rackmount sampler. You can also store those files on your computer's hard disk.

The Pulsar Sample Players are highly polyphonic. You can easily play up to 64 stereo voices, using multiple modules. The Sample Player F also features a built-in filter section. To get you working right away, Pulsar comes with a CD-ROM from Best Service with a remarkable compilation of samples. These sounds include drum sets, acoustic instruments, synths, voices and a grand piano.


Sampler	Effects

DSP Effects
With Pulsar, you can apply effects just like you would in any conventional studio: anywhere within the audio chain, as aux send/returns and as inserts within Pulsar's mixer. The DSP effects that ship with Pulsar include filters, EQs, dynamics processors, reverb, delays, phasers, flangers and vocoders. All effects operate with 32-bit resolution - so they're perfectly suited for use in 24-bit productions. Everything works in realtime with no latency, and you can use all effects for internal as well as for external signals – a level of performance which only a DSP-based system can hope to attain.

Roughly thirty effects ship with Pulsar, and again: there are many more available from CreamWare or from third-party developers. The more you make use of Pulsar effects, the more you free up your host processor for other tasks.

Hardware & I/Os
The Pulsar II PCI hardware is just as innovative and efficient as the Pulsar software. In addition to its massive DSP power, the board also hosts a flexible I/O system. The inputs and outputs are situated on a daughterboard which can easily be connected to the DSP card.

You can choose between four different interface options. All of them feature between 20 and 28 I/Os offering the highest possible sound quality and combining various formats - analog, S/PDIF, AES/EBU, ADAT and Z-Link.

The Pulsar II also features two independent S/TDM bus connectors for seamless integration with other DSP cards from the SCOPE family. This permits the system's DSP power and/or number of available I/Os to be easily expanded.

With the growing number of third party developers creating software for the SHARC DSP, the system has an enormous growth potential. With its 24-bit, 96 kHz I/Os, internal 32-bit resolution and superior floating-point precision algorithms, Pulsar II represents the state of the art in quality signal processing. Your productions simply sound better.


Pulsar Hardware	Pulsar Hardware

I/O options & technical specifications

	Classic 20	24ADAT	PLUS	Z-Link
Number of channels	20 In / 20 Out	24 In / 24 Out	20 In / 20 Out	28 In / 28 Out*
Analoge I/Os
Unbalanced	2	-	-	2 / 18*
Balanced	-	-	2	-
Digital I/Os
ADAT (EIAJ connector)	16	24	16	8
S/PDIF (RCA unbalanced)	2	-	-	2
AES/EBU (XLR balanced)	-	-	2	-
Z-Link	-	-	-	16**
MIDI
In, Out, Thru	1	2 (via Bracket)	1	1
AD/DA converter resolution	24 Bit	24 Bit	24 Bit	24 Bit
Sample rates
Master
96, 48, 44.1, 32 kHz	+	+	+	+
Slave
ADAT 38 – 50 kHz	+	+	+	+
AES/EBU / S/PDIF, Wordclock 38 – 50 kHz	+	+	+	+
Z-Link 32 – 96 kHz	-	-	-	+
Audio performance
Digital > Analog (20Hz-20kHz)
Frequency response	+/-0.15	-	+/-0.15 dB	+/-0.15 dB
Dynamic range	110 dB***	-	110 dB***	110 dB***
THD+N (typical)	> 100 dBa	-	> 100 dBa	> 100 dBa
Channel separation @ 1 kHz (997Hz) (typical)	105 dB	-	105 dB	105 dB
Analog > Digital (20Hz-20kHz)
Frequency response	+/- 0.05 dB	-	+/- 0.05 dB	+/- 0.05 dB
Dynamic range	100 dB***	-	100 dB***	100 dB***
THD+N (typical)	> 95 dBa	-	> 95 dBa	> 95 dBa
Channel separation @ 1 kHz (997Hz) (typical)	> 102 dBa	-	> 102 dBa	> 102 dBa

* Including 16 channels via two optional Luna 2496 I/O Box units

** One Z-Link interface transfers eight digital channels at 24 bits / 96 kHz

*** These specifications are based upon technical data provided by the converter manufacturer