powercore?

[giles117]

Funny that shanky is crying about the PCI users getting stuck. But then how many UAD Users get the new plugins for free???

and the PCI is cheaper than the firewire....Hmm

anyway, shanky if you still have that useless PC PCI card. sell it to me I need another one.

Of course it needs to be for what I can get an Element for

I got my PC for the Oxford plugins, megareverb and the Chorus/Delay plug. The rest is junk IMO.

[aeon]

Originally posted by Blasito:
[QB]I have the Powercore Firewire and have mixed feelings about the product. I also bought the D-Coder and Voice Modeler plugins and have been very (D-Coder) and somewhat (VM) disapointed with these.
QB]

i've tried many soft vocoder, and the best one is the d-coder,

Do u use digital performer with the d-coder?? maybe that is the problem, with cubase there is no problem at all, the "MIDI in" works in cubase.

[DrewNichols]

Originally posted by The_Manager:


I got my PC for the Oxford plugins, megareverb and the Chorus/Delay plug. The rest is junk IMO.

Agreed!!!

[rcn]

We bought a poco and a uad card about a year ago for DP and hated both of them.. sent them both back.
Big drain on the cpu. Lot's of latency, crashes, impossible to track with'em.
Rob

[TheHopiWay]

Originally posted by rcn:
We bought a poco and a uad card about a year ago for DP and hated both of them.. sent them both back.
Big drain on the cpu. Lot's of latency, crashes, impossible to track with'em.
Rob

Sorry to hear that. Must have been a configuration problem. I'm running 1 of each with no problems other than the latency (which thanks to 4.5 no longer plagues me) and the CPU hit is minimal.
As to tracking, I never track with plugs of any kind. I only use them in mix down so that was never an issue for me.

[mongoose]

I have both a PC Element and a UAD-1. If I were forced at gunpoint to discard one or the other, I suppose it would be the Powercore, but it would be tough. FWIW, I love the card and have not had the configuration/CPU drain issues some people are having.

A few people are saying "get Waves," to which I say: "ugh." I've actually been through a lot of different plugin packages (kind of an addictive habit, I guess). I've got Waves Gold, a UAD-1, a Powercore Element, the Blue Tubes stuff, and a few PSP plugins. In the end, I use all of the packages *except* Waves: for me, compressors and EQs come from UAD and Blue Tubes; verbs, basic delays, and chorus come from the PC, and PSP gives me the vintage warmer and the 'Lexicon' delays. Can't remember the last time I reached for my Waves stuff. It just doesn't sound as good on my material.

Your mileage, of course, is guaranteed to vary.
-m

[epidot68]

This is a really old thread, but I wanted to add to the chorus of Powercore despisers. The plugs are not very high quality and it drains way too much power. The freebies in DP work fairly well and there are a host of other options. The UAD-1 is so much better, but they had better get a PCI-e version soon.

[mhschmieder]

I have not yet bought any plug-ins (lack of funds), but am wondering what lies ahead, as I am rather shocked that UAD-1 is still not available as a Firewire rack module.

Most people here are complaining about lack of PCI support from TC/etc. Am I the only person using an iMac vs. a tower? I bought the iMac as a semi-portable compromise (I HATE laptops and don't trust them to be stable/reliable during a session), for on-site recording/etc.

I never saw this thread until the recent reply, as it predates my joining the forum and this forum is WAY too busy for me to follow it regularly or dip back into the older topics. So I was rather horrified to read about all the problems with TC Powercore.

I was sort of leaning against it anyway as not the best investment of money for what you get. My interest is more with the add-ons, such as the Oxford series and the Waldorf D-Coder, etc. These apparantly are not available in any format other than as Powercore add-ins, correct?

Is there a way to bridge a PCI card to an iMac, so that I could buy the far-more-useful UAD-1 (I see TC Powercore as more for mastering engineers; whereas the UAD-1 stuff is more useful during tracking and general mixing and pre-mastering).

[ashman]

Hi,

I have been using the firewire version at home & the original PCI version at my office. I always use the mastering & reverbs from TC. It has been 4 years with the PCI card and about 3 years with the firewire model. Both my Macs are 2.0 Gig G5's. In all the time I have been using them they have worked every day. I tried the Virus plugin and had no luck with it. I do recommend Powercore, but you should be careful with the optional plugins. Test the demos first. As far as load on the CPU, they seem fine. In my work (TV commercials) I may have 40-60 tracks. Kepp your system optimized and up to date for trouble free performance. I also find that I have to increase my buffer to 1024 to mix with lots of plugins. When I record audio I bring the buffer down to 256. I also have separate hard drives for the system, audio files & sample libraries. Seem to make things work better. I do recommend Powercore but make sure your computer is also in good running order. As far as tech support goes, they are just okay.

[emulatorloo]

So I was rather horrified to read about all the problems with TC Powercore.

FWIW I like my powercore. There are others on Unicornation that like theirs too.

My experience with TC support was excellent. My card died 3 month after I got it. I initiated an incident with them, told them what was up and they issued an RMA and sent me a new card immediately.

As to the included plug-ins, ClassicVerb sounds really great to my ears and gets a lot of use. Megareverb is good too. I also get some use out of the included amp simulation, the vocal channel thingy, and the little SH-101 clone that comes with.

All in all I have been happy with it -- sounds good, took some pressure off my aging mac.

[mhschmieder]

That's all good feedback.

If one has outboard TC gear (as I do), is there an advantage to the plug-ins in Powercore? I had read elsewhere that the quality of the plug-ins vs. mid-level TC hardware doesn't see an advantage until getting into the Master 5000 (?) series of plug-ins, or whatever it's called. And those are mega-expensive.

[digidan]

PC Firewire is good for me. I have been using it for over a year now. I purchased it just to get the sony oxford bundle, but there are definately a few useful plugs that ship with it. I do have occasional trouble with powercore related crashes... However these problems happen rarely, and the pro's outweigh the cons. On another note, the uad-1 is stellar in both performance and sound quality. That is a kick ass upgrade to any native system.

[TOD]

this has been a good post. I have UAD and Poco. I actually wasn't aware of the CPU drain from Poco. I would definitely say I reach for the UAD more often, but I use he poco Voice strip often.

Can anyone recommend an alternative?

thanx.

Tod

[giles117]

Likewise I have not noticed any power drain from the PoCo.

and I love mine. It plays nicely alongside my UAD's.

So far as the plugins being low quality......I dont know many people who hate the M5000 which the megareverb is modeledafter, the TC1210 chorus hardware unit which the chorus reverb plug derives it;s algorithm from, etc.......


The New plugins based on the System 6000 sound great as well...

No complaints from me. Last Mix I did using both cards barely pushed DP past 30% processor load....32 track song. With extensive plugins on live drums, bass, etc......

[Resonant Alien]

To my ears (it's all subjective): In terms of sonic quality, UAD kicks POCOs butt hands down with the exception of some of the verbs (I had one of each for a while and sold the POCO to buy a second UAD). Of course, UA doesn't have a PCIe or FW solution yet, and POCO does, so.......I would recommend UAD and add a good reverb like Altiverb or WaveArts Masterverb rather than POCO>