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powercore users, ver 3 is up
Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007 7:42 am
by jgest
HTTP://www.tcelectronic.com/Default.asp?Id=13005
anybody willing to bite the bullet and post if this plays nice with dp?
Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007 10:12 am
by TheHopiWay
I can't seem to find the OS requirements. Just a note that it was tested successfully with 10.5.
I wonder what the minimum OS requirement is...
I'm running 10.4.9
Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007 11:42 am
by jgest
TheHopiWay wrote:I can't seem to find the OS requirements. Just a note that it was tested successfully with 10.5.
I wonder what the minimum OS requirement is...
I'm running 10.4.9
I can't confirm but possibly 10.4.10
Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007 6:12 pm
by Dave Bourke
It seems to be running perfectly for me, optional plug-ins included. Although TC seems to have pulled it off the download site this evening because so many (mainly Windows) users can't get it to work.
Well, they're not getting mine back!
Kind regards.
Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2007 9:40 am
by hellcat
I for one am pretty mad at TC Works, not only in the way they treat their customers but also for providing years and years of Powercore software that, well, let's face it -- just doesn't work. I've had three cards and always use the latest version, and there's always one or two plug ins that crash or have a huge STOP sign on them for some reason (this was a serious problem in OS9 and on Power PC platforms -- and they NEVER fixed it, even after being aware of it).
I for one won't be buying any more Powercore items, because I'm so fed up with buying and paying literally thousands of dollars for crappy software that doesn't work as it should. TC Works should learn from Altiverb, who in my opinion are exemplar of a company who LISTENS and CARES about its customers, and who takes the time to fix bugs and give us top-notch software. TC Works, on the other hand, have shown themselves just as arrogant as Microsoft, who's continuous way of "testing" software like Office is to let the customer tell them what's wrong with it.
I now own a quad core Intel with more than enough ram, and still, there's always been something wrong with the plug ins.... doing a mix session with them is more like playing Russian Roulette, because either the session stays open or it just CRASHES ("kernel panic"'s anyone? AND WHAT THE H??? DOES THAT MEAN ANYWAY?).
When I sold off my previous cards they then wouldn't let me transfer my purchased plug ins....and only after considerable gripes and emails, and finally when I threatened to bring this up in a European consumer rights panel (I was advised to do this by the Norwegian division) did they FINALLY let me transfer my plug in. Unheard of!
Be warned -- they love your money, but they don't give a damn about you as a customer. If they did, they'd release software without bugs.
Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2007 8:33 am
by monkey man
I couldn't have said it better myself, Hellcat.
Amen.
FWIW, I refuse to ignore the logic that suggests that if a company can't get it right through all the version 1.xxs, as well as the 2.xxs over a period of some years, there's little chance of the 3.xx incarnations being any different.
Even if they were to fluke a 3.xx, it'd be the exception rather than the norm, and that familiar ol' TC uncertainty would hang over every future DP and OS upgrade.
Again, well said, Hellcat.
Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2007 7:12 pm
by TheHopiWay
Well 3.0 is working fine for me in DP 5.13 right now but.........
On first install I had several funny crashes. The good news, for me anyway, was that now all the plugs are AU and not wrapped so AU Manager can turn off all the dicey stuff that I don't need.
I had it "remove" all the demos and VI stuff leaving just Reverbs, Character, SoftSat EQ,the Delay Chorus and Tubeifx.
Since then it's behaved nicely.
Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2007 10:38 pm
by James Steele
TheHopiWay wrote:The good news, for me anyway, was that now all the plugs are AU and not wrapped so AU Manager can turn off all the dicey stuff that I don't need.
I had it "remove" all the demos and VI stuff leaving just Reverbs, Character, SoftSat EQ,the Delay Chorus and Tubeifx.
What does that mean? Does it mean that you can delete the VST versions or something? I'd like to pare down some of the plugs. I'm also anxious to give ClassicVerb another whirl since you spoke so highly of it.
Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2007 10:54 pm
by Mr_Clifford
James Steele wrote:
What does that mean? Does it mean that you can delete the VST versions or something?
Yep, unless you're planning on defecting to Cubase any time soon. The TC plug-ins are now self-contained AU components, instead of the VST plug-ins with the AU wrapper.
I'd like to pare down some of the plugs. I'm also anxious to give ClassicVerb another whirl since you spoke so highly of it.
Pull any plug-ins you don't want/need to use out of your plug-ins folder and into an 'unused' folder for storage. Or use AudioUnit manager to do it for you.
I've just installed v3 onto my G4 with an original PCI Powercore. I also had a few weird crashes at first, but it seems to have settled down now, and all the plug-ins work.
A couple of cool things are...
- The SideChainer actually works as advertised!!!! (with both compressors)
- Any open powercore GUI's don't go blank when bouncing to disk (mine had always done that).
- The mix control in the compressor should now banish weird phase problems with parallel compression (although I haven't tried it yet). Not to mention being heaps quicker to set up.
Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 3:03 am
by hellcat
Reading these "success" stories on Powercore only furthers my point.... I mean, installing software should not be an angst-ridden excursive, leaving you wondering if your machine will crash "the first few times" or not....
We all would rather spend our time on the creative process, not the technological aspects of having to call support endlessly or email them and wait weeks for replies (thank you TC works).... I mean, we buy this stuff to HELP us get our inspiration out. Having tons of problems with software and hardware just kill it off.
Why don't we have all these problems with other software? I mean MachFive2 (if you excuse the lateness), DP, Altiverb, and the very cool Speakerphone (that just blows me away...the attention to detail! ) work THE FIRST TIME I INSTALLED and have worked since, but Powercore has been more problems than its worth.
At one point in their software, you couldn't put your machine to sleep. I thought, "Surely this must be a mistake" and contacted them, but they replied that no, you couldn't put your machine to sleep with the cards installed!!! Then, after enough people complained about that, they changed it. Stupid, just stupid. And don't get me started on the STOP! signs so many of the plug ins had, which TC works NEVER fixed. Its only after I went to the Intel platform that those disappeared.
Naw, I for one have better things to spend my hard earned cash on, and I also know when I'm being hustled for my money. It just took me too long to find it out -- sadly, because I really like using a few of their plug ins, and would have stayed a faithful customer if TC Works only had gotten their stuff together and had given us software that worked 100% and not used its customers as lab rats.
Now, let's see if I can get my self riled up about the bugs in MX4!!!!

Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 4:39 am
by Dave Bourke
For the record, the v3 installed now has a custom install option so you don't have to install the VST plug-ins in the first place. I didn't, and everything was hunkydory from the get-go.
Kind regards.
Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 8:08 am
by jgest
hellcat wrote:I for one am pretty mad at TC Works, not only in the way they treat their customers but also for providing years and years of Powercore software that, well, let's face it -- just doesn't work. I've had three cards and always use the latest version, and there's always one or two plug ins that crash or have a huge STOP sign on them for some reason (this was a serious problem in OS9 and on Power PC platforms -- and they NEVER fixed it, even after being aware of it).
I for one won't be buying any more Powercore items, because I'm so fed up with buying and paying literally thousands of dollars for crappy software that doesn't work as it should. TC Works should learn from Altiverb, who in my opinion are exemplar of a company who LISTENS and CARES about its customers, and who takes the time to fix bugs and give us top-notch software. TC Works, on the other hand, have shown themselves just as arrogant as Microsoft, who's continuous way of "testing" software like Office is to let the customer tell them what's wrong with it.
I now own a quad core Intel with more than enough ram, and still, there's always been something wrong with the plug ins.... doing a mix session with them is more like playing Russian Roulette, because either the session stays open or it just CRASHES ("kernel panic"'s anyone? AND WHAT THE H??? DOES THAT MEAN ANYWAY?).
When I sold off my previous cards they then wouldn't let me transfer my purchased plug ins....and only after considerable gripes and emails, and finally when I threatened to bring this up in a European consumer rights panel (I was advised to do this by the Norwegian division) did they FINALLY let me transfer my plug in. Unheard of!
Be warned -- they love your money, but they don't give a damn about you as a customer. If they did, they'd release software without bugs.
right you are, but that virus does sound nice.....when it works!
Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 7:16 pm
by PhireAlly
Hey All,
No install issues here, everything went smoothly. I did however, prior to installing v3.0, "manually" remove the previously installed version; v2.5 beta.
I then tested all the included plugins and all ran well, the only exception being Classic Verb, where the meters were always stuck.
BTW this was on my MacPro under Tiger (still trying to get Apple to send my free copy of Leopard), the G5 test will be next week.
Good Luck,
Blessings,
PhireAlly
Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 8:09 pm
by Watersound
Yeah Powercore gives me a lot of grief/crashes. I have the firewire(had it for 3 yrs. now) and the only solution is to quit DP, and turn the darn box off and then back on...usually I don't have to restart the computer. The plugs sound good but they are so problematic.
Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 10:27 pm
by Mr_Clifford
One other thing about v3 that I don't believe has been mentioned yet is total backwards compatibility in terms of settings and presets. I opened up a project that I was in the middle of when I updated (that's right, I live on the edge) and all the settings were there, no problems, as well as all the user settings that I'd previously saved.
I believe that Waves weren't able to provide that with a recent update.