It seems that major criticism on Pulsar is going on the Pulsar-dsp mailinglist at pulsar-dsp@usa.net. Users seem to be disappointed as the thing is not up to its potential. Instability, code, GUI problems, huge consumption of resources, it seems to be so RAM hundry that it's never enough for a flawless operation. Here's an excerpt from a posting to the list by Stuart Yoshida (I hope the author doens't mind):
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
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The Pulsar is an excellent sounding piece of audio hardware with plenty of great features, effects, dynamics processors, and inputs and outputs. In addition, Creamware has created a graphical user interface (GUI) to
represent their modular hardware/software environment that could be the start of a new paradigm for this type of system. However, the current instability and unreasonable resource load of the GUI makes the Pulsar a
marginal solution for those who are searching for the Holy Grail in ultimate low-cost, all-in-one DAW’s. So for now, I'm anxiously awaiting version 1.1 of the software in hopes of coming ever closer to reaching the
true potential of this powerful card.
Here’s how I rate the Pulsar on the “Electronic Musician” scale (out of 5):
Features: 4
Ease-of-use: 2 (due to instability and inefficient code)
Audio Quality: 4.5
Value: 3
PROS: High-quality audio sound, and gazillions of I/O options. Incredible flexibility and features; with everything from a GUI-based patchbay, to classic sounding synths that beat the pants off of any sample-based player,
to a 32-channel MIDI-controllable mixer that is loaded with inserts,processors, effects, and automation (provided you have a MIDI sequencer handy).
CONS: The software is version 1.0. What more can I say? Too many crashes,too long a wait to load projects, too much resource drains on CPU utilization and system memory, and too sluggish a response from the GUI,
especially from a system that is supposed to off-load the CPU with dedicated DSP hardware.
At times I was elated with the Pulsar, and at other times I wanted to rip the card from its slot and send it back. Because on one hand, the new mix came out great in the end. The 4-band parametric EQ was very usable, and
the compressor was quite adequate for beefing up individual tracks. I also put a stereo phase on the lead guitar, and it really added spice to the mix. The quality of the effects are head-and-shoulders above the
equivalent features in SAWPlus, but I would expect that from a system with dedicated hardware. And the GUI patchbay is AWESOME. It’s very intuitive for the most part, and genuinely useful. I loved being about to route and re-route signals with just a click of the mouse to get the configurations I needed to optimize the mix.
On the other hand, I lost 2 hours worth of work when the program crashed and TRASHED THE PROJECT FILE. Yikes! To say that I was disappointed would be an understatement. But this typified the code stability of the initial
release. The slow response of the GUI was also annoying and counter-productive. I would trade-off a less flashy looking GUI for a more responsive program in a heartbeat.
IN SUMMARY
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Well, I'm gonna keep the Pulsar, but it’s a close call. Call me a sucker,but I think Creamware will take the Pulsar to its true potential. HOWEVER,they need to also take it to heart that the current release of their code
is in a place far, far from where it needs to be. The fact that the GUI itself requires a system with greater than 128MB of memory and a huge swap file is ridiculous! I can understand the need for plenty of system memory
for things like sample-based synths, but even the 32-channel mixer and “analog” synths suck up resources like a black hole. The excuse of saying,“buy a more powerful system” doesn't fly because that takes the onus off of
Creamware to fully exploit the capabilities of the Pulsar. And the sluggishness of the GUI is inexcusable. If you’re going to make a whole new GUI on top of Windows95, you better make it MORE EFFICIENT than
Windows95. The Pulsar GUI seems to have taken a giant step BACKWARDS.
My question is, “Why doesn't Creamware take the opportunity to create a truly powerful system that completely off-loads the PC so that anyone with
a Pentium computer can take advantage of the Pulsar?” This approach will tap into a much bigger market for them, and there isn't any reason why Creamware couldn't do this with the Pulsar.
Here’re some hard, cold facts about the Pulsar GUI:
* It took two minutes and 51 seconds to load a project into the Pulsar GUI. It took less than two SECONDS to load the equivalent project into SAWPro.
* SAWPro’s interface is very snappy and truly responsive. The automated mixing of channel levels and pan positions hardly makes the computer break a sweat. I can mix a 24-track project on my computer with all kinds of edits and pans, and the resource meter will keep in the 75% to 95% available range. The only things which slows down SAWPro are number crunching intensive operations such as EQ, compression, and reverb that
quickly bring the CPU to its knees. Pulsar, on the other hand, brings the CPU to its knees whenever a MIDI-controlled automated fader movement is made. And that’s where the Pulsar should shine!
So Creamware, here is my challenge to you: use SAWPro as the benchmark in code efficiency and speed that you aspire to reach so that the Pulsar can attain the status of a truly “stellar” product.
Maybe the helpful whitenoise guy could tell something in this regard?