ScopeRise Reporter HUROLURA attended this year's MusikMesse at Frankfurt and returned with the following report with particular emphasis on Open Scope development and positioning:

"The concept is to open the Scope technology to any developer or audio solutions integrator.  CopperLan is obviously one of the ways to ease the integration into different types of set-ups or way to use Scope.  Open Scope could also be the solution to provide the Mac OS and Linux support as only the driver would have to be written specifically once all Scope devices have been ported to the new JUCE based UI principle.  I also saw an XITE-1 at the CopperLan booth with a demo UI CopperLan capable."
 

Dante:  The diagram presented at their booth (shown right) reveals a lot.  I'll get you to explain the various terminologies shown there, but firstly, how is progress on Scope 6 going?

Hurolura: Regarding Scope 6, they are working on it but all the user interface has to be ported to the new JUCE way of handling devices.  The point is to renew something that was hard to improve by using a user interface that would be easier to port from one platform to another.  Then, as JUCE becomes available on Windows, Mac and Linux, the only thing that would need to be developed would be the driver for the Scope hardware that would work on a Mac or Linux O/S (for example).

Dante:  Regarding hardware, what do the various symbols on the diagram represent?

Hurolura: You can already see from the picture that the idea is to broaden the range of hardware being Open Scope compatible, then any device could be ported from one hardware to another 'at the push of a button'.

  • The big board with 18 DSP shown on the right is the XITE-1.

  • The smaller one with 6 DSP is the one used for John Bowen's Solaris. Maybe it will be used for something else.

  • The 3 DSP one could be a smaller PCIe card.

Dante:  Another acronym that took my interest is the one shown as 'GMI'.  What does that stand for?

Hurolura:  The GMI is something quite new based on one DSP.  The concept is to provide a cartridge with one of XITE-1 big DSP inside to run one or more Scope plug-ins on some MIDI keyboard or control devices providing compatible interface.  GMI stands for General Music Interface.  The idea is to set a new hardware standard for expansion boards available on some MIDI control keyboards just like what is/was available in CME, ESI, ICON keyboards to be compatible with Waldorf Nano or Use Audio ASX but with some more advanced features regarding the /IO for example. Sonic Core will provide one GMI card with one SHARC at its heart but anybody else would also be able to provide similar solution.

 

     

Dante:  So in effect we could have General Music Interface devices controlled by the Musical Instrument Digital Interface !

Hurolura:  That's one way of putting it.  The good point is that any plug-in designed for Scope 6 would be possible to be implemented in such a GMI card by using the SDK 6. This means it would be possible to get a plug-in made available for the masses at an entry level cost.  There is also no official release date for that one.  By the way it wouldn't be of any use if there is no compatible equipment to plug this cartridge into but the Sonic Core team spent quite some time away from their own booth having discussions with other companies.

 

Hurolura and Dante March 2012