New Receptor - Total Workstation Rack
… And I’m semi-interested. But first things first - have you heard of Receptor? It’s a box made by Muse loaded with plug-ins, sort of a hardware plug-in deal. I’ve kept an eye on it since I heard about it the very first time. Since then things have happened and you can get pretty cool workstations with it.
The Total Workstation Rack features all of IK Multimedias “Powered by Sampletank” instruments which at the moment are
- SampleTank 2.5 XL
- Miroslav Philharmonik
- Sonik Synth 2
- SampleMoog
- SampleTron
According to IK, 27 GB of Data on a 160 GB drive meaning room for expansion. Now I don’t know if this version would be my choice, but I’m semi-interested in the Receptor solutions because I’m looking at workstations and romplers at the moment. There are a few things that makes me hold on to my money though:
- It’s a lot of money! (around $2K) The plug-in developers can say what they want, that you save this and that much on it, but we’re still looking at money that could buy me something really nice from Korg, Roland or Yamaha.
- Hardware workstations have knobs, sliders, pads, touch screens etc. etc. for control. As far as I understand the Receptor has controls (which is a great move by Muse) but they’re few meaning that one will probably end up working a lot on the screen which is what I want to try to avoid.
- I wonder about stability. Some plug-ins available have problems when run on a computer, is it any different on the Receptor?
I still haven’t seen one in action, and if Muse would demo one for me I would definitely give it a look.
I had the first version and frankly it sucked. Now there is every possibility that these new versions actually work but if you have to go through the same nightmare where you have to use their ‘ported’ plugs and don’t even have the right to remove stuff for the HD you’re not using, you’d be better off with another PC instead of one of these.
By RAW ~ June 29, 2008 kl 5:47 pm
Thanks, that’s actually very helpful. Did you find it unstable?
By stiff ~ June 30, 2008 kl 3:35 am
I’ve had the Pro version for a little over a year, I’ve been very happy with it. You could probably build a PC for cheaper, but I hate Windows. I do a lot of arranging & it’s been a life saver for me. Plugins that would bring my G5 dual 2.5 to it’s knees, this thing handles without a hiccup. The only time I might get an occasional glitch is when I’m trying to run 16 different instruments at once. Now with the direct install option, should open up the possibilities of even more usable VST plugins.
By dtmpro ~ June 30, 2008 kl 9:22 am
Stiff - Yes it was unstable.
dtmpro - well there you go. I guess the newer version is better. Do you still have to go to “Plugorama” and download the receptor ported versions? Or can you now actually load in any VST you’d buy normally for a computer?
By RAW ~ July 1, 2008 kl 10:50 am
I think as soon as the V-Rack and V-Box come out, who will want to buy this at a higher cost, with the bitch work of having to do that stupid Plugorama crap?
http://www.sonicstate.com/news/shownews.cfm?newsid=6253
Looks better and better….
By Marshall ~ July 2, 2008 kl 12:43 am
Had almost forgot about those! But yeah, they look good. We’ll have to wait until they’re released to find out about stability though.
By stiff ~ July 2, 2008 kl 2:29 am