TC Works: TC PowerCore DSP card

What a luxury TC Works, a TC Electronic sister company, has bestowed us native platform users. TC Works introduced the PowerCore several years ago and if you haven't had a chance experience the power of DSP powered plug-ins, then a new world of sonic textures awaits. I really didn't know what I had been missing until I loaded the PowerCore into my Nuendo system. I was absolutely floored buy it's luscious, 3- dimensional character. Try getting a 16-second reverb tail out of a host-based plug-in and I'll guarantee you'll be eating up a third or more of your CPU's resources, depending on your CPU configuration. This card will work up to 24-bit 96 kHz, and it has an onboard Motorola PowerPC CPU and 4 Motorola DSPs, which are the same DSPs that are used by another infamous DAW manufacturer, meaning the same codes other software manufactures write for one could be written for PowerCore. The card will work on any VST or MAS compatible software application, both Mac and PC. The package comes complete with a suite of software including TC Megaverb, TC Chorus/Delay, TC EQ, PowerCore 01 Voicestrip, PowerCore CL, EQ Sat and TC Compensator. In the last month TC has released, free to registered owners, ClassicVerb and 24/7 a new limiter. Whoa stop the presses, TC has again announced that it is offering Master X3, the virtual Finalizer, with the core system. This is a $249 value that was offered with v1.5, so now there really is no excuse not to have two or three of these, and at a list price of $1299, with a street price hovering between 9 and 11, It's approximately the same price as one good digital processor with a lot more flexibility. The third party developers are Sony Professional, D-sound, and Waldorf for now, with more signing on as we speak. I got the pleasure of trying out the Sony Professional's, Oxford EQ. This is the same EQs from the famed Sony OXF-R3 (Oxford) console. Last month John Baccigaluppi gave an in depth review of the TDM version of this plug-in so I'll try not to reinvent the wheel. These are 5-band, fully parametric EQs that can be used with or with out hi/lo pass filters. They have the ability to either cut like a butter knife or slice with surgical precision, all the while maintaining phase integrity. The EQ has 4 different algorithm types that are employed to create a broad pallet of sonic sculpting tools. The load to the PowerCore will depend on sample rate used, but at 44.1kHz the load was approximately 31% of 1 DSP. This means you could have 12 instances of Oxford EQ per card. The GUI is very intelligently laid out and can be manipulated by dragging with your mouse or by simply by point and click. If you own a PowerCore now, just go to www.sonyplugins.com and download a free 7-day demo copy and see for yourself how long you live without it. The next offering from Sony Professional will be the Oxford Inflator, which is a loudness maximizing program currently available now for TDM and soon for the PowerCore. TC Works themselves have just released Assimilator, a Plug-In that analyses the EQ curve of any given audio material at very high resolution and lets you transfer the curve to your own material. I can't wait to see what they come up with next. ($1299, www.tcworks.de)