TC Powercore

Review by Glen Clark, AbstractFriends.com

The Powercore has been around in PCI card form for what seems like an age, last year the Firewire version was released so it seems opportune to have a look at what the Powercore can do.

The Hardware

As stated before the PCI version, has been around for a long time, it is a passively cooled, full length PCI card. The FW version is a 1U rackmount system which connects with a standard 6 pin FW cable supplied with the unit. Have a look here: http://www.tcelectronic.com/PowerCoreComparison for details of the processors and RAM involved in each box. I have been asked many a time “is the FW version really 50% more powerful?” Well, I can’t answer that, but it certainly appears that you can load a good deal more plugs into memory, and the FW version has enough DSP power to run everything you can load. I guess that is a guarded “Probably”.

The FW box itself is fairly simple – an on off switch at the front and three lights, a power light, an error light and a big Powercore symbol that pulsates in an attractive manner until a plug-in is loaded. It goes out if there is an error such as a crash. The error light only comes on, according to the manual, if there is a hardware fault. On the back is a power socket and three FW 400 sockets, one in and two out for chaining of devices.

You will see a third type on the chart referred to above – the Powercore Element. This is exactly the same as the traditional PCI version, but does not come with Master X3 included. At the moment there is a special offer Virus Powercore bundle, but I cannot be sure that the offer will last until the time you read this.

Drivers are currently at version 1.9, only just released. Because I never bother with beta versions and the full version has only been out for a few days, I have not tested them yet, so my comments are based on version 1.8. Drivers are available for Mac OS X 10.2 or higher on a G3, G4 or G5 and Windows XP running on at least a Pentium III 500MHz. The FW connection is 400 Mbit and the PCI needs a 3.3 Volt bus. You need 256 MB of RAM in either case and a VST or AU compatible host – there is no DXi version.

The Plug-ins

The full set of plug-ins is as follows:

EQ Sat Custom
Voice Strip
Vintage CL
24/7 C Limiting Amplifier
Master X3 (not with element)
Mega Reverb
Classicverb
Chorus/Delay
Tubifex
Powercore 01

There are a raft of additional processors, the current list is here: http://www.tcelectronic.com/default.asp?id=2560 which range from simple enhancements to the standard set e.g. Master X5, to soft synths, filter banks, restoration tools etc. It is a tremendous and ever expanding set of plug-ins. The new user will only really think about the package at first so the review will focus on those things you get in the box.

EQ Sat Custom – a stereo EQ (unsurprisingly) with high and low shelves and three other bands. It has a soft saturation system which is supposed to generate analogue warmth. It is okay in my opinion and pretty easy to use, but doesn’t have the same feel as the UAD-1 EQs such as the Pultec. Based on the algorithms in the TC Finalizer hardware box.

Voice Strip – what it says on the tin – a voice channel, but obviously with no pre-amp. It is stereo and has compressor, de-esser, EQ and gate. It is workmanlike and the soft saturation function is included here also.

Vintage CL – they are a bit confused on the name here, it is called Powercore CL sometimes and Vintage CL other times. It is a stereo compressor and limiter, again reasonably workmanlike and works fine, again the soft saturation function is included.

24/7 C Limiting Amplifier – looks kind of like a Urei 1176, but is not overtly named such, probably because the UAD-1 version is. Nice bit of programming, closely follows the original including 4 button mode, but is stereo of course. It is good quality and works well.

Master X3 – I am going to rave about this one, it is a three band mastering tool based on the Finalizer algorithms again. Highly tweakable and an excellent piece of kit in my opinion. Definitely one of the good plug-ins, sad that you don’t get it with the Element version.

Mega Reverb – A room emulator style of stereo reverb processor based on core 1 and 2 algorithms of the TC M5000. Pretty good, but a little fiddly to work because it is so tweakable. I found it a bit tricky to get the sound I wanted, but haven’t found anything that could not be achieved given a bit of thought.

Classicverb – rave time again. This is great, fire it up, drop down a preset and sit there and grin as it does its stuff. Brilliantly simple to work, very nice sound, the absolute best of the best when it comes to non-convolving reverb plug-ins. I would pay the money for this and the Master X3 alone.

Chorus/Delay – bit of a let down after the reverbs, it does not tempo synch by itself, which is understandable, but a pain, but it is still functional and does the job of chorus and modulation at the same time, plus can do conventional slap-back and echo. It is stereo and based on the TC Electronic 1210 Spatial Expander.

Tubifex – Fairly new to the set and is a reasonably nice tube amplifier emulation.

Powercore 01 – a single oscillator virtual analogue monosynth. Not bad, but I confess to being a hardware freak with synths, so have not used it that much.

All in all a pretty good roundup and basic set of plug-ins in the box.

So – What About Using It?

My tests are based on the FW version running via a PCI four port FW card, in my Pentium IV 2.67 GHz machine, 1GB RAM, running Windows XP home. Applications used – Steinberg Cubase SX2.02 and Sonar 3.11 using the VST Adapter version 4.4. Soundcard is an RME HDSP 9652.

Installation was relatively simple – plug in the wallwart power supply, install the drivers and then plug in the FW connection. Windows XP then installed the hardware. It seems to be becoming more usual these days for this to be the order of things – install the drivers THEN plug in, whatever, it worked fine for me. It should be noted that I originally started off with version 1.4 drivers (I think – it was some time ago) updating is not always as straightforward as it might be. When I moved up from 1.76 to 1.8 I had terrible trouble, it kept ignoring the system update, but did update the plug-ins. I had to uninstall the box in its entirety in device manager, then reinstall and it got it right. Tech support is pretty fast though and gave me the correct versions list so that I could check that all had gone correctly.

I have already said what I think of the plug-ins above, in broad terms, so won’t go into that here again. The system itself is almost invisible to the user, as it should be, there is a control panel which tells you how much of your resources are being used by the four chips on board plus an information panel telling you about the system and enabling you to save info to send to tech support for example, in the case of an issue. In addition to this there are a couple of settings you can change. There is a setting that lets you tweak the buffers up to more than one, it should not be necessary if using a pro-quality soundcard, but may be required if you use a gaming type of card. The other is the resource allocation method, which has two values ‘standard’ and ‘alternative’. Standard allocates to the next available processor, alternative starts at processor 1 each time and loads to that if there is space. The manual suggests alternative if you are running at 96 KHz processing – all the basic plug-ins support up to 96 KHz. There are two buttons – ‘reset’ (which soft boots the unit) and ‘save information’ mentioned above. Apparently there is a plan for a hardware reset button, but I would have thought the on off switch would suffice, mine has never crashed entirely.

So other than that you load the plugs in the normal way in your host application, both mine (VST and wrapped DXi) work equally well. Latency is handled by the host on both of mine, but there is a utility plug-in called Compensator for those hosts which do not support full path delay compensation, you do have to manually manage it though, which can be a pain. Note that the Cakewalk VST adapter supports full path PDC in versions 4.4 and above, plus Direct IXer supports it in version 2.5 and above. To test this out I chained 8 plug-ins together and looped it back – it was no more than 2ms out, which is probably the digtal-analogue and then analogue-digital conversion it had to go through. Pretty good I reckon.

What about DXi then? TC says that it does not support the use of Powercore specifically using VSTs under a DX wrapper. However, I have had no problems at all, just bear in mind that it is another support hurdle to get over if you get issues.

There is a no latency mode, which you access by clicking on the Powercore logo on each plug-in control panel screen. It absolutely hogs the PC processor though because the data is transmitted in real time, rather than buffered and I could not run more than a couple of plugs at once using it. I certainly would not trust it as a live box – hardware for that only, I think.

What happens if you get really plug-in happy and try to load too many – well, it loads the plug with a disabled icon on it so it doesn’t work. One point to note here, it is unlikely to happen to you unless using your Powercore to the limit, but it is possible to load a lot of plugs, then save the project, close and reopen and find that the same set of plugs will not load again. This is due to the simplicity of the allocation method. It loads (obviously) in the order you ask it to first time round, but in the order the application asks when you reopen. The orders are almost certain to be different, which can mean you end up in a situation where there is no room for that last instance of Mega Reverb. I won’t go into the depth of this, but just be careful. If you get into this situation, not all apps can get them back – some have a means where it remembers plug-ins and settings even if the plug-ins cannot be loaded, but not all do.

I have found the buffer settings of my soundcard are important because if the buffer is not large enough I keep getting “Powercore has lost synch” messages. It happens at 64 and 128 samples on mine, but virtually entirely disappears at 256 samples, so that is what I use. There is no obvious reason for this, it should not happen, TC says the Powercore should run at 64 (although the manual says minimum of 128) but mine just won’t have it. Fortunately, a lost synch message is not disastrous, and is easily fixed.

Finally, CPU usage is very very light indeed using the Powercore, there have been driver releases which have not been so good for this, but I have found 1.8 to be fine. Be aware though that CPU usage is not the be all and end all. Tasks that you used to find fast WILL get possibly get slower!! Why? Well because to use the Powercore on non-realtime points, such as a complete mix down, can be slower than just using a higher percentage of your CPU. The data transfer to and from the PCI or Firewire busses (the data coming in and out of the host application) slows the overall PC down. I have many instances where heavily laden DSP cards cause non-realtime processes to run SLOWER than realtime. Yes, a 3 minute track takes longer to mix down than it does to play. Weird, but true. The longest I got to was 108% of real time. You can get around this, by looping back and recording ‘live’ or using a plug-in like Tape-it, but I am happy to wait.

So should you?

The negatives are not as big here as they may first appear. For about £1,000 (much much less for the PCI variants) you get a quality reverb processor and mastering processor, which would cost you many times that for hardware. It is seamlessly integrated into your PC. To me, yes I would. Married with a UAD-1 card, with which mine works happily, you have a formidable set of plug-ins that you can use to your heart’s content. Try one before you buy if you can, PCs are notorious as we all know, but for my money it’s a good buy.

Glen Clark bio

I am 36 based in Cambridge and whilst I have always been a music lover, came to recording and performing quite late in life. I have appeared on stage in a variety of amateur productions and over a period of time have assembled a respectable, if small, studio set up and have learned the basics of recording and production. In the process I have had my fair share of technical mishaps which have been a valuable learning experience.

I play the piano and keyboards (badly) and do vocals of varying kinds, which is how I started as a performer on stage. Now I write and compose my own songs as well as assisting others in setting up their recording set ups.

You can write to me about anything on my reviews at glen@abstractfriends.com I am happy to take questions on them and happy to discuss and advise on any aspect of recording. Visit my website www.abstractfriends.com under the "services" heading for more info and for more details about my small studio set-up.