Muse Releases Receptor 2

[fusilierb]

This Thursday at 4PM I'm going to Muse Research headquarters to get a demo.

Turns out they are at Digital Annex Studios (used to be Music Annex) in Menlo Park. I recorded there in my community college days in the late 70s and my wife has done a lot of voice over work for games there in the past.

A full report will follow.

BTW: Spectrasonics and Komplete 7 are supposed to be working well on Receptor. Play, unfortunately won't be running on it.

Cheers!

Mazz

What's the deal with Play? Not working now or never?

[mazz]

Per the guy I spoke to, the ball is in EW's court and according to him, they are too busy to finish the process. Apparently they are close to getting it done, but it's up to EW to finish it.

Don't hold your breath, in other words.

[mojobone]

Muse's problem, in a nutshell; until the user base can't be ignored, they will be. I still love the concept.

[Dwayne Russell]

Im not having any problems with the one I built.

[mazz]

Just got back from a nice couple of hours at Muse Research in Menlo Park, CA. It's a bout a half hour drive from my house, longer coming home because of heavy traffic on 101.

The main sales guy Bryan, who is in the videos on their website, did a nice thorough presentation and showed the capabilities of the Receptor nicely.

Basically they can do what they do with a seemingly lesser powered machine because it runs in Linux and it uses many fewer CPU cycles and much much less RAM than a regular PC. PCs pretty much need much more effort and hardware to get the same performance results because of all the stuff that runs in the background, even on a stripped down system.

The Receptor is designed primarily for live performance in that the design mandate is for as close to zero downtime as possible and also wicked fast response to MIDI (very low latency) quick patch changing and some nice ways to set up splits and layers really quickly. They also have 3 insert effects per channel and 2 send effects as well. These effect setups can be any plug in that you have on your system.

Lots of composers have also bought Receptors. For me, some attractive features are the Uniwire (Ethernet), very fast loading of large templates, easy to navigate OS and setup, the ability to hook a VGA monitor and mouse and keyboard up to do editing, or run the setup app remotely over the network, bulletproof OS (no Bill Gates or Steve Jobs ghosts in the machine here!).

He loaded up about 10 channels of VIs, everything from Kontakt to Omnisphere, Stylus, FM8, Lounge Lizard, etc. It didn't choke, the stuff loaded quickly and at no time did it crash. The only time there was an issue was trying to load up Alchemy, but that was because it wasn't authorized yet on the demo system.

Also, they will load and authorize all your software, no need to send it to them, they have it all there. They have tech support!

I'm seriously considering getting one because I could load up LASS and my other string and brass libraries that run in Kontakt and basically run with no downtime, viruses, headaches. It would boot up quickly, I could set up a template with basically the entire LASS library in banks with keyswitches/program changes and be ready to rock. Getting lots of music out the door quickly is one of my goals and this would facilitate that. Plus when that big film/game scoring gig comes along, there will be no stress in the gear department. James Newton Howard just bought a few so that's a good endorsement right there. Also they don't give away any units to endorsees, everyone who owns one has bought one, even Herbie Hancock!

All in all a worthwhile field trip!

If you buy one directly from them, tell them I sent you!

[matto]

Thanks for the report John. I'm seriously considering this. For a mobile system, paired with a good current laptop, I think this would be pretty amazing...then when you return home all you do is plug it back into your main system and bam, you're ready to roll...

Since it's built for touring it should take to moving around a lot without complaining...

[mazz]

Apparently Cirque du Soleil is using one in Saudi Arabia or Abu Dabi or somewhere like that. It's 120 deg F in the shade and the Receptor is still cranking out the jams!!

Also, Receptor 0s are just now coming in for trade in. Apparently Roger Waters just sent his original Receptors in to trade up to version 2 for the next tour.

I think it's a good thing for what you are wanting to do as well.

Cheers!

Mazz

[mazz]

Just an update on this:

I ordered a Receptor 2 Pro and they upgraded me to a 1G drive and are loading several of my libraries as we speak, including LASS, Omnisphere, Stylus RMX, Trillian, Alchemy, SAM Brass, etc.

I will pick it up on November 11th and will be incorporating it into my setup in my new studio location. I'll post a more detailed review once I get it fully integrated into my setup.

I waffled on this for a while and decided to take the tax deduction this year.

Part of my decision was based on the fact that I can have my go to strings and brass fully loaded and ready at all times with no strain on my main or any other of my computers. Also the fact that the Receptors seem to have more longevity than your average computer helped make my decision. And to that point, I feel like by taking some of the strain of running a lot of VIs off of my main DAW machine, I've effectively added some years to it's useful life, since processing audio isn't nearly as stressful on a computer as running VIs and audio at the same time.

I hope I'm right!

Cheers!

Mazz