German manufacturer CreamWare – best known for their Scope DSP cards and ASB tabletop synthesizers – was declared insolvent on December 18, 2006. Those of you who’ve been following the company for a few years will recall that they hit a similar rough patch in 2004, but re-emerged to release their acclaimed lineup of ASB hardware synthesizers, along with updates to their Scope DSP software.
Luckily, this cloud has a silver lining. The company’s assets have been acquired by two companies with considerable CreamWare experience: SonicCore and InDSP.
SonicCore is a German company run by former Scope developers Holger Drenkelfort and Juergen Kindermann who will continue to develop, support and market Scope DSP boards under the CreamWare name. Drenkelfort made the following statement on the PlanetZ forum this morning: “As we have been deeply involved from the beginning in the development of both SCOPE hard- and software, it’s a very special pleasure for us to provide ongoing support for these great products. Furthermore, we will continue the manufacturing and selling of SCOPE products and devices, as we believe that’s the least this platform deserves. You can be sure there will be some nice offerings to come in the future.”
It appears that rights to the hardware synthesizer technology have been acquired by InDSP, the India-based design company that developed the ASB gear. This arrangement seems ideal, since InDSP is helmed by former CreamWare exec Frank Hund. There’s no word on whether the current ASB lineup will remain in production, but I strongly suspect InDSP will be behind some shiny new hardware at the upcoming Frankfurt Musikmesse.
All in all, this should enable CreamWare technology to live on and flourish.