The Virus TI2 desktop made me sell all my synths

The Lounge Other Gear
#597

Incidentally, multi mode is powerful especially the 1st 16 as they save full copies of presets rather than references to them, but the Sequencer mode is where it’s at imo. It’s a 16 channel hardwired Multi mode designed to be sent Volume, Pan and bank/program changes from a Sequencer. It doesn’t have any multi presets to deal with, and so as long as your DAW/Sequencer is good for sending the info, it doesn’t require thinking about ever. The MPC works great with it. You press both Single and Multi buttons to enter it. You just use the part +/- buttons to navigate which channel you are editing.

Another thing to bear in mind when using it multitimbrally is that Odd number channels use 1 DSP processor and Even the other, so it’s worth bearing in mind if/when distributing complex/CPU heavy presets.

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#598

What do you mean by this? Can you explain further?

#599

The TI has 2 microprocessors which do all the processing, they are actually treated as individual processors so that channels 1,3,5,7 etc… are assigned to 1 processor and 2,4,6 etc are assigned to the other. So if you are using 2 CPU intensive presets using the complex oscillator modes and some presets using basic VA oscillators, you can get more out of it by putting one of the complex presets on an even channel and the other on an odd channel.

Incidentally the snow only has 1 processor so this doesn’t apply to it.

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#600

I didn’t know that… that’s an “interesting” way to distribute load. I wonder if it’s a common practice. This must have rather peculiar implications. What if you want to use the full polyphony on just one patch ? I guess it’s then limited to whatever one motorola can do.

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#601

It becomes clear why it doesn’t provide current polyphony information, it’s complicated and dynamic depending on what’s playing at any moment. All you get is an estimate of CPU usage per preset. There was information on how the various synth components/oscillators reduce usage, probably in the manual I guess.

I read all of this donkeys years, maybe even a decade ago so I’m no expert, but I’ve always kept it mind it using a few presets multitimbrally. I’ve never experienced any polyphony problems with a v1, I probably hardly ever use more than 5-6 channels at a time though. It’s pretty impressive & flexible how it works really and very generous with polyphony even by today’s standards. My Hydrasynth is fixed at just 8.

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#602

Very cool, I wasn’t sure what sequencer mode was, I’m still going between the manual and just randomly digging into the synth. I really am impressed at its sound much better than I expected. I’m excited to hook it up to the Octatrack and use it in multi-mode(or sequencer mode). Thanks for the tip about the even and odd patch numbers I imagine that will definitely come in handy once I really have the virus integrated into my studio, I’ve been playing with it mostly on the couch while I learn it. It’s too bad that the TI software isn’t compatible anymore, it would definitely make things easier, hopefully since it has such a strong fan base maybe someone will write something to take it’s place. Even without the software it’s a hell of a nice synth.

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#603

There is an alternative to the Virus TI plugin: it’s called Mystery Island Virus HC, and the newest version (currently in beta) is called Acces Virus Editor. I think it is very good!

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#604

See here for a comparison:
The guy bitches a bit about his connectivity over MIDI DIN, but I can truly say I never had any issues (I’m on Mac Monterey with proper MIDI infra)

#605

To be honest, the TI side has always been more stress than it’s worth, the first TI I had I ended up selling over absolute frustration with it glitching despite trying everything to solve it. You can now at least use the TI software and real audio outs which solves the glitching, but I’m pretty sure you couldn’t do that back then.

The second time around I bought it to use as hardware only and learned how to use it, the plugin does work pretty well for me these days except for the Arpeggiator on PC, I bought a pcie USB card that gave it dedicated reliable ports, but I still find it quicker and more enjoyable using the hardware interface rather than the mouse. Once you know it, it’s a well designed interface that’s quick to work with IMO. It’s shocking that it’s abandoned on the MAC though and they are still selling it new, I mean TI is literally the name of it. More important is access to the bank/preset management & utility software for burning banks to ROM. You will have to bootcamp windows I suppose.

#606

Actually, I think MIDI channel 1 spreads over the 2 processors. If I remember correctly, advice is to not use.

#607

I actually went for a look on the Access forum last night to see if I could find any info and found this, it implies that the v2 extra 25% processing power was gained by switching over to load balancing across both DSP rather than using the channel split approach. So perhaps my information only relates to the TI v1, I’ve never owned a v2. How grounded in truth any of this is I have no idea though :grinning:

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#608

Very interesting !

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#609

I was thinking to try Audiogridder to use the Virus Ti software, I have an old mac mini that should be perfect for the task.
I’m only interested in the Editor (not the audio or integration) so it may works just fine.

#610

Just realized yesterday that the Virus Control Center is not working anymore on my Mac. I could send patches to a RAM bank with SysEx Librarian. However, would be better to have something which also allows burning patches to ROM banks. Anybody aware of an alternative Software for that purpose?

#611

virusHC from mystery islands? I use it with virus C from my PC, maybe it works from mac? I dont think it lets you burn direct to ROM, but you can create RAM patches and then burn them via the virus itself.

#612

You can burn a bank from the hardware? Where’s that located?

#613

Wanted to ask the same thing. Never saw an option to store something on the ROM banks directly on the synth

#614

sorry my bad. I just checked. save lets you select a bank in the ROM but then errors.
Been a while since I used the virus :slight_smile:

#615

hitting system/multi edit button gives me this. I knew I had seen it somewhere.
Google Photos

Maybe the C is different from the TI for this.

#616

When I first pressed store, it did have bank Z selected but a message saying select a RAM Bank and as soon as I did, the ROM banks were not available for selection. I did write a bank to Z using the software not long ago so it’s maybe selected because of that. When I first saw it selected I got my hopes up for a second though!