now you need a Cirklon
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Indeed and I just signed up for the Cirklon wait list again. I now have enough gear in my studio to justify a Cirklon.
Haha, yeah I use the Cirklon. But OT is definitely no slouch!
I like sampling a bunch of Virus drum hits and bass sounds with the OT and then mangle the samples and make a pattern with them and then using the midi tracks to play melodic parts, pads, etc.
Also, you can use multiple OT midi tracks to play one of the 16 multi timbral parts, so that adds options for building chords or having arps over chords, etc…
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Excellent idea! Yea I signed up again for Cirklon waiting list and another 2-3 year wait. Octatrack and Beststep Pro seem like best options in my studio to sequence and sample the mighty Virus once it arrives. For now, I’ve been learning my Rytm, JX-08, Digitone and SP 404 MK2. The new Elektron gear is super easy for me to learn coming from that workflow already on the OT and A4 but Roland synths drive me nuts on their quirky workflow and poor documentation.
Just played with my new Maschine+ and hooked up the Virus TI via USB and it was actually recognized by the Maschine!! That is sooo cool. I will try audio as well but that alone is just awesome.
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The MPC also works with USB midi, I think it’s class compliant, but the audio isn’t unfortunately.
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what exactly got recognized? the VST?
I’m hoping to create darkwave, trance, synthwave and aggro stuff like Funker Vogt and more on the Virus. Have an old MacBook with compatible OS and Windows PC ready to help use the virus plugin and preset librarian. I’ll sequence with my Octatrack and Beatstep Pro for now until I buy a Cirklon or Hapax sequencer.
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The funny thing is: The Virus IS class compliant, but not going there alone. You have to send some Data via USB to the Virus to turn it into class compliant MIDI mode.
Someone (a longer time ago) added those few bytes to the Linux Kernel, the part that is responsible for the USB handshake, so every time you connect the Virus to a Device that uses Linux as its Base, it gets switched into Compliant mode.
Seeing that the MPC and the Maschine+ are able to see the Virus as MIDI is a very good hint, that their OS is based on some kind of Linux.
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Ah sorry maybe that wasn’t very clear. It’s about the hardware synth.
The Virus USB MIDI/Audio is not USB class compliant.
So usually you would need to install drivers to use USB. And there is an issue that the original Access drivers do not work on newer macOS versions. (Has been fixed with a driver from the Mystery Islands Editor)
So I was really astonished to see that I could just plugin my Virus TI61 into the Maschine+ via USB and use it as a midi keyboard as well as play the synth from the Maschine+ I did not expect that to work.
Next out of curiosity I will try is if also the Audio interface from the TI can be used via USB. Was too tired yesterday. Only issue here is that in the Maschine+ you cannot select different audio interfaces for IN and OUT (like with e.g. Ableton Live) so I am not sure if that makes any sense at all.
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Yes exactly, that is why I thought… mhhhh… can the Maschine do that, too? It’s such a cool thing that they both do it.
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That is some very interesting facts, thank you! I read somewhere that the Virus works with Linux, now I understand why that is. I guess that is not a Sysex command you have to send but rather something proprietary?
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For the first year I had the MPC I was just using the TI DIN Midi ports, I had tried USB initially but it didn’t work & I didn’t really expect it to. I then saw on the MPC thread on this forum that it actually worked & so tried again & it did to my surprise.
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Hi all,
I am contemplating swapping my DSI Rev2 for a Virus TI2.
The main reason for this is to use the the virus as an external effects unit for a P12, as well picking up the normal synth duties the rev2’s been doing.
I have a couple of questions, that hopefully someone here may be able to help with:
How good are the Virus’ effects and can they be used very creatively i.e., combined and used creatively to make brand new sounds from the source?
Secondly, the rev2 excels at noisy, woozy and organic sounding pads (think boards of Canada, autechre kind of thing) - does anyone have any links to examples of these kind of sounds made on the virus?
Virus fx are awesome, I run all my synths through it.
I really like the distortions and it’s probably my favourite phaser
Lots of midi CC control, decent mod matrix and compex macro possibilities
It can make a basic mono synth sound like a virus
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The FX are 1st class.
In terms of sounds, if you have a fairly decent computer you can try out the virus C for yourself with the Emulator. The TI is basically a C with lots of stuff added to it. From what I’ve seen it has many of the effects too & an FX plug-in. I haven’t got around to trying it out myself yet.
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I’m surprised by this - you were active in a few Virus threads that specifically address this issue before you bought it.
I think the answer is in your question: Kemper has moved on to modeling amps and continues to sell a frozen-in-time Virus product because people keep buying them. The Virus works very well as a standalone piece of multitimbral hardware. The Mystery Island editor does patch management well and a decent job of integrating the Virus back into your DAW.
In 2022, computers are vastly more powerful than they were 15 years ago. You can run as many instances of Massive or Pigments in your DAW as you want. If you seriously want to engage a law firm for an international lawsuit (assuming you aren’t in Germany) then you are probably looking at a retainer that will buy you ten new TI2 keyboards. And that’s just to kick off the lawsuit.
Edit, a bit of empathy: I’m also annoyed by the lack of ongoing TI support, but the pleasure I get from using the Virus as a standalone synth vastly exceeds my annoyance. I suggest that if you want to maximize your happiness you should use the Virus standalone first and not plug it into a computer for a few weeks.
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Devil’s Advocate:
The price I pay for Roland’s support of my Jupiter Xm is $99 / year for Roland Cloud Pro membership. I paid $50 for an iPad editor for the Virus last year and $50 for Mystery Island this year. Kemper isn’t doing anything for me via social media, but they also aren’t emptying my wallet via a SAAS subscription. 
(to be clear, I’m happy with both the Xm and the TI1. Neither is a perfect product, but I’m not listing either for sale and certainly not at fire-sale prices if I did!)
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Gotcha well the good news is that even very old Virus synthesizers are selling for quite a bit still so even if I went past 30 days and wanted to sell mine then can recoup costs pretty easily. Just my silly rant and nothing against the synth just wish Kemper came clean but just wishful thinking in my book. If I was a synth designer of a top notch product then I would have the integrity and moral stance to at least throw a bone to the owners and fans of the hardware! Depeche Mode used Virus a lot but seems like they all went to Roland synths in recent shows.
Most synthesizers do not get firmware or software fixes beyond a few years and will usually continue selling new until supplies run out in stores or they run out of the ability to make them.
It’s abnormal for a 10+ year product to still be getting updates.
That said you knew the limitations before buying so you knew what you were getting into.
I could understand griping from people who bought before it became incompatible with Macs but not people buying it now.
It also still works on Windows.
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