virus c vs snow ?

[acc]

Hello,

i am about to buy my first hardware synth,
and it should be definately a virus.
I like the sound ,fx and filters of the virus c.
Now i read, that access has a new one named snow.

Is there any difference in filters, fx, compared to the c ?
In comparisionchart (http://www.access-music.de/comparisonchart.php4)
are only the "older" models.

I know the snow have a hypersaw, and its "total integration" - feature.
Also in the beginning areas there where some problems with the "ti" feature.

Do the snow still needs "bouncing" ?
Do the snow produce the same like the "c", when its the same preset,
also for its fx and filters ?

My question is now, what should i buy ?
I mean, for its my first hardware synth, i would love the much knobs on the "c", but for some kind i would stick to snow, for easier integration, save presets, handling and automations in the sequencer.

I dont know what to do, when the snow might produce the same like "c" in sound fx, and Filters, i would stick to snow.
Please anybody could direct me to the right model ?
oh and i would use it with FLstudio.
Thanks in advantage
acc

[Arndt]

I had to make the same decision some weeks ago, and I've got a Virus B at the end, compared it to the C and the Snow, also checked the TI. I would recommend the C, which is very similar to the B. The newer models have got some more features, voices etc, but are totally overpriced and, soundwise, not that much better than their predecessors. The original and sexy Virus-sound can be achieved very well with B or C.
Also the 'Total Integration' thing on the Snow seems to bring more trouble than fun. Many people spend their time fixing problems rather than creating good sound. So if I were you, I would get a C and wait another two years to consider the Snow or TI again.
I prefer to get a bit older models in good shape, which were top notch a few years ago, for a fraction of the money you have to spend for brandnew gear. Musically you won't get much advantages with the Snow or TI anyway. I can see that on the Virus B already: for me it's neither necessary nor possible to use ALL features the B delivers to create some really tasteful sound.
By the way, for me the process of making music gets more complicated and slower, the more features and possibilities I have at hand. For me the B and C models are the perfect balance between functionality and simplicity, with no compromises soundwise. Ok, I have to admit, that I have a Roland V-Synth already (for Hypersaw and such), which is a monster, but apart from that the very special character of the Virus stands for it's own, and I could do it without the V-Synth.

Good look, and have fun
Cheers
Arndt

[acc]

Hi Arndt, thanks for your words, i think i will stick to the "C".

[Onkel Dunkel]

The main differences is that the Virus TI / Snow has following features that the C has not: Wavetables, hypersaw, total integration, atomizer and user editable arpegiator. Other than that they are very much the same. It´s mostly a question of polyphony i think... I have a C and it´s great. Only thing i needed from the TI was the wavetables and the atomizer but for wavetables i use my Waldorf Blofeld and for Glitchy effects like the atomizer i use Dblue Glitch (great freeware VST)...

[AlexHall74]

Nice comparisons between the Snow and Ti Snow. I have not heard a Ti in person, but I have checked out some demos of it on YouTube (from KeyboardWizard) and in all honestly, most of it sounds like a Virus C to me, but there are certainly a few of the presets tha were deomstrated where I thought to myself "I don't think I've heard my KC do THAT before."

Arndt's statement about getting the most value out of the B, C series is valid to me, as at some point the law of diminshing returns sets in on every well developed product or service, and the extra money associated with the cost of the latest-greatest model is more spent on marketing/hype than worthwhile functionality.

Sure I'd love to have a Ti for the features it has over the C series; but I also like having a little cash around too. I bought my Virus KC as a new scratch & dent and I have yet to find anything wrong with it. I recently bought a Motif ES Rack for around $700/shipping included on eBAY in perfect condition. Used is not a bad thing if you shop around.

:)

-Alex

[marc]

arndt,

i won't attempt to change your opinion on total integration even though it kind of saddens me when people state it doesn't work even though it does for the most of us.

you say that the TI range is overpriced. well, if you compare the TI to a second hand model you might get this impression but since the TI essentially costs the same like the C did (when you remove compensation for inflation and currency exchange) i don't understand where you're coming from.

i have my own opinion on what i would get but since i'm working for Access i leave you guys to this discussion. all i can say is that i'm personally tired of the sound of pure Virtual Analogue so i spend much more time using the new oscillators in the Snow than the old ones.

best, marc

[AlexHall74]

arndt,

i won't attempt to change your opinion on total integration even though it kind of saddens me when people state it doesn't work even though it does for the most of us.

you say that the TI range is overpriced. well, if you compare the TI to a second hand model you might get this impression but since the TI essentially costs the same like the C did (when you remove compensation for inflation and currency exchange) i don't understand where you're coming from.

i have my own opinion on what i would get but since i'm working for Access i leave you guys to this discussion. all i can say is that i'm personally tired of the sound of pure Virtual Analogue so i spend much more time using the new oscillators in the Snow than the old ones.

best, marc
Hey Marc,

Adjusting for inflation and currency exchange when doing synth price comparisons is certainly a sound thing to consider doing, especially considering the U.S. dollar's poor performane in the past few years. Dollar for dollar a Virus gives you more functionality and better sound than any synth I have ever played, hands down.

There is also one BIG risk in buying used: The synth stops working shortly after you buy it. This happened to our own Digital Screams after buying a DX7 mkii a year or so ago, at a pretty penny too if I remember correctly.

Also, it is important to be able to differentiate when something does not work, VS, when it is a new piece of gear that the owner does not know how to work yet. Frustration is quick to manifest, and patience slow to prevail.

:)

[Arndt]

I'm sorry, Marc, I didn't want to hurt anybody's feeling about the Virus generally and especially the TI or Snow, which are without any doubt excellent instruments. But when I look at the pricetags, I do that in an absolute rather than relative way. About 1,7K Euros for the TI Desktop and more than 1K for the Snow is a lot of money for me to spend for a synthesizer, although I'm living in Germany, the country where these instruments are produced. People in US and other countries with somewhat weak currencies (against Euro) are having an even harder time to decide to get one.

So, when I'm considering an instrument, I have to take a good look at it, compare it to alternatives, and decide at the end, which one delivers the most 'bang for the buck'. Then I have to compare it to what my bank account delivers. Everybody knows that, everybody does it this way, except for those running a multimillion $ studio in LA, where some thousands more or less are nothing.

Apart from the money, in my ears, there's isn't that big difference between the TI range and the older C or B model soundwise, in my opinion. So I just couldn't justify to pay that much for a TI or Snow at the moment. Also, the B/C-engine works very well for me, so no need for TI right now.

Regarding 'Total Integration' it's just my experience and the fact, that a lot of people are complaining about it. And yes, I know, that, on the other hand, all those thousands of satisfied TI- and Snow users don't make a buzz usually.

But let me tell you this: I've been testing the Snow and the TI Desktop (both connected to a Polar and a PC) at a very big store here in Germany. The guy in the shop told me, that they had continueing trouble to get things to work with Virus Control and a DAW, and actually it took quite a while to set things up. Then, when I played, some strange sounds occured from time to time when switching between presets and sometimes when just playing a preset. Then, shortly before I was through with my test run, the Polar produced something that I would call 'MIDI salad'. It wasn't possible anymore to just play single notes or chords, the Polar instead decided to play lots of chaotic notes of it's own gusto - we had to switch it off and on again to stop that frightening cacophony. It was already disconnected from the PC then and just MIDIed to the Snow.

So, as I said, it's just what I've heard and what I've seen, and at the moment it's just too much money for the possibillity to get some technical trouble with the unit. But for sure most of the units work allright, and for me the TI range will be worth to be considered again, and I will keep an eye on it, because these instruments are very special and inspiring. At the moment I'm very happy with my Virus B - until my next acute GAS attack :-)

Best Regards to all
Arndt

[marc]

But let me tell you this: I've been testing the Snow and the TI Desktop (both connected to a Polar and a PC) at a very big store here in Germany. The guy in the shop told me, that they had continueing trouble to get things to work with Virus Control and a DAW, and actually it took quite a while to set things up. Then, when I played, some strange sounds occured from time to time when switching between presets and sometimes when just playing a preset. Then, shortly before I was through with my test run, the Polar produced something that I would call 'MIDI salad'. It wasn't possible anymore to just play single notes or chords, the Polar instead decided to play lots of chaotic notes of it's own gusto - we had to switch it off and on again to stop that frightening cacophony. It was already disconnected from the PC then and just MIDIed to the Snow.

hi arndt,

do you really think we would ship a product which still has those basic problems after so many software maintenance and feature updates? i don't want to say that our software has no bugs. it certainly has, it is software after all... but i think if those basic things would not work we wouldn't be in business anymore - it least not in the business of Total Integration.

let us know which store it is, i'll send somebody by to fix their installation. this type of bad advertisement is counterproductive for everybody.

best, marc

[Doc Jones]

just read this thread and i have to agree with Marc. I have had a TI since the very early days (mine was a preorder) and yeah there were indeed some problems with it initially - some serious. But i can say without hesitation that this this is rock solid now and has been for quite some time.

[AlexHall74]

marc wrote:

"let us know which store it is, i'll send somebody by to fix their installation. this type of bad advertisement is counterproductive for everybody.

best, marc"

Now that's a great example of Access's awesome technical support, no doubt the best in the industry! Who else has added new functionality (Thank you for the Moog filters!) to discontinued product lines other than Access? I can't think of another manufacturer that has.

I've asked about a dozen questions of the Access technical support staff over the past 4 years and always been given a useful/accurate answer in a reasonable amount of time, usually a day or so (I'm in EST time zone, whcih is GMT +7 Hrs. I think).

Yamaha's tech support is also good, but not nearly as fast as Access, in my own experience, probably twice as many questions to them (half of them pre-sales, half "actual" technical support) and the average turn around time is 3-4 days for them, maybe longer.

Although I love Mackie products to death, their e-mail tech support is non-existent. But, if you call and navigate through their AVRS then you do get a helpful, live person, which I appreciate in its own right.

Clavia's tech support is very lacking in my recent experience. No returns on e-mail, and I did not receive a reply from their forum when I tried to register to ask a few questions about my recently purchased NL2. Maybe they respond to their NordWave customers, who knows. BTW, The forums at electromusic.com are AWESOME (thank you Wout and Blue Hell!) and if you ever buy a Clavia product then definitely go there.

THANK YOU ACCESS TECH SUPPORT!!!

[myfilthyheart]

being new to synths, and in the market for a virus... im curious which would better suit me. a C desktop, or a snow. im a pretty big fan of this TI business.... from what ive seen (my obsession with software runs deep)... but the lack of knobs on the snow worries me..,, i think, being new, id be better off with more knobs... does the TI aspect make up for the lack of on-board knobs and buttons? or would the C be better? obviously the TI desktop would be my best bet but... its a little over my budget

basically my main concern is which one would be easier to use overall..

[Arndt]

Hi Marc,
on Saturday I was there at the store again to get some Guitar gear, I'm Guitarist mainly. Regarding to this discussion I took some ten minutes to check the Virus setup again, and this time I didn't experienced any problems (except for occasional very short noises from unknown source). I asked the same guy as before, and he told me, that they successfully exchanged the MIDI-hub and cables, they used earlier. I was wondering, how the MIDI setup could produce such specific problems, but obviously it disappeared then. Maybe the fact, that some other gear had been connected to the hub before may have caused conflicts.

And yes, the Snow delivers some wonderful sound, although it is definitely too expensive for me at the moment. If I hadn't been able to get a Virus B in best condition, and if there wasn't a market for used Viruses generally, I probably would go for a new Virus rather than something else.

Regards
Arndt

[acc]

Hello all,

thanks for all your replies.
Now i have bought an Virus C.
My Question is now, what do i need all for using it on my Audiophile 2496.
from the virus to the audiophile, do i need there an amp. in the middle ?

Thanks in advantage :)

[AlexHall74]

Hello all,

thanks for all your replies.
Now i have bought an Virus C.
My Question is now, what do i need all for using it on my Audiophile 2496.
from the virus to the audiophile, do i need there an amp. in the middle ?

Thanks in advantage :)
Someone correct me if I am wrong, but this is how I setup my DAW/Virus KC/2496 years ago:

To connect your Virus C to your M-Audiophile 2496 you need:

(1) At least 4 RCA->TRS cables (two for audio in (R/L), two for audio out (R/L)) like these:
http://cgi.ebay.com/6-6ft-COLOR-1-4-TS-RCA-Patch-Cable-6-GLS-Audio-37-350_W0QQitemZ220247267625QQihZ012QQcategoryZ41461QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZVi ewItem

(I bought some from this guy to connect my Delta 1010LT to my synths, they work great.)

(2) If you wish to send more than the audio output of the Virus C to your 2496, then you need a hardware mixer (2 bus or greater with an AUX bus to send the signal to the soundcard); and then you can route whatever is plugged into the mixer to the 2496 up to 2 tracks at a time. Check out the diagram below:

http://www.tweakheadz.com/images/nmodisetup.jpg

(3) You will need to route your audio from the mixer (regardless if it's from the PC/Mac sequencer or your Virus C) to a pair of nearfield monitor speakers. If you don't have nearfields you can use Hi-Fidelity speakers and your receiver (considering the 2496 does have RCA audio outs, this is easy to route) but be sure to set the receiver to a "FLAT" frequency response if you can, don't use any tricky DSP settings like "Concert Hall" or "Jazz Club."

(4) If you don't have a hardware mixer I guess you can connect the 2496 audio outputs directly to your nearfield monitors with the appropriate cables, but you will not have a physical volume control knob (unless you are using the receiver/HiFi speaker approach), you will have to adjust the volume from the sequencer, so be careful and don't blow your speakers.

:)

I think that's it.

-Alex

P.S. Here's a great article on possible different configurations of home recording rigs.

http://www.tweakheadz.com/rigs.htm

[acc]

Thank you AlexHall74 for your reply ! :)

[AlexHall74]

Thank you AlexHall74 for your reply ! :)
No problem, acc! Give me a shout if you have any issues wsith connectivity. Also, that Tweakheadz.com site is a GEM of knowledge. Check out "Tweak's Guide" as it is a series of very readable and informative articles on home recording.

Ciao,

-Alex

[Khazul]

Odd comment about about TI vs B/C not addingh much - erm the TI adds a vast new sonic palette over the B and C.

B is VA + some fx, C is VA another filter and more fx options
TI OS 1.0 added hypersaw (C should really have had this oh well...), unrestricted combos of fx, proper sweepable wavetables
OS 2.x then adds PWM wavetables - basically adds fat ass wave table sounds to the wavetables in OS1
Then add the various granular modes and your in a completely new synthesiser sound wise - atomizer still hasnt quite fittted in for me yet, though very cool.

The one downer was loosing some fx routing options - bring back the aux bus!! :)

On the total integration - TBH what that adds to sound editing and patch management just makes everything else a complete pain in the backside to use by comparison. and then there little things like not having to worry about calibrating audio/midi alignments according to what mood everything is in on a given day and whether or not im using arps/seq mods etc.

I have a few issues with some design choices of course, but there are huge benefits overall and wouldnt be without it.

[acc]

Hi !

so, if i have understood all right,
its like this way, the simplest without any other :

http://img395.imageshack.us/img395/3856/take1sp9.th.png (http://img395.imageshack.us/my.php?image=take1sp9.png)

no need to amplify the signal from the virus-c with another hardware ?

thanks 'n greets :D
acc

[acc]

hi !

today i got my virus, iv'e connected it like the pic above, and it works -
no need to amplify it :)

now i must look, how i can use all OUTs of the virus.
i was thinking of an mixer, where i can put in my microphone,
headphone and all 3 outs of the virus, maybe keyboard too. :)

best greets
acc

[AjmaGard]

I recently bought at snow. I must say that the TI stuff and its small size are the main reasons I got it over a C (I had an Indigo 2 Redback once and missed the virus sound).

I was at some point, in the decision process, worried that the lack of knobs would be a problem. It isn't... Dedicated filter cut and res knobs and 3 "soft" knobs you can dedicate to which ever parameter you want. You don't really need anything else when playing live.

And I guess this it mainly what it comes down to in the various discussions on the snow vs. other vira: Purpose.
If I wouldn't ever take my virus anywhere but my 'studio' (in quotes because it has been degraded quite a bit since my daughter invaded my playroom :D), I would definately go for at desktop virus (most likely TI) or an Indigo/Pølar (though the Pølar is too expensive for me :) ). But for gig'ing the Snow is awesome because of its size (and the fact that it can be used as a soundcard is also nice, less stuff to carry).

I don't get the bashing of the TI stuff... it hasn't crashed for me yet. And if it does, chances are that it may be caused by something else than the actual Virus software... If you look at bug reports for the TI software, also please notice the version... I believe that access has fixed most bugs found in the initial releases. That's just how most public software releases are since no matter how hard you test your software, there will be numerous people running strange programs and hardware that can interfere with your software.
Also I think SoundDiver for the Virus C is much more buggy than TI software :)

Did I mention that the interface of the TI software is actually much easier to work with than the hardware interface? You have everything available with a click of a mouse and not through scrolling through menues.

I have not regret that I got a Snow over a C... also concidering that the C being discontinued, the chance that new features will be available is close to zero compared to the TI.

[loudness]

Hi everybody,
I own a C and bought a snow a couple of months ago.
For what I know by now, I should have saved my money to buy a new TI2 but thats just for now.
I loved my C for years, still do and would never sell it, but the TI Idea is, imo, one of the best inventions in hardwaresynths in the last years.
Many people are having problems with their Snow, I didnt/dont have, crossing fingers, just a minor issue narrowed down to my DAW.
But I have to say, the support is really slow, at least in my case, and the pricepolicy is also questionable. But nevertheless I bought my second Access Synth and if I had the money, I´d buy the TI2. So regarding the threadtitle: the analog sound of the C is great and fat, the snow does loose a lil in comparison, but the TI Mode in Snow is imo the winning arguement.

@Marc: Good thing an "access-man" is hear to listen to us whining ;)

[Unknown Sound]

just read this thread and i have to agree with Marc. I have had a TI since the very early days (mine was a preorder) and yeah there were indeed some problems with it initially - some serious. But i can say without hesitation that this this is rock solid now and has been for quite some time.

Same here. the last production version (2.5.3) is stable as.

Also, I was an old-skool stand alone user of the TI. Finally I decided to give VC a go and now I won't look back. It's awesome!!!

=US.