multitimbral

[Innovine]

While surfing around and reading about the Virus I came across the following, and wondering if anyone would care to explain further what is meant?

"Lastly, the Virus has always been 16 parts multitimbral (http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Multitimbral) for multilayered patches and ensemble performances. However, up until the Virus TI, this aspect of the Virus has been severely flawed and is often considered unusable because of the polyphonic limitations of the Virus A, B and C and the lack of analogue outputs on the synth."


I am getting confused between the polyphony and number of voices and multitimbral and multilayers. I want to have, for example, a virus playing a bassline, a pad and a lead on 3 different midi channels. It can do this, right? Can it do 16 different voicings like this? I understand if this number starts to go down if i have sounds that are actually multiple layers of sounds. A couple of concrete examples with numbers for the Virus C would be A HUGE help for me!!!

[IamEvil]

yes it can do bass/pad/leads on the virus - each with their own effects and arpegiator section.

I've never needed 16 different instuments at once from the virus so I don't have experience in the truth on how this works.

I have used about 5-6 different layers and all has been fine - just dont use unison on all the parts.

[Innovine]

I doubt I'd be using 16 parts either, unless perhaps they were all synth drum parts or something special like that.

So if it will handle several different parts at the same time, do you know what the article I read was referring to? Everything else it said seemed well written and researched so I don't know if they are referring to a known issue or just talking out of their arse.

Is the Virus C enough by itself to play back a reasonably complete song (no overdubbing) (Im thinking techno, psytrance and drum and bass styles) or will it run out of voices?

[Edra]

Homeslice, the virus b,c, ti etc all have six "Analogue outs" and have no problem producing 16 separate parts on whatever midi channel (1-16)you wish. eg c1 -c#1 bass midi ch 1 , d1- d#1 assneck pad midi ch 2, e1 - f1 penis throb journo web log sound, midi ch 3, f#1 -g1 crackhead patch, midi ch 4, g#1-a2 im a moron pad, midi ch 5, etc etc right on up to oooohhhhhhhh 16,

mancheck, obviously the virus ti is the only Virus that has a "USB out" and therefore confuses crackheads with the concept of having to use "analogue outs" to actually transmit all 16 parts, as though that wasnt always the pocedure up to the TI anyway.!! so to put it in crackhead code, just as the access website says, it really plays 16 parts on 16 separate midi fucking channels man, access arent lying to you !

and no, most nostrlls would not use up all of even a virus b's polyphony, even accross 16 separate midi channels, lets be fucking honest, especially if your laying your tracks down in audio in your DAW, as opposed to midi.
Fucking bing bong mc fly :confused:

[DeFex]

although you can have 16 different sounds assigned to 16 midi channels even with the TI you can even start losing notes much earlier with complex patches. but you probably wouldn't want to play them all at the same time. :D

[waxahachie]

16 voices is a useless feature for mostly of the people, five, maybe six but 16...

[DeFex]

it depends how you do music. it is much faster to change a midi channel to an allready set voice than to do a program change. you might have a few voices only used a couple of times for effects or whatever. if they are already set then you dont have to wait for a program change.

[thomas]

I made a patch once that took up all it's voices when only playing 2 notes simultanious. It was a pad with unison set to 8..

[annikk.exe]

I was first introduced to synths by way of my friend James, who owned a Korg something or other, a digital beasty with very limited programming capabilities. It was multitimbral of course..

When I came to buying my own synth, I went for a Korg MS2000 and the biggest disappointment was realising it could only play 1-2 sounds at the same time (2 if using multimode). This left me extremely limited in scope for writing songs...

I think the Virus is much better as a main workhorse synth. Anyway as all these kind people have already pointed out, you're not about to walk into the same trap as I did. :>


-Annikk

[Innovine]

Seems like I will do ok. My plan is to sequence it with a command station and do as much as possible live, so the amount of tracks and voices it can do at once is more important for me than for someone say recording and overdubbing sounds in a DAW. But if it can do a couple of tracks at the same time, that's probably fine for me!!