when did the Virus prices go up?

[chimney chop]

new ti2 keyboards were $2990 last I checked

they're $3,139 now.

desktops are now at $2,352 with Snows at $1,312.

can't quite remember the previous price for those 2 but I know it was lower than that.

seems like it's effecting resale value too

you think this is indication of change at Access or simply inflation?

[Timo]

Cheapest I've found for a new TI|2 Polar/Kbd in the UK is £2,045 ($3,372 USD). Snow is £825 ($1,360 USD). TI|2 Desktop is £1,489 ($2,455 USD)

I remember when the Virus Indigo was first released it used to be £1,150 ($1,896).

The cost went up a good few hundred £ when the TI|2 was released. The TI|1 kbd/polar was around £1,500 ($2,473), but the TI|2 kbd/polar jumped in at around £1,800 ($2,968 ) when it was launched. However I remember Marc saying he didn't understand why this was, as Access still sold them to retailers at the same price as their former TI|1. So a bit of price-fixing has gone off.

The price has gone up a further £250 ($400) since 2009, when the TI|2 was released.

The international economy is also in a completely different place to what it was back then. The TI|2 was released when the global recession was at its worst, and the EU was a complete mess, everyone thought the €uro currency was going to collapse due to Greece etc. and prices were really volatile. Just like petrol/gas, companies love to put up the prices quickly during a time of crisis, but rarely lower them afterwards.

[chimney chop]

wow, i shudder to think what a TI3 might cost.

at the least this price hike might denote some movement (however small) at Access though i'm beginning to fear the worst for the company.

[MBTC]

Price fixing is right.. those in the US ever notice how Sweetwater and ZZounds are exactly in sync on prices? Down to the dollar. Criminal.

[chimney chop]

americanmusical too

[MBTC]

There might be something astir indeed. Normally when I look on Amazon, all of the Virus product line are available new direct from Access, of course at the same fixed price as the major music shops like the above mentioned ones.

Right now they are only offering used units at least at Amazon US, and the snow is gone from the offerings. Could be either discontinuance of product line coming or (hopefully) introduction of new line.

[Timo]

No evidence of that here. UK supply and prices seem relatively stable.

http://www.dv247.com/search/0/0/Relevance/Descending/Virus/1/

Also just last month someone (not me) elsewhere asked whether there's any inkling of a TI|3, whether they should wait or buy, Marc stated:"the Virus TI2 will be there for a while. we believe it is a great sounding musical instrument which will not be replaced anytime soon."

[MBTC]

No evidence of that here. UK supply and prices seem relatively stable.

http://www.dv247.com/search/0/0/Relevance/Descending/Virus/1/

Also just last month someone (not me) elsewhere asked whether there's any inkling of a TI|3, whether they should wait or buy, Marc stated:

Could be some sort of supply chain shortage (specific parts) or similar. Sometimes supply chain shakeups are felt slightly more the farther you go from the home country of HQ. Odd that they wouldn't at least take orders via Amazon though, that has to be a big sales source for them.

I have not seen any indication of supply shortage from the normal retailers (ZZsounds, Sam Ashe, Sweetwater, American Musical etc.) but I thought the change coming from Access themselves on Amazon could be considered interesting. I didn't look at what it looked like on Amazon UK because I don't have a baseline for comparison, not having looked them up there before.

[TweakHead]

"the Virus TI2 will be there for a while. we believe it is a great sounding musical instrument which will not be replaced anytime soon."

It is a great sounding musical instrument. It continues to sell well because if you manage to get it working properly - 'cause it's certainly not a given, regardless of how it's named and publicized - it's a plus for any studio. But the thing that keeps the sales running, I think, is the fact that it's great for gigs. That says a lot about it's build quality and reliability on stage and the sheers number of options for synthesis. I think this explains a lot.

But if they think they can rest because of their success with this, I'd suggest otherwise. They would do well to revamp the engine with further improvements, most of them have been mentioned here "ad-nauseum" and it's not a coincidence most users point in the same directions when talking about what they'd like to see on an instrument.

Access has made a lot: they've managed to create a synthesizer that's deep enough to make most of the sounds you'd find on instruments that existed before it, managed to build an expiring physical interface extremely well built. This is what makes it so great to use Live, 'cause you can dispense a huge rack of instruments when you can reproduce most of them with the Virus. On the studio, the depth of options is/was a major appeal, along with the number of voices on offer. But the Ti part of things didn't go exactly smooth, and it should. It's a great idea that's worth fighting for: a sound designer's dream, and today this means enlarging the scope of options for sure, when you have stuff like Zebra and Massive as competition (regardless of them not being hardware), a DSP based bread-and-butter synthesizer that offers sample accurate timing (please, whenever it's ready, give me a call) and automation within a DAW, powerful enough that you can have 16 sounds of it going at once (please, contact me when it's ready) without charging the host's cpu, storing patches on projects, librarian for patches, so forth and so on.

Then being able to perform with it live is a great plus as well, if this integration is made flawless the better if you can recall settings/patches right away and tweak away live, either really playing it or simply tweaking knobs.

So there you have it: the engine, the integration + dsp power (to live up to expectations created and publicized by the company), the performance side. plenty of work to do, me thinks

[chimney chop]

"the Virus TI2 will be there for a while. we believe it is a great sounding musical instrument which will not be replaced anytime soon."
I remember reading this somewhere, just can't remember where or when.

Tweak, do you know?

[Timo]

I remember reading this somewhere, just can't remember where or when.

Tweak, do you know?

It was stated by Marc, who works at Access.

I definitely agree the Virus hardware is a serious advantage over a laptop when playing live, and hardware wise the Virus has little competition. But given the change in technology and features from the software/VSTi stables these last few years, it would be great to see the Virus offer further rebuttals to the VSTi world in terms of more oscillator and sound engine features. That said, many just want to see the TI aspect working solidly with their system, although it seems to be mostly stable for people thesedays, more than ever before? The Total Integration aspect always was going to be a tall order. I wonder what features they could've implemented had it not been for TI. But then we'd still be using SoundDiver (like me, which is not that great)!

It could be further from the truth if they're beavering away unbeknown to us, but it does appear from an external viewpoint that Access are resting and riding on the coat-tails a little this last year or two. No new features or high-profile presence since two years ago when OS v5 was announced (and then released a year later).

Can only think of two scenarios. 1) the TI|2 will keep on being developed but attention has turned indefinitely toward Kemper Amps for the time being, or 2) updates are ending for the TI2 and any new features that are being developed will be put toward a TI3, but not in the near future, as per Marc's quote.

Given Chris Kemper's high rate of activity on the Kemper Amp (http://www.kemper-amps.com/forum) forums (username ckemper) - oddly never seen him even on the official Virus Forums(?) - I'm erring toward the former. But ever hopeful of the latter.

We're no further forward, really. All speculation.

Back on topic, just found significantly better prices for the TI|2 in the UK @ Millennium Music.

http://www.millennium-music.co.uk/keyboards-synthesizers/access

TI2 Destkop: £1,436 ($2,367)
Polar TI2: £1,918 ($3,161)
TI2 Kbd: £1,950 ($3,214)

Over a hundred quid cheaper than Digital Village (www.dv247.com). Thought Digital Village had Virus monopoly in the UK after Turnkey went down, but seems a lot of music-tech retailers can get hold of them now.

For what it's worth, MBTC, to my knowledge I don't think Amazon UK ever stocked or out-sourced Viruses.

[MBTC]

For what it's worth, MBTC, to my knowledge I don't think Amazon UK ever stocked or out-sourced Viruses.

The ones I saw on Amazon US were not stocked by Amazon, it was an Access store presence on Amazon.

Amazon is set up so that pretty much anyone can create their own store presence there pretty easily. I bought my Ultranova and a lot of other gear the same way, direct from manufacturer but through Amazon. The main reason I buy there when I can is because I've got an Amazon credit card, so I get 3% back on purchase made through Amazon vs. 1% anywhere else, and of course the credit can be applied directly toward more Amazon purchases. So basically if I bought a new Virus it would be about $100 bucks off, plus free two day shipping assuming it was prime membership eligible. Also manufacturers listed there will not fuck with Amazon if it comes to any sort of dispute because they care about their relationship with them and they are hugely important to their business. If Amazon is not in the middle of things, a company (particularly one operating in another country) could potentially disregard a complaining customer as just another face in the crowd. But Amazon is an important distribution channel, and they also understand the power of user reviews on Amazon so nobody that I've seen there yet dares to do anything but provide excellent service. I order tons of shit through Amazon including non-perishable groceries. The discounts and credit card points are too good to pass up.