A vs B vs C vs Classic vs Ti
 

hi there i'm looking into getting a Virus to add to my setup, and was wondering what the best one was?

really i just wanna know if the C is an improvement on the B and if the B is an improvement on the A also someone told me that the classic is all 3 in 1?

thanks a lot

virus A has less bits than a B , virus C has more bits than a B , virus classic is a B with a new paint job

http://www.access-music.de/comparisonchart.php4

I'd go for a B or classic as they are the best pricewise.

Ive seen virus B's for £230 and virus C's for £500 yet apart from a couple of different filters, slightly more poly and (I think) an EQ section, there isnt much between them.

I bought a Virus B for ~$500. used but in top shape.

I guess this depends on your experience w/synths + programming, knowing what you want, and knowing what you want to spend.

yeah if my budget was ~$3k I'd have a TI Polar. but, based on the specs (and having heard the virus series), I could tell that I'd be able to get what I need out of the B. now, I did not buy the B (or look at the Virus in general) for presets. though there are plenty of those! I was interested in sound quality, programmability, and playability.

Feature sets, to my knowledge:

• Virus A has 12 voice polyphony, 2 main oscillators + 1 sub, 2 LFOs, one FM mode, Chorus, RingModulation, Distortion effects, but no Phaser effect, 3 sources and 6 destinations for modulation matrix, 16-part multitimbral (including aux-bus & audio output channels), and 20-Bit D/A.
• Virus B/Indigo/kB =, same as Virus A but with 24 voice polyphony, up to 3 main oscillators + 1 sub, 3 LFOs, 5 FM modes, additional Phaser effect, surround sound capability, PureTuning (microtuning), and 24-Bit D/A.
• Virus Classic - Identical to Virus B.
• Virus C/Indigo II/kC = same as Virus B but with 32 voice polyphony, MiniMoog analog-emulated filter (selectable from 1-to-4 poles), 6 sources and 9 destinations for modulation matrix, 3-band EQ with parametric mid per part.
• Virus TI/Polar/TI-KB, same as Virus C but with up to 80 voices polyphony, Total Integration, additional HyperSaw, Wavetable, Graintable, and Formant oscillators, independent reverb and delay, programmable arp', 6 sources each with 3 destinations for the modulation matrix (18 destinations total), refined Oscillator Sync', tap tempo, knob-quantise, PureSemitones, USB (16Bit/44.1KHz) and S/PDIF I/O, 6 balanced (+4dB) 1/4" TRS outputs, 24-bit analogue inputs and outputs, 512 RAM & 2048 ROM patch storage, Atomizer [pending OS v2.7], 4x stereo outs via USB [pending OS v2.7].
• Virus TI Snow = A cut-down Virus TI. Identical sound engine but only up to 50 voice poly, 4-part multitimbral, 512/512 RAM/ROM storage, and only 2 analog audio inputs and outputs.

I bought a second hand Virus Indigo (B) for £400 about four or five years ago. It's a fantastic little synth, and the only bit I really "miss" is the MoogFilter of the Virus C and perhaps the Hypersaw of the TI.

The additional features of the TI are now substantial though, after all of the software upgrades it's been given. It's a very different synth to the Virus C. Much moreso than the Virus C is to the Virus B, for example.

I'm waiting until a TI mk2 arrives (I guess some time in 2009) before finally trading in my Indigo. Otherwise a TI (new or second hand) would be good if you could afford it. It would give a lot of mileage.

cheers guys, although a few people have been telling me that the classic is the A B and C all in one?

if this isnt the case then why would they make the classic the B and not the C if the C is better?

cheers

I seem to remember that the Classic came after the C but cheaper so maybe it was to get people on a tight budget to buy a Virus much like the Snow now. The Classic is NOT the same as a C but excatly the same as a B (except the paint job) which you can see if you study the comparison chart also posted earlier: http://access-music.de/comparisonchart.php4

The TI sounds nothing like a 'KC'...the sub bass is much more weedy that the 'C' ...Also the headphone preamp is twice as WEAK as the KC ! ....The KC sounds monstrous the TI just sounds like a softsynth in a box with a keyboard attached !

I'll be honest, you don't need to miss the hypersaw. This is probably the most critical feature for the kind of music I create, because it permeates into pads, leads, plucks etc.

I've had excellent results with certain softsynths like Zebra, Sylenth, and most recently Oresus. To be honest the first time I plugged up the TI2 desktop I bought, I was a little disappointed in the hypersaw the virus offered -- not that it sounded bad I guess but just that I was expecting it to sound vastly better than softsynths?

Really, I keep telling people if you want good saw sounds, try Oresus. The filter-shaping features made it so much easier than anything else I've seen to get the sound I wanted, and the cost is cheap! I was able to do dreamsynth/plucky trance sounds with this in 5 minutes that would have taken me hours with the Virus (assuming I could get the software to work properly on Windows 7 64bit!).

For a more versatile synth that has a more versatile palette, and can truly mimick acoustic instruments, Zebra2 is one of the champions.

I honestly believe that once in the mix, the difference between the Virus and softsynths on a PC with decent processing power (Core i7) are largely indistinguishable. If they are distinguishable it is more a factor of good mixing than the oscillators and filters themselves.

Virus comparison chart lives
 

access-music.de no longer hosts the comparison chart. Here is a link to a stored copy in archive.org: https://web.archive.org/web/20071013...isonchart.php4