Backward compatibility of OS3?
 

hello, forum

i'm in the middle of putting together a track using the virus (OS2.7.5) & sonar, and i'm also dying to give OS3 a whirl. can anyone confirm if upgrading to OS3 will erase/shuffle my patches? in a nutshell, will i muck up my track by upgrading the virus' OS?

(i know that upgrading in the middle of a project is a bad idea, but curiosity is getting the batter of me).

thanks!

Theoreticly it should make no difference, however there are some claims in this forum, that state OS3 has made some difference to the sound of certain patches, updating the OS should not make any difference to the patch order and will not erase any patches, you can always try the update to OS3 and then revert back to 2.7.5 if things do get a bit messy, i would say it would be a very low risk and worth upgrading. Or you hurry up and get that track finished and then upgrade, the choice is yours. Good luck

OS3 is BETA, Do not use unless you want the new features.

If you want reliable, it's there in the form of 2.7.5.

However I don't think upgrading/downgrading will affect your tracks, from my experience.

haven't we all heard that one before... :) finishing a track is an art in itself.

thanks tricky and talos for your input, much appreciated.

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+1.

I would even go so far as to suggest that the "claims" of certain patches sounding different are undeniable: I have rendered a short (8 bar) section of a single patch done in both 2.7.5 and 3.0.1 and it quite clearly* sounds different. I say "different" as "better" is a subjective thing, although to my ears the patches I've noticed this on have generally sounded a bit better. Naturally, it depends on what you're after in a particular sound. I also noticed this difference is much more noticeable in some patches than others (so much so that without back to back tests I can't tell the difference on some). Presumably this is because some patches don't use the parts that have audibly changed. If anyone is particularly interested, I'd be happy to make mp3s/wavs of the different files available. I could also try loading both into an oscilliscope and seeing how noticeable the visual differences are.

I'm assuming this is down to improvements in certain parts of the synth in OS3.


* By "quite clearly" I mean a real tangible difference in sound that anyone with a remotely trained ear for music/sound, even a non-synthesist would recognise instantly, not some questionable minutae that hi-fi addicts would argue fruitlessly over. ;)

please make those mp3s available. i'm really curious what you're talking about.

thanks, marc

Will do try to do it tonight. I'll post a link to the files in this thread. Filesizes of the .zip containing it all would be about 5MB I'd imagine. I take it you'd prefer .wavs to .mp3s?

I'll include the patch concerned and a text file detailing host, system, method of recording, etc.

Cheers,

Ceri

This thorough method of testing is much appreciated. I too would love to hear. If there truly are differences, perhaps Access would be interested too.

Right, bit of an update, although I think it'll only muddy the waters. :|

I installed 3.0.1 last night and it seemed to be working fine; none of the problems other users on here had mentioned. I had a bit of a play with the new delays and a general fiddle, all was working well, bar the afformentioned different sounding patches. Both patch windows were working fine (I used them to merge the entries for the competion without a problem).

Tonight, trying to investigate this problem further, I couldn't recreate it: It sounded identical to the 2.7.5 version. To make matters worse, whilst trying to capture the way it had been sounding yesterday, I stupidly managed to overwrite the different-sounding OS3.0.1.wav with one that whilst rendered in 3.0.1 sounded identical to 2.7.5. At this point I was starting to think I'd imagined the whole thing. I tried loading up Live and the Virus again and double checked everything. I couldn't see anything I'd done differently, but this time it once again it sounded different to the 2.7.5 version; it sounded "new" again, exactly like it did last night! :rolleyes:

When I attempted to bounce this to a .wav, the virus appeared to crash- the high pitched whine/drone other users reported started as well as a host of other problems I'd seen detailed here: second pane of the patch browser froze and just overwrote the upper pane, etc. I have just reloaded it all again (once again, not doing anything odd) and it all works fine, but sounds like the "different" version of the patch again!

I should emphasise I'm not using a usb hub/getting any errors and that I never had a single hitch during the dozens of hours I've run 2.7.5.

So, in summary there appear to be at least 3 states it operates in and appears to switch between at random:
1. Sounds like 2.7.5. All functions tested work fine.
2. Sounds "new". All functions I tested work fine.
3. Sounds like 2.7.5. Some functions don't work/it crashes out entirely resulting in a high pitched squeal that sounds like a feedback loop.

I will investigate this further tomorrow and post my findings. I do testing of programs as part of my day job, so hopefully should be able to at least come to some logical conclusion, even if that is that it does seem to randomly switch between the 3 states on startup! :)