Seems to me or all Viruses are packed full of problems?
 

Hey there,

I have several other pieces of hardware equipment (namely JV-1080, M1R, FB01, TX1P, DSS-1) and never had to tweak around them to make them work properly.

Instead, I installed the newest operating system for my Virus Rack (2.2, dated 2004!) and it still has some problems, like hard-clipping some instruments while keeping the volume to 127 (seems to clip the internal A/D D/A), a noisy hiss (not too loud), and the WARN mode working only in MULTI while editing patches.

Reading this forum, seems that *every* Virus got some annoying problem, here or there. Since all the other hardware I got is Japanese made, are Japanese better in engineering and manufacturing instruments than good old Germans?

I wonder why Access releases stuff with trouble.

keep in mind that the people that have issues with their virus are the ones that are going to post about it to try to find a resolution. Very rarely will a person just randomly post on a forum "hey, it's Tuesday and everything is running great"

by the way, it's Sunday and my virus is working great ;)

Of course what you say is right, but it's a LOT of people complaining if you know what I mean... just give a look to the appropriate section and even to this one: sync problems, crash, freeze, blink, glitches in the OS, unwanted distortion... there's a payload full!

Also my Virus is working neatly and sounding great, but I have to keep in mind that some patch *requires* to be tampered in order to be playable...

no 1 remember old skool synths? they were very unstable.

things like the jv1080 (i still have 1) are actualy a rom player (sample based) and not a synth as such.

I have a nord 2 this is great, retails for abt the same i think back then. it is only 4 part and has no effects. thats lots more crammd in your virus to use up its power.

lots of problems are usealy due to incorrect set up, especialy ti related. we are a demanding bunch too so they keep having to make rush releases.

if anything they should be praised for how well they deal with there customers and the stuff they give us for free. like the new plug in software Ti2 for the Ti1. they could of jst kept the new features as new features of the Ti2 or even charged for ppl to upgrade.

the warn mode was intended to work in multi mode only. in single mode, it appears obvious that storing a patch stores all changes, in multi mode you store the multi but not the changes possibly made to the single sounds.

if you clip a sound you have to turn it down, that's just the way it is.

the D/As used at this time don't have the specs available to D/A we use nowadays and i'm pretty sure that the equipment you've listed above has worse D/As than the ones in the virus rack.

as for bugs i think they are just a part of every software distribution. i won't start comparing but at least the synths you've listed above are not perfect either. the difference is: we (access) care about the bugs.

best, marc

My Korg (Japanese) clips and distorts to hell if the levels aren't manually set up properly.

With digital, regardless of how much headroom a person is given, people still want to turn it up beyond it!

Unfortunately that's not how it works, and you need to recondition your perceptions of working with digital, otherwise no headroom will ever be enough.

Imagine you're in a room. There's a wall in front of you, and you run up to it, headbutting it trying to go beyond it. That's someone trying to exceed 16-bit.

Now imagine a scientific boffin has removed that wall and has given you a new wall about 15 yards away. You say "yay!", and despite having all this extra room to bounce around in you instead turn up the level and run up to the wall and repeatedly headbutt it in an attempt to go beyond it. That's someone trying to exceed 24-bit.

Now imagine a scientific boffin now removes this wall and instead gives you a new wall about 30yards away. You say "yay!", and despite having all this massive, massive space to bounce around in you instead turn up the level and run up to the wall and repeatedly headbutt it in an attempt to go beyond it...

Where will it end?

Learn to use the signal within the barriers you're given, not beyond it. You don't always have to use the last 10% of the available headroom. This might have been the case when using 8-bits as the noise floor was high, but this was reduced substantially when using 16-bits, but with 24-bit the noise-floor is literally insignificant! So explore and use all the space within it.

If you use loads of unison, etc. where the patch needs more headroom as the overall sound level increases, you should turn down the overall patch level accordingly. That's perfectly normal! It will not hurt the signal! The Virus uses 24-bit for calculations and has 24-bit D/A. You have tons of room for all the signal. You just need to learn to use it.

I generally tend to keep my patch levels at 90-100, and only consciously turn them up beyond that when needing a 'level boost' for very quiet patches.

If any patches clip, turn the internal patch level down. If you find the rest of the signal is now too quiet for you, you either need to program your patch to be less dynamic in the first place, or you can use a compressor or limiter after it if desired.

That's because editing Multis on the earlier Viruses actually overwrite the Single patches that are being referenced. There is no extra memory in Multi mode for storing tweaked patches within them. So if you tweak a patch in Multi mode, that same patch will also be permanently changed in Single mode.

I'm not sure about your noise/hiss query, you might have to go into more detail with that for us.

[damn, did it really take me that long to write]

Just my experience here - for a while when the TI was new the OS seemed to have some problems and people were having different issues with things like clicks and pops. Things got a lot better over time though.

I bought a used KB model and can tell you one thing - a lot of the issues I had had with it disappeared immediately when I dismantled it and thoroughly cleaned it. I sprayed every knob thoroughly with contact cleaner, sprayed the inside thoroughly with compressed air, put it back together, and it has worked great.

It seems that gunk that gets into the knobs can cause havok somehow with the circuitry - that at least is what was happening in my case.

One nice thing about the way the Virus is built is that it is extremely easy to take apart.

Beyond all that, I just want to say that the sounds that this instrument is capable of creating are absolutely mind-blowing and I have never heard anything in my life like it. Even if I could only play one sustained chord on my Virus, if that was the only use for it, it would still be eminently worth it to me because that sound is beyond comparison to any other synthesizer I have ever heard.

Thank you very much for you answer and thank also to the other answers.

The WARN mode is especially useful when editing also a SINGLE, because it engages also when one is trying to change instrument without saving (in MULTI) not only when pressing the STORE button!

Your answer addresses very well my doubts and I will keep it in mind.

Best regards

sure, it is intended to warn people who might forget to save the changes done to a SINGLE used in a MULTI mode context.

marc

fsx : PAY ATTENTION TO THIS !!!!! ;)