The Unofficial Access Virus & Virus TI Forum - since 2002 - Snow or TI 2 desktop ? Please help me choose

Hello,

In my country, Romania, I have a Virus TI keyboard, I’ve been playing it since 2007. I can do about everything I want, as far as sound and goes, with it. Now, since I temporarily moved to Toronto, Canada, I cannot afford to buy the TI 2 desktop yet - I ‘ve been thinking about getting the Snow. I miss my Virus at home a lot and I cannot live without it, but I don’t have enough money yet to get a new Desktop TI 2.

The problem is that, while the keyboard / polar / desktop versions have approximately 2500 ROM patches, the Snow has only 512 ROM. Moreover, the Snow ROM / RAM banks have only 64 patches, instead of 128. Not to mention that Snow’s polyphony is much lower and it has only 4 multitimbral parts (and that would be a disadvantage, as I use the Virus Control with the Logic Express 8 DAW a lot and I would run out of multitimbral parts in no time). The 25% more processing power of the new Desktop TI 2 wouldn’t be that much important for me, as I took my powerful MacBook Pro with me and my computer can withstand a lot. My questions are:

1) Suppose I want to replace an entire ROM / RAM bank in the Snow (by using the Virus Control – as both types of memory are flash, they can be rewritten with the help of the VC) with a one that I like, say ROM-B – I consider it to be the best bank of all. How can I do that, taken into consideration that a ‘normal’ Virus bank has 128 patches and a Snow bank has only 64? If I ‘download’ the bank from the VC into the Snow, does it automatically split, or how ? (one 128 patch-bank is gonna become 2 64-patch banks?)

2) In my country, at home, I reprogrammed lots of patches, either presets or from scratch and I saved them both in 2 RAM banks and, with the help of VC, on my computer. I also have those banks saved on my Mac. If I want to ‘download’ / replace a RAM / ROM bank from the Snow with those banks of mine, how could I do that ? Is it possible ? And if it is, again does it split or do I have to ‘pre-split’ it or how?

3) I played a Virus TI Polar 2 a couple of days ago, but it had OS 2.7.5 installed (after unpacking it, the dealer didn’t have the time to upgrade the OS). The TI Polar 2 with OS 2.7.5 has exactly the same patches as the TI Polar. After upgrading to OS 3.0.1, are the ROM patches the same, or are they different / changed ? If yes, how ?

4) If I get the Snow and update it to OS 3.0.1, will I have the same patches / will I be able to ‘download’ in the Snow the same patches as on a TI 2 Desktop ? In OS 3.0.1, will the patches be also be different / changed ?

5) If I buy the Snow and upgrade it to While the Snow has only 512 ROM patches, the VC has all patches, I presume. If I want to save an edited patch on VC (that the Snow didn’t previously have), either on a ROM or RAM bank, is that possible ? Or do I have to save the entire bank ? If that’s possible, can I randomly save patches from where I want in the VC and completely replace a ROM / RAM bank in the Snow with the patches that I want ?

The Desktop has way more knobs, while the Snow has but a few. Obviously, if I buy the Snow, I’m always gonna use it in the ‘Expert’ Edit mode. I’m not interested in the ‘Analog’ part of Filter 1 or the ‘Character’ part of the Effects block. I’m also not interested in the Desktop’s outputs (the rear side). The problem here is:

6) Considering the number of knobs that the Desktop comes with and the lack of real-time control that the Snow has, what can specifically be done / programmed on a desktop that would be impossible on a Snow? What can the Desktop do that a Snow could not ?

Thanx a lot for help,

Cheers