Quote:
Originally Posted by marc
intersting post,
i have two questions for you:
- is it the color red that you dislike or the way the LEDs are?
- we use pretty much the best keyboard fatar builds. "pretty much" as in plastic keys. options are limited, fatar is pretty much the only source you can buy from when you're not prepared to build your own keyboards. on tradeshows we received mostly good comments about the keyboards used. can you try to explain in more detail what the actual problem is? "lousy" and "mushy" don't explain it well for me.
best, marc
access music
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Hi Marc,
First - as evidenced by my ownership history with Access products - I own had owned just about every make/model of your products since Virus A. I would be lying if I said that I wasn't impressed with every subsequent release of Virus line. However, Access has created some very big shoes to fill - even for itself. For true fans of the synths, there's hardly anything that comes close to it in terms of sheer power and sonic capability. Buuuut... (you were expecting "but", weren't you?
)
It appears that as the product is becoming more powerful and mature (and more expensive) the expectations also grow. On LEDs - I may be alone in this but I find white LEDs easier on the eyes, especially if you spend 3 - 5 hours daily staring at them. That's why I prefer programming Virus C through SoundDiver, not the synth interface itself. Something about red LEDs (or red color itself) that makes my eyes see red spots for at least 20 - 30 minutes after I stopped looking at them (even for a short while) - could be my vision.
It may be a bit presumptuous of me to suggest - but it would be awesome to have an option to not just set the brightness of the LEDs but also the color. Tri-color LEDs are relatively cheap nowdays and having an option to pick a color that suits the user would have been a major "friggin cool" factor. Heck, even my 4 year old Dell XPS Gen 4 computer has BIOS that allow me to pick which case color I want (out of 7 possible combinations). Again, a minor detail but major "cool points".
Now, getting to keyboard. Here's what I'm basing my experience on, as far as keyboard goes.
I used Roland A-70 as my primary keyboard. Virus TI 2 kbd was intended as its replacement because of space issues and fact that it has empty area - very useful to keep synth like Virus C, Nord Lead 3 rack or keyboard/mouse close by. So, I was very excited about TI 2 kbd, only to find out that somehow the keybed feels of lesser quality. Let me try to explain:
On the way down, the keys feel like they stop too soon - almost as if the keybed is not deep enough and they should have little more travel. On the way up, the keys feel a bit too springy - resulting in what feels like some of the cheaper MIDI controllers I've tried. I guess I've been spoiled by Yamaha and Roland keybeds, even K5000s used Yamaha - Fatars just seem to be a hit or miss.
From virus line - I loved key feel in Virus kC, even TI MK1. In kC, I liked that black keys were rounded and narrower, as well as just had a very fast and expressive feel to them. But my absolute favorite virus keybed is in Polar. I'd actually place it on par, if not higher than my A-70. The keybed in TI2 just feels somewhat spongy and restrictive. Perhaps I haven't gotten used to it and need to mess around with velocity settings but the overall responsiveness of the keys just leave more to be desired. I guess this is the best I can explain it, hope it makes it little bit more clear.
And last but not least - bitch as I may, Marc, I still love Virus dearly... but I felt cheated with the original TI - a lot was promissed on paper but in reality it didn't live up to the expectations your marketing literature left us with. The pops and clicks made the synth unuseable in live set up, made working in arrangement very difficult because you had to get a take without artifacts, and you have no idea how embarassed I felt for Virus when I saw Thomas Dolby have a lock-up / crash issue with his Polar on stage, in a middle of a performance. As a Virus user I felt embarassed for him and even though he made joke of it, I saw how frustrated he was.
Thanks for actually taking interest in what your customers have to say - if nothing else, it shows that your mind is in a right place.