[synthman1]

Something I’ve been requesting since the Virus A appeared is being able to use samples for the oscillator section either internally or externally. (Similar to what the Nord Wave achieves for instance.)

I’m not sure why we don’t have this ability yet as the virus already has 64 spectral waves and wave tables. I would love to at very least have access to 64 different samples – unusual vocals and choirs, saw waveforms from various vintage synths, maybe a simple piano sample, etc.

In coming back to this idea in how to achieve it, if the sample storage can’t be obtained internally on the Virus:

Option 1:

Implement this ability via an external usb flash drive for the multi-sample storage connected to the usb port of the Virus and have the samples accessible from the oscillator section. The Alesis QS line uses this exact method. The multi-samples are burned to a flash card, the card is inserted into the card slot on the synthesizer and the custom samples are now accessible. Piece of cake. This was limited to 8MB of storage per card for the QS line.

The Roland XV-5080 has this ability as well by using a standard SmartMedia card. Today’s thumb drives and memory cards hold GB’s worth of data. You would be able to have access to a massive customizable sample library with relative ease. This would be a very powerful and virtually limitless feature for extending the Virus’s capability tonally.

Option 2:

By using a simple external hardware device developed by Access or a 3rd party developer for exclusive sample storage and usage with the Virus. This small, afforable hardware box would have a pair of ¼” audio outs where the samples are accessed via audio inputs on the Virus. The writable samples would be transferred via a usb interface from a computer to the hardware device.

A 3rd option, though nowhere as direct or straightforward as option 1 or 2 is:

Perhaps developing a simple software sample manager that operates as a stand alone application. This would operate similar to a softsynth except the samples are routed out through your audio interface and then is accessable via the audio inputs just like any other audio source where it’s routed through the Virus signal chain. This already works to some degree via the audio inputs routed to the filters/effects sections.

In each of these 3 options, the Virus OS would need to be modified to accommodate this implementation of course.