I will repeat what I put on the kvr forum, just so others can comment on it also..
1) There is a lot of speculation about this. I dont think even access know themselves yet as several of thier team give different answers to the question. This blurb from the website would suggest you get 16 mixer chans
'The Virus? master outputs (including subgroups) seamlessly integrate into the sequencer?s audio channels, just as VST / AU instruments do. You can even process individual Virus parts with your favourite plug-in effects. It is a multi-channel instrument plug-in which can split the several sub-mixes from your VIRUS TI to be independently processed and refined with additional VST plug-ins. It also handles all relevant information for your sequencer?s automation system.'
But I have heard from other people that you only get the 2 stereo chans over usb.
Ive also been told you can control the normal analog and digital outputs via the vst front end, so if the 2 stereo over usb is true, combined with the classic outputs you could have 6 individual sounds simultaniously with thier own output.
Then someone from access said this...
'let me clarify one important thing: the virus TI has a USB2 compatible USB interface with the speed of USB1.1 (which to my knowledge is 12mbit). the copy on our website and press release is the official recommendation from the usb.org but I get the feeling that it's being misunderstood.
there scenario outlined on the access website is _one_ of many possible configurations. to my knowledge, there is ways to offer more than 2 stereo channels and we understand that depending on the situation this makes a lot of sense.
the same goes for the possibility of sending data into the virus' sound engine, process it and send it back again.
please understand that I cannot answer all these questions right now. at the same time, postings lining out which configurations are being desired will help us to put the final touch on the TI software.'
This is from the product manager at access which would lead you to belive you can set it up for more stereo chans with different configurations but again its very sketchy....I guess we can only wait and see. (heres me hoping for 16 stereo chans over usb all with independant mixer tracks in host sequencer and hopefully whatever it ships with, an os upgrade or something can alter it at a later date to add more chans or change the config somehow.
2) Each part/sound (all 16) has its own individual effect section and all of them are independant, nothing is shared anymore or combined. Also all the effects from C version are here.
3) TI can import all older sounds and they should sound pretty much identical, maybe even better
ten