Am I mental for wanting a Ti?

[dmacintyre]

Hi All,

New to the forum (hello) because I am considering purchasing a Ti Keyboard. I was amazed to read so much negative feedback about it. I don't wish to go over old ground but I am having to sell a whole bunch of stuff to buy a Ti (Kore, Sampletank, Firebox, Taylor Big Baby, Albino 3, Amplitube, Philharmonik, YT Independence, amongst others, etc). I want to get my studio down to 1 keyboard (OK 2 keyboards), 1 sound card, 1 sampler, 1 or 2 good hw or sw synths, 1 good pair of monitors, etc. You get the idea.

Anyway, am I going to regret this? I thought the Ti KB looked like the perfect solution to streamline my workflow but there are apparently loads of dissatisfied punters. I need the soundcard part to be 100% working at 44/48 and can tolerate slightly higher latencies to achieve this. I don't mind the odd freeze or hang, etc in the synth as I am studio based. Am I spending money needlessly? I mean I have Blue, Zebra 2 and Reaktor so am I simply doubling-up on synths with the Ti or is the hw improvement really worth it?

Just can't resist the thought of my first hardware synth.

Thanks and regards

David

[Doc Jones]

Hey dmacintyre, welcome to the forum. Long story short, the TI with the latest firmware and drivers is extremely stable. You'll notice that most of the complaining died off after 1.2.1 was released (though there are still some issues here and there)

[Drammy]

Hello and welcome,

My TI K is great - it behaves very well. Still not perfect though (wonky arps every now and again being the main culprit) so for that reason I would suggest just holding on a little while longer. At least until the next release and then ask the same question.

I am confident that if asked in 6 months there will be a resounding "Yes, it works fine here..."


Drammy

[Threlly]

Just make sure you don't have an Intel Mac.

[dmacintyre]

Nope. Dual G5 at least until NI get their UB act together.

And thanks for all the advice folks. It's a bit scary coming from all soft synth environment where you can upgrade, sell, etc, more easily. But I think it's time I considered at least one hardware synth and the VC aspect makes me a bit more comfortable with this. The last thing I want to do is sell all that stuff to be no further forward.

Any views on overlap with Blue, Reaktor, Zebra 2, etc? I'm sure you'll tell me the Ti will sound better and be zero CPU load but will I be simply duplicating things?

Thanks and regards

David

[Drammy]

The TI isn't zero CPU load - it is minimal but there is still a load when in VC mode

[mr.e]

hey Threlly whats the problem with the TI and intel mac? I'm interested because i'm planning on buying an intel mac and I'm pretty sure i'll switch my virus c for a ti a few months after that.

[Threlly]

There's no Universal Binary VC plugin, and the PPC one will not run under rosetta.
Basically, you're stuffed, its hardware only.
Access have given NO UNDERTAKING WHATSOEVER to its customers as to when they might get it.

You're only option would be to run winxp on bootcamp and use the PC version....I feel stinking dirty and ashamed just saying it.

I have a terrible feeling the effing warranty on my Desktop Ti will run out before it appears.

[mr.e]

I guess me and the virus c will be spending a lot more time together whewwww lol

[exh]

Originally Posted by dmacintyre

Any views on overlap with Blue, Reaktor, Zebra 2, etc? I'm sure you'll tell me the Ti will sound better and be zero CPU load but will I be simply duplicating things?

Don't know about blue or reaktor but zebra 2 and the TI are very different. Zebra 2 is pretty much my favourite synth ever so I probably would take that over the TI, but they are pretty complimentary. Zebra sounds very warm and organic to me; the TI tends to sound more clinical (not in general though -- it sounds quite a bit warmer and much more organic than most other synths). The TI is awesome at dissonant bell tones, harsh noise pads, and shimmery analogish pads. I don't think I could live with a pre-TI Virus, almost every patch I love tends to use either the hypersaw or wavetables. The hypersaw lends itself to same great percussive/bass hit type sounds, the wavetables tend to give delicate, crystalline sounds, so together they really cover a lot of ground. One thing it is not good at is long, evolving sounds, due to the limited modulation. In my opinion both the TI and Zebra suck at velocity-filtered bass sounds, though I'm hoping someone better at patch programming then me eventually proves me wrong.

If you're coming from the software world, editing on the TI will probably be a bit of a shock. Most softsynths have pretty straightforward architectures, but the TI clearly displays its old-school roots with a lot of specialized and hardcoded functions. This is most noticeable with the envelopes and mod matrix. There are currently only 2 envelopes and the matrix is smallish, with only 6 sources. The impact can be seen clearly in the LFOs, they have a 1-shot envelope mode and multiple hardcoded destinations, both of which help overcome these limitations. I really wish access had taken the time with the TI to put in a more general architecture that didn't have all the hacks from the past on top of it.

Anyway, that's a relatively small complaint. In the end, the TI sounds great and is pretty complimentary at least to zebra. There are a lot of great-sounding softsynths, the main TI advantages are a negligible CPU load, a full effects path per channel, and a more intangible benefit that comes from working with hardware: I find with software I tend to keep one eye constantly on the CPU meter to gauge how much more I can lay on, but with hardware I just ignore DSP limits and work away.

opinion over,
eric