Stories on what interested you to buy the VIRUS TI!

[plaid_emu]

I've got the very bestest of Virus TI stories. It's more like a fairy tale that came true!

I always wanted a Virus. I had a handful of hardware synths but none of them cost more than $1,000. At the time, I never thought any digital synth was really worth $2,000+ dollars anyway and I was happy enough with my E-MU XL-7.

One day I noticed Nova Musik was giving away a free Virus TI. All you had to do was enter your email address and they would draw one randomly from the thousands of entries they received. I thought "what the hell, I'll enter". I also made a point of making my girlfriend enter the contest to increase the chances of winning.

So I kind of forgot about it and a couple months pass. We're out having dinner at TGIF's when my girlfriend gets a call on her cell phone from Tony Gral, the owner of Nova Musik. He was calling to tell her she was the winner of the giveaway contest and that he would be shipping out the Virus ASAP! I told her she could put it on ebay and sell it if she wanted to. She insisted I keep it and use it! Crazy, huh?

Once it showed up and I plugged it in, scrolled through a couple of presets.... I knew exactly why they cost so much goddamn money! Amazing sound. Probably the most expressive and inspiring instrument I've ever played.

[fgimian]

Great read fellas, here's my Virus TI love story

I was a software-only guy, started with trackers (Fast Tracker / Impulse Tracker / Buzz) then moved to Reason, then moved to Cubase with Reason ReWired. I was pretty happy with the sounds I was getting out of Reason and VSTis like Zebra2. I had been hearing everywhere that the Virus was an awesome synth for electronic music which sparked my interest.

I started to fall in love with the Virus sound when I heard the demos of Vengeance presets on their site. I spent hours trying to reproduce even one of the sounds but fell short, I simply couldn't get any software synth to sound as aggressive as the Virus yet still stay musical. Furthermore, in certain tunes, where I heard a sound that really stood out, I could never reproduce it. I actually checked out these artists' sites and even got in contact with a few to see what their secret was ... the answer was almost always, "oh, that's the Virus".

For over a year, I attempted to decide what to buy. I couldn't afford the Virus TI so I was considering the Virus Powercore. Due to all the forum posts on how terrible it was, I never went ahead with the purchase though.

So 2009 came and I said, enough is enough, this is going to be the year I get my TI!! Several days into January, I checked eBay as I usually did, and found a Buy It Now TI desktop in my state for a very good price! It took me 15 minutes to convince myself before I pressed the button.

I must admit that I thought the TI would indeed replace all my softsynths but instead, it has ended up being an excellent compliment to them. I still love Thor and Zebra2 as much as I ever did, in fact some sounds that I need are better produced by these synths. But, the TI brings such a different flavor to the table, it's almost a different breed of synth. I find myself using it for all bassline duties and hard sweeps / fx. It is indeed an amazing synth and I don't think I could be without it again!

Excuse me while I cuddle with it ...

[synthfiend]

I used to mess with electronic sounds some ten years ago, then about 3 years ago came across some money and bought a Mac Book Pro, Logic Studio and a Remote SL controller. I had some fun with that kit, but got sick of having to boot up the Mac then load Logic to get any sound.

I thought I would like a hardware synth for the imediacy and power it could offer. I remembered seeing a Polar in my local keyboard shop around 2005 and thought to myself that looked and sound devine, but realised it was out of my reach.

When the Snow came out I demoed one and thought the sound was mind blowing. My 40th was coming up and I thought I would love a Polar. I sold my MBP, Logic and the remote SL and bought the Polar.

It would have to be one of my best purchases, it is soo deep and I know I will spend the next 5 to 10 years exploring its potential.

There is something to be said for a piece of hardware, it has character and presence, something software lacks.

Great thread by the way.....

[cl516]

Ok here's mine:
It was 2003 - I'd just bought my first real synth (MS2000) and I wanted more. Living in NYC at the time, it was easy to check out the Virus in person either at 48th St. or in my case, at "two lines music" cuz I lived downtown within walking distance. But the lowest price I could find was from Novamusik, so I bit the bullet and ordered it. Then the day came and it arrived, I remember being so excited. A brand new Virus C desktop. I setup a keyboard, plugged in the power, grabbed some headphones. I wanted to focus and dedicate a whole afternoon staring at that delicious red screen.

I turned on the power. Cooooool, so excited. Played a few notes. Sounds great! So I decided to go deeper... I grabbed the filter knob and proceeded to engage in my first filter sweep and then...
































...the power went out. 2003 North America blackout.

[plaid_emu]

Originally Posted by cl516

...the power went out. 2003 North America blackout.

Great story! I can only imagine the harsh profanity that must've flowed from your apartment windows.

[Hell Yeh]

I got into production just before it was common to have software-only studios. It was recommended to me by a friend of mine that all you need to make trance was a JP and a Virus so I bought both (started off with a Virus B). This was a time where, I was contemplating all the keyboard synths that I was going to end up buying and now have way too many VSTi's than I know what to do with.

[jdmmade]

WOW The stories are great! Keep em coming this is good stuff, pumps me up lol!

[Arch]

Originally Posted by cl516

...the power went out. 2003 North America blackout.

Wow, I didn't know the Virus was that powerful!

I came from Rebirth (1997-98, pre vst era - spending all that time trying to make the 303s not sound like 303s LOL). Then Buzz Tracker (the modular aspect was cool, I made some amazing sounds by accident, but they weren't always so musical). Then Reason and an Alpha Juno, although I never actually used it in a tune (all I did with it was hoovers, but I didn't write techno then). Then ill health stopped my from making tunes. My health is still not 100%, but at the back of my mind there was always the thought that I would write tunes again. At the start of '09, I made a fateful stop at a music store in town, wondering how much midi keyboards were these days. Perhaps this was the time? Then I started finding out how cool the gear is these days (especially the VSTs which were pretty shithouse back when I was using Reason 1.0). And of course the computer integration of certain synthesizers. I live in a 1br flat and can't deal with multiple keyboards, big mixer etc. I bought a few bits of gear, an M3 with the radius upgrade, motif rack es (sold), a few other cheap bits (sold), and finally there was a Virus TI desktop available in my town, from a dj gear store! I was reluctant to buy interstate as most people don't know how to package gear if they don't have the original packaging - they think that 5 layers of bubble wrap will protect it (one of the bits of gear I tried was damaged this way - but they accepted a return). And no one bid on it! I had to sell some other stuff before I could buy it, but I ended up getting it for $1800aud.
I'm still learning how to make some more interesting sounds on it of course as I haven't had it that long.

[xerxes]

i saw a picture of the virus ti - and thought to myself: "i need to have that, or i will lose the will to live." this is actually true.
so i got one, and i have been in love ever since. the only synth where the sounds are as good as it looks and vice verca.

[tranqui]

haha, my story is similar to xerxes'

the only thought I had in my mind after trying the TI desktop for the first time was, quoting terry pratchett, "a statement, a threat and an ultimatum: MINE."