Several Questions from a Potential Virus TI Buyer

[davani]

Hello,

I signed up on this forum to ask a few questions about Virus TI (or TI2) which I'm currently considering. (I'm a total newbie so forgive my naivete.)

Background info about me: I am a musician who is mainly interested in ready-made presets. I'm not an engineer, and I'm not too interested in tweaking my own sounds because I'm not very good at it. Instead, what I like is to have a lot of cool presets, i.e. quality out-of-the-box sounds.

With that out of the way, my questions:

1) Is the Virus TI2 good for House/Electro out of the box? I'm talking about sidechained sawbasses typical for House (can sidechaining be done easily inside the Virus? because I can't do it in my sequencer, FL) and also the typical plucky Electro-Pop sounds, as in Pop tracks such as Lady Gaga, Benny Benassi, David Guetta, etc.

2) Not sure if many people are familiar with Hardstyle, but I'd like to use it for Hardstyle as well, out of the box (or with minimal work). This genre has a distorted drum with a big sub-bass under it. Is it possible to make distorted kicks and hardstyle "screeches" with the TI/TI2 "out of the box" or at least without any background in sound synthesis.

3) I work in FL. How many instances of Virus TI/TI2 will I be able to place in a single project? I've heard there's a limit, like 16? (or 4 in the case of Snow)? If it's a small number, it can be limiting because what if I use the Virus for lots of different sounds?

4) Have latency or other compatibility issues been completely resolved in Virus TI/TI2? In other words, if I buy a TI2 now and put it in my FL Studio 8 environment, will everything work perfectly with no latency?

Thanks

[PaPi]

1. Yes. I don't do house but so many TI owners I know do. Currently sidechaning works in some hosts but it doesn't in some others (notably Cubase), but this is just becase OS v.4 is still new. I don't know about FL, you might want to ask the people at Access.

2. Distortion is one of the TI's specialties, especially with the new OS 4. Not too many presets (or commercially-available patches) take advantage of the new features, but this will soon change and distorting existing pre-OS4 presets isn't really that hard and time-consuming.

3. The TI is 16-part multi-timbral, which is a different thing than saying you can use only up to 16 examples of it. If you use multi-timbrality, you can use up to 16 different patches within a single instance (4 on the Snow.) How many examples of the synth you can use depends on many factors, notably your host, your computer and your RAM. If you have a state-of-the-art i7-based machine (PC or Mac) running a 64-bit OS with lots of RAM (12+ gigs) and a 64-bit native host (Cubase, Sonar, Logic etc., I have no idea whether FL x64 is already available or not, but if not it's just a matter of time before it is) then really the sky is the limit.

4. Again, don't know about FL specifically, but within the two hosts I use Virus Control with (Cubase and Sonar) I've never had latency problems. But I don't use the TI as my audio interface, and I strongly suggest you use something a lot more powerful than that, if you intend to use multiple instances of the Virus. The Virus is still stuck with USB 1.1, not exactly a speed demon...

[MBTC]

Davani you may want to read my thread here since it describes my experience with FL on Win 7 x64.

http://infekted.org/virus/showthread.php?t=32138

I'm not sure of the fate of true 64-bit FL, since FL is written in Delphi and I'm not even sure they have 64-bit Delphi yet? Maybe I'm wrong.

[davani]

Thanks for the answers PaPi and MBTC.

BTW, MBTC I have the same setup as you Core-i7 with Windows 7, and it looks we're both FL users. I read your entire thread. Very useful for me because I'd likely be running into exactly the same thing. So thanks for dissuading me from this purchase.

[marc]

Originally Posted by PaPi

Currently sidechaning works in some hosts but it doesn't in some others (notably Cubase), but this is just becase OS v.4 is still new

this is wrong. a host needs to support audio instrument side chaining in order to stream audio into the virus control plug-in. some do, some don't. this is nothing that can be changed by us (access music). don't confuse it with effects side chaining, those are working across the board.

best, marc

[MBTC]

Originally Posted by davani

Thanks for the answers PaPi and MBTC.

BTW, MBTC I have the same setup as you Core-i7 with Windows 7, and it looks we're both FL users. I read your entire thread. Very useful for me because I'd likely be running into exactly the same thing. So thanks for dissuading me from this purchase.

I don't really want to dissuade you from the purchase as much as compare notes. You can see I'm still here although not a virus owner at present. It's because I'm waiting for the day when issues are fixed and I can use this synth without major negative impact to my workflow.

I know my experience with Virus control differs from others, I just don't know if its due to FL, Windows 7, 32 vs 64 bit, etc.?

[PaPi]

Originally Posted by MBTC

I don't really want to dissuade you from the purchase as much as compare notes. You can see I'm still here although not a virus owner at present. It's because I'm waiting for the day when issues are fixed and I can use this synth without major negative impact to my workflow.

I know my experience with Virus control differs from others, I just don't know if its due to FL, Windows 7, 32 vs 64 bit, etc.?

I can assure you that VC runs fine in a 64-bit host (Cubase and Sonar) under Win 7 x64 with 16 gigs of RAM on an i7-class machine. OS4 is pretty stable, despite minor graphic annoyances in Win 7 (as far as I've heard, no problems with XP or Vista.) But I'm confident that these will be dealt with soon.

[nutrinoland]

hi..
i have not switched to windows 7 yet...nor am i using a 64 bit Os, but i use Fl studio and a virus snow....apart from a few initial things that u will need to learn, like delay compensation and setting up outputs etc...the virus works great with fruity...
i love mine...
also as Marc was saying...if u wanna sidechain bass in fruity, it is easily done..there are a lot of tutorials about it on youtube. Sidechaining audio into VC is still not possible on FL i think..ie: to use atomizer internally for example.
I really think that you will be very happy with the Virus, once u learn to set it up properly in fruity.
also...this is none of my business, but.....i think that once u get the virus, u will love to make u'r own patches....it is not difficult...no engineering at all...if u can use fruity...then u can easily make u'r own patches...
maybe u can try out a virus somewhere for a while...

i think u should get one...it is currently my favorite piece of hardware..

[mitchiemasha]

not read through but, the sidechaining he requires for house production can be done in cubase. Check out my driver tune here.

http://www.4shared.com/audio/1qRBaJnU

in the break down all i do is turn down the send used to the side chained compressor on the virus channel. it shows the difference to the pumping bass lines side chained and not.

all the sounds used are slighty tweeked pressets in the virus. I've done some more eq since to bring the lead through.

I've got the best sidechain fl youtube tutorial too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=lBNv...os=fBSNLClFB2I

he's took it down but he may send you it if you contact him. This guy knows his stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/user/Spyrofunk

thats the guy.

[marc]

Originally Posted by mitchiemasha

not read through but, the sidechaining he requires for house production can be done in cubase. Check out my driver tune here.

now i have a question for you guys because that's starting to confuse me a lot. yes, i know that the last year maybe pretty much every pad and bass and noise in "house" productions tend to be send through an compressor which receives a side chain from for instance a kick. but what does this have to do with the virus? the side chain we talk about here is the other way around: send audio into the virus, process it and get it back again. i understand why this is a problem when you want to atomize stuff, but in which way does it become a problem when you want this "house" sound? the virus has no compressor, all you could do is filter another track and/or put effects on it.

best, marc