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Old 17.03.2022, 01:12 AM
MBTC MBTC is offline
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Default I have rejoined the Virus family after a hiatus

I ended up buying a new TI2 desktop, after selling my Snow a couple of years back. It keeps coming back into my life, now I guess I know where they got the name.

I will keep this one though, unless maybe Kemper comes out with a successor which I don't see happening. I've come to terms with the fact that for all its warts, the Virus is truly a unique synth, and even in its current form, is just pretty much something I will miss the sound of if I don't have. When I sold my Snow I told myslef I might get a full desktop one day (I felt a bit limited by the interface and overall DSP power).

A couple of factors made me decide to expedite the purchase and do it now rather than later:
1) Synth prices are going up and not likely to get cheaper
2) I was able to order a TI2 Desktop new for $450 less than I paid for one (that I sent back at the time) back in 2010 by simply importing from germany to US (and that's factoring in the import tax) instead of buying from US retailer
2) Chip shortages could potentially get a LOT worse
3) Kemper could decide to discontinue it entirely

I didn't buy it with the expectation of more features being added or anything like that. As long as Windows remains properly supported for the software, I'm happy. Even with more knobs than the Snow, I don't particularly like the hardware interface for sound design, so without the software it would indeed be difficult to justify.

Most of the "backbone" of my sound these days is analog synths, but the VA sound of the Virus blends nicely with my other gear. Over the last couple of years, I've really built out my studio.. The pandemic kept me at home more, and I suppose shifted my priorities toward spending more time on music, it's one of those constants in my life that's upheld its own importance.

Coming back to the Virus, the thing that strikes me first is just how different it is from my other hardware. Not just the sound... being different is good there. I mean the perspective with which the user experience (both HW and SW interface) is designed. It's certainly learnable and not what I would call hard to use, but it feels a bit like buying a saxaphone that's shaped like a guitar... little things just make you wonder "why?". An example is just going through the presets it seems like very few of them use the mod wheel for vibrato, which is kind of like this universal unwritten law that MW is vibrato by default. But Virus sound designers seem to want that to be cutoff or do something else unexpected. I don't have any Waldorf synths at the moment but I've heard some say the same about their gear, so maybe its a German thing? To me Sequential gear feels very musical to use while the Virus feels so technical.. Fun, but technical and almost in the way of the creative process of making music.
Don't get me wrong, no regrets. I'm enjoying the power boost of the TI2 and feel like I made out like a bandit on the price, so it's a welcome addition to the studio and will get plenty of use.

And at the end of the day it's still probably king of the VA synths overall.
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Old 18.04.2022, 11:32 PM
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Welcome Back!

I'm back myself (for the fourth time). I ended up buying and returning a Novation Summit twice. I just couldn't get along with the sound. Newer digital synths are modeled very close to analog ones (since it is en vogue). I have since added a Kyra, Iridium, Kronos, and Montage....

The Virus still handily beats all of these when it comes to VA sounds (for my type of music). The Summit and newer DSI/SC synths have low polyphony and mono voices. Coming from a plugin world to hardware is eye-opening.
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Old 22.04.2022, 02:03 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by djflan View Post
Welcome Back!

I'm back myself (for the fourth time). I ended up buying and returning a Novation Summit twice. I just couldn't get along with the sound. Newer digital synths are modeled very close to analog ones (since it is en vogue). I have since added a Kyra, Iridium, Kronos, and Montage....

The Virus still handily beats all of these when it comes to VA sounds (for my type of music). The Summit and newer DSI/SC synths have low polyphony and mono voices. Coming from a plugin world to hardware is eye-opening.
I have to admit, working with the Virus again has been kind of eye-opening for me to with regard to your point about polyphony, it is pretty crazy to be looking at 16 patch slots in a single plugin like that. I have yet to really push the Ti2 to even see where it hits limits, but my general feeling is it can probably handle a good 3-4 effect-heavy patches at once with decent polyphony (depends on the patch to be sure), and that's a lot.

Sequential gear remains my favorite, though I have several. I looked at Summit/Peak but I came to the conclusion they can sound great, but something about the raw tone of the oscillators just seems not for me. For digital oscillators with analog filters, I prefer my Prophet 12... even though its discontinued, its still possible to find the desktop new or at a great price on the used market.

Polyphony on a single synth has become somewhat less important to me, I actually like dedicating an entire synth to a single sound and then moving to another synth for a different sound (which means usually 6-8 analog voices of analog is more than enough). The harmonic richness of my Sequential gear is so full and lush that its kind of a less is more thing. I'm not kidding when I say my Prophet 10 can carry an entire track with nothing but it and the drums, on a single patch / single track and it sounds like an entire band playing with the right FX... it does something in the mid range that no other synth does, and when played with one hand in the low register and one in the high, even a bassline becomes almost optional. I plan to get the Oberheim OBX reissue when it comes out (should be announced soon)..

Have you checked out the Rev2 or Hydrasynth? I have both, they are both good in different ways... Rev2s have gotten a bit more expensive since I bought mine but the Hydrasynth is really a killer value -- decidedly digital sounding but the filters and sound design experience are great and it can definitely sound warm if you push it to.
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Old 22.06.2022, 07:01 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by djflan View Post
Welcome Back!
The Summit and newer DSI/SC synths have low polyphony and mono voices. Coming from a plugin world to hardware is eye-opening.

I think the point is a simpler music we have on stage nowadays and the way the (simpler ?) musicians do that.


They need 5 monophonic synthesizers and a Beat Step.


Small and cheap synths do sell very fine at the moment.



However this is an issue because, as soon as a voice leaves the jacks you have a mono channel to treat and placing this into a 3D room is difficult.


I go with 64 Instruments the same time, using up to the full polyphony in each of the channels and have them still all for send and effect treatment present in the digital mixer attached. It is more like working with a DAW and its flexibility.
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