Virus as a standalone synth live?

[gfb]

Hi there

I wondered how many of you are actual keyboard players using your Virus as a standalone synth live?
I absolutely love my Virus TI Polar. I found myself getting lost in the endless number of presets tho. (Manys hours lost in the headphones) So many fanastic sounds but not all of them very useful to me. Great, but I'm enjoying it much more since I've gone back to basics. I love stripping it right back to a pure sawtooth or whatever, single oscillator at first then adding a second osc a fifth above etc. I'm getting really into trying to emulate vintage sounds, and the virus is fantastic. Using its as a lead for a solo in a funk outfit is amazing. - I particuarily enjoy having the pitch bend set to +- 48 semitones - dropping it down or whacking it up whilst soloing sounds mental B-D . Treating it like a vintage synth has made me appreciate really how good the Virus is. I'm using it mostly in a great funk band and also a more experimental ambient electro prog rock type jazzz drum n bass fusion type band, lots of massive pads. I'll post some links soon.
And when I say I love stripping it right back, thats not to say I don't then add effects and appergiator type stuff, usually when soloing, I love the fact that the Virus has so much in its arsenal.
I find it fascinating reading all the in depth sound designing tips you guys have, and I try most of them out. I'm learning so much on this forum.
Cheers guys

Grant

[luddy]

I use it live, alongside a Kyma system. It's wonderful, although there are some features I really wish that it had for supporting live play. I wish for example that it could receive a sysex dump of it's entire controller state and configuration, so that I could configure it for a show just by playing a sysex dump into it, instead of wading through lots of menus making sure everything is just so. I asked about controller dumps here a while back, because the Virus actually seems to have this feature, but I haven't been able to get it to work. I didn't get a single response to my query here, though.

The occasional glitch, pop, or hangup that the machine suffers makes me a bit nervous about it on stage. I wish it were just as rock-solid and stable as an electric piano.

Finally, my unit at least kind of dribbles out random MIDI messages, like pitch bends and mod wheel stuff, even when I'm not touching the controllers, so I'm hesitant to use it as a controller for other modules even though it's actually excellent for that. That might be a problem with my unit itself, not sure.

Other than those things, though, it is fantastic for live play. I love the multi feature, because you can switch between sounds just by changing channels instead of changing patches, which makes for much smoother changes.

-Luddy

[gfb]

i never have any glitches or pops. Are you using it through Usb or completely on its own?
I use it on its own and I'd say its just as stable as my other keyboards. And Its great how there is a crossfade between patches, perfect for live playing.

[luddy]

I use it completely on its own. Really, you never have a glitch of any kind with it? No stuck notes, nothing?

I wonder if my unit is defective... Don't get me wrong, it's usable, but there is simply no comparison between the stability of the Virus and, say, my RD700, which is as practically as predictable as an acoustic piano.

-Luddy

[suzzymackenzie]

Originally Posted by gfb

Its great how there is a crossfade between patches, perfect for live playing.

True crossfade ? Or do you mean stepping easily through the parts in multimode ? If you could actually morph from one part to another with a crossfader that would be very interesting.

Like your tunes by the way.

Suzzy

[gfb]

well na not an actual crossfader, that would be cool, but i love in single mode, when you select the next patch the one you're on fades away nicely, i'm so used to the sound being cutoff completely when you change.

thanks, my tunes are a work in progress. Going to put a band together for it. Myself on my Nord Stage and Virus, live drums, guitar and cello. I'm thinking of using my mac to play back audio, say bass, and lots of nice virus type pad stuff, but have it midi synced so the virus syncs to the computer midi clock. i've messed about with it, i.e. having a track playing in Logic where i've slowed down the tempo and back again in the global edit track, sounds great if there is crazy lfo madness synced to the clock on the Virus.

While I think of it, i discovered i could use the external midi section in my Nord Stage to control specific parts on the virus if I'm in multi mode. So the setup I had was.....
On the virus in multi mode, I had 5 parts active. I had the keyboard split 50/50. Parts 1 + 2 set to Midi ch 1 and limited to the lower keys (so both parts played at the same time), Parts 3 + 4 set to Midi ch 2 and set to the higher keys. Part 5 set to Midi ch 3.
On my Nord Stage, i had that split as well into three keyboard 'zones'.
The lower zone was hammond, the middle zone piano, the top zone set to external, and that was set to transmit on Midi ch 3, thus playing part 5 of multi on the Virus. At least I think it was like that. Pretty cool?

[suzzymackenzie]

Originally Posted by gfb

well na not an actual crossfader, that would be cool, but i love in single mode, when you select the next patch the one you're on fades away nicely, i'm so used to the sound being cutoff completely when you change.

Right. Virus is my first synth, so I already take this smooth patch transition for granted I guess. I would find it annoying if the machine switched patches prematurely. I've already been experimenting with a 'what-if' live performance using multimode, building up for example:

- start with intriguing pseudo-random slow triplet-timed percussive noises, then adding
- introduce big bass thump sound, at first tentatively (as in Meddle) then moving to
- arp 4-on-floor big bass thump, then adding
- slow swelling low pad to set the key and mode expectation, then switching to ***
- big lead melody, with improv variations and sound tweaks

then just break the whole lot down in reverse order. And hey presto, a brontosaurus (thick in the middle, thin at both ends).

It's at the point *** where I cue up the lead sound by selecting its 'part' while still dwelling on the foregoing warm pad (either still with note on or note off but savouring the decay).

This is all no doubt second nature and elementary stuff for you seasoned synthesists, but I am loving my kindergarten phase!

Suzzy