Access Future,hardware or software or both?

[oblivion]

Is it possible to use the mobile cpu:s Qualcomm Snapdragon in a future Virus synth or must it be a Motorola cpu?

[MBTC]

Originally Posted by oblivion

Is it possible to use the mobile cpu:s Qualcomm Snapdragon in a future Virus synth or must it be a Motorola cpu?

I'm not sure, but it seems to me mobile processors would put a priority on battery life and small size over performance. My iPhone 4 struggles sometimes with the simplest of tasks like a chat conversation that grows a little bit.

[Berni]

Well I dont think access will come out with a proper software version of the virus for several reasons, 1. There are already lots of good ones out there already that can do a pretty good job of creating the virus sound, NI's Massive springs to mind. 2. The whole VC fiasco proves that they are'nt that good at creating solid, reliable software. 3. They are hardware manufacturers first & foremost, thats what they are good at, making sexy looking, great sounding synths & will probably continue to do so as long as there is a viable market but as another poster said this is going to be an increasingly smaller consumer base as soft synths & computers get better & faster.
Akai used to be, arguably, the worlds No1 sampler manufacturer but there software was buggy for a lot of models, even some of there late high end machines (MPC 4000, S5/6000) & there Aksys software (there version of virus control) was a complete joke which just about put the last nail in there sampling coffin when cheap soft samplers came on the market. To this day they have not made a decent software version of any of the Akai samplers & now concentrate on making hardware because thats what they are good at. I think the same is true for access.
Just my 2c ; )

P.S. Spoon Dad was cool!

[MBTC]

Originally Posted by Berni

Just my 2c ; )

P.S. Spoon Dad was cool!

Well it seems your opinion is similar to mine. Do you get lots of haters here too? I'm feeling the heat. Maybe my choice of words is what sets people off? Actually when I consider comments across other threads I've gotten the impression there are more folks that agree with me than disagree.

However I am definately feeling like I am making enemies here lately and that was never my intention. I've learned that Virus owners can be extremely sensitive and brand loyal when something negative is said about this synth. Even I've mentioned many times over I think highly of this beautiful piece of hardware as an instrument on the whole, I just want to see improvements around total integration, USB and DAW integration, more power/voice count, or at least a trade off in price so that there is more bang for the buck compared to soft synths.

But, the positive things I say never get noticed.. lol. I am just going to try to force myself to back off for a bit, because my membership on these forums is for a reason (I hope to own the next-gen Virus). Lately I'm getting accused of being a troll and I never wanted to come here to make enemies or piss folks off.

[Berni]

Hey its a public forum, say what you want...the haters dont make any music with it anyway so fuck em ; )

[to-pse]

Originally Posted by oblivion

Is it possible to use the mobile cpu:s Qualcomm Snapdragon in a future Virus synth or must it be a Motorola cpu?

I think performance-wise it would be possible to port the Virus algorithms
to quite a few currently available processor-architectures (especially
since most CPUs even in the embedded domain now contain special
instructions for SIMD operations)

But I suppose that this would be a tedious task. Access has used the
Motorola 56k architecture right from the beginning. I would suppose even
coding lots of high-perfomance-parts directly in the 56K DSP-assembler not
to induce any overhead due to compilers and inefficient automatic optimization.

Best regards,
Tobias

[to-pse]

Originally Posted by Berni

2. The whole VC fiasco proves that they are'nt that good at creating solid, reliable software.

Well - as the whole Virus is primarily software I would dispute this claim.

But there is a big difference between writing embedded code for a specific
hardware (which one has total control over) and writing low & high-level
software for two totally distinct OS-architectures (Win & OS X) which
is meant to run on all kinds of different OS-versions, architectures (32 &
64 bit), with all kinds of different USB-hardware as basis for realtime
low-latency communication and a truck-load of different hosts which
need to interoperate with the higher-layer.

I don't know how many people are working for Access or how much of
their development for the total Integration was outsourced.

But this whole thing is a giant task - and unfortunately one that constantly
needs to be refinded due to OS-Updates, hardware-updates, host-updates
etc.

And it seems to be one task that IMHO no other hardware-synth manu-
facturer has burdened themselves with...

Best regards,
Tobias

[to-pse]

Originally Posted by MBTC

I just want to see improvements around total integration, USB and DAW integration, more power/voice count, or at least a trade off in price so that there is more bang for the buck compared to soft synths.

I don't know if anyone outside Access knows the sales figures of
the various Viruses. But I would suppose that they won't sell
in the numbers that the DX7 sold in his time.

Manufacturing quality hardware in small batches cannot really be done
for cheap. And development of hardware, software and support needs
to be payed for (not to forget marketing

I really think that Access should move to a hybrid approach in the
future. The support & development of the total integration is more
hassle than could be worth if they did this:

a.) port their DSP-routines to x86 (I would suppose that somewhere in
their labs they have done so already).

b.) Release a VSTi/AU version of this for integration into hosts.

c.) Have an external Virus "D" without the "TI" part but complete
processing power necessary for live (which is probably much less
than whats used in the production environment)

d.) Use the external Virus "D" as a "dongle" & controller for the virtual
instrument running on Mac & PC

It is much easier to maintain a virtual software instrument than to
maintain their total integration over the years (see my other post).

Tobias

[feedingear]

Originally Posted by MBTC

But, the positive things I say never get noticed.. lol. I am just going to try to force myself to back off for a bit, because my membership on these forums is for a reason (I hope to own the next-gen Virus). Lately I'm getting accused of being a troll and I never wanted to come here to make enemies or piss folks off.

You are welcome and entitled to your opinion. I just think that with less then a months experience on the virus before you returned it (for your reasons youve stated), there are a few areas you post about (sound quality as in relation to VSTS etc) that its hard to give you credibility for, particularly without getting to hear your own music/production output as a way for others to judge your level of expertise. My 2c.

[Berni]

Originally Posted by to-pse

Well - as the whole Virus is primarily software I would dispute this claim.

But there is a big difference between writing embedded code for a specific
hardware (which one has total control over) and writing low & high-level
software for two totally distinct OS-architectures (Win & OS X) which
is meant to run on all kinds of different OS-versions, architectures (32 &
64 bit), with all kinds of different USB-hardware as basis for realtime
low-latency communication and a truck-load of different hosts which
need to interoperate with the higher-layer.

I don't know how many people are working for Access or how much of
their development for the total Integration was outsourced.

But this whole thing is a giant task - and unfortunately one that constantly
needs to be refinded due to OS-Updates, hardware-updates, host-updates
etc.

And it seems to be one task that IMHO no other hardware-synth manu-
facturer has burdened themselves with...

Best regards,
Tobias

So what are you disputing? VC is a great piece of software?