What the pluck?

[Haplo]

Well I guess what Roby31 is trying to say, even though in a somewhat "hostile" tone , is why you make these recommendations based on a very short experience of the Virus products ?
Since that is what you stated in your first post.

If you're looking for presets there are tons of presets, both free and commercial that are more or less targeted to the trance scene.
E.g. check the patches by e.g. Manuel Schleis (MS) I believe the whole TI1-M factory bank is dedicated to his presets (they are spread out of a bunch of banks in the TI2-factory banks). There are also some free to download on the Access Music site.

MS is the guy behind the Vengance site, which has produced trance/techno/favorite-ganre banks for a lot of gear and VSTs (Vanguard, Nexus, Sylenth etc.).

http://www.vengeance-sound.com/eng/i...dexSounds.html

I would find it very hard to believe, if you can't find a good starting point or reference on how to do it with all the presets available.

[Roby31]

All time low for this forum? Proud of it. At least I try to be helpful in my comments, not to be a douche. I don't go spamming false stuff around just to perpetrate my cause, just to reassure my ego that buying something I didn't need and then letting it go because I didn't know how to use it was the right choice.
I paid on my own skin all the bullshit people throw around. You weren't "noted" in my rant, you weren't accused of anything and yet you feel offended. How come?

And again your forum shows lack of knowledge. I always used my TI2 with W7 x64 in FLS9 (demo) and guess what? It always worked without any major latency. It HAD the graphic API problem but no significant audio latency. It didn't kill the workflow, because simply putting the GUI behind when it wasn't needed fixed the stuttering. Many other people were using FL at the time and they kept working, probably they simply aren't part of the forums, exactly like the majority of people happy with their Virus that don't go brag about it. Go figure why.

[MBTC]

Originally Posted by Haplo

Well I guess what Roby31 is trying to say, even though in a somewhat "hostile" tone , is why you make these recommendations based on a very short experience of the Virus products ?
Since that is what you stated in your first post.

It was a short experience in the sense that I only had 30 days to work it out, but I put in an INSANE amount of hours trying to make it work. Maybe with enough persistance I could have gotten things sorted out, but at that time... maybe things have changed... but at that time, I could not find anyone using it successfully in FLS without all sorts of PDC workarounds, bouncing down tracks, and other things. No doubt all of this is part of producing electronic music professionally, but it's only a hobby of mine and I do not have insane amounts of time to spend to get all gear in sync.

But I'm not even sure why this thread got so tied up in Virus / latency issues or hate mail.

I simply made a VST recommendation to the original poster (which I might add he seems to thrilled with my recommendation). My comments about latency did indicate my own experience with horrible lag, but if anyone reads deeper they will see I was talking about keyboard-to-dsp latency, and the "immediacy" you get from playing a Virus keyboard versus controlling a Virus desktop from a midi controller as I was doing.

[MBTC]

Originally Posted by Roby31

All time low for this forum? Proud of it. At least I try to be helpful in my comments, not to be a douche.

Why don't you ask the original question poster who has helped him the most in this thread so far?

Originally Posted by Roby31

I don't go spamming false stuff around just to perpetrate my cause, just to reassure my ego that buying something I didn't need and then letting it go because I didn't know how to use it was the right choice.

I didn't spam anything false. You would have to be really stretching to find anything I've posted that in any way inflates / supports / reassures my own ego about anything. I was crushed with disappointment at my experience with the Virus on FLS with Win7-64, and I keep revisiting these forums in the hopes that I will see some hope that I can make this purchase again someday and use it with the same latency results others seem to get on Cubase or Logic.

Originally Posted by Roby31

I paid on my own skin all the bullshit people throw around. You weren't "noted" in my rant, you weren't accused of anything and yet you feel offended. How come?

You're blatantly lying... You referenced my username in the first line of your post.

Originally Posted by Roby31

And again your forum shows lack of knowledge. I always used my TI2 with W7 x64 in FLS9 (demo) and guess what? It always worked without any major latency. It HAD the graphic API problem but no significant audio latency. It didn't kill the workflow, because simply putting the GUI behind when it wasn't needed fixed the stuttering. Many other people were using FL at the time and they kept working, probably they simply aren't part of the forums, exactly like the majority of people happy with their Virus that don't go brag about it. Go figure why.

I didn't claim to have knowledge of the TI2 and using it with FLS, so it's a bit moronic of you to point out my "lack of knowledge". I originally came to this forum to get knowledge. In this particular thread, I shared some knowledge on how to come upon very nice pluck sounds at a very nice price point.

The question I have for you, is since you've had such success with FLS on Win7 64, where the fuck were you when I posted so many questions, asking for tips on getting my setup working? Not one person on these forums chimed in to help with that particular host and operating system. From the ImageLine forums I came to the conclusion that most were not having success under a 64 bit OS, I could not find anyone that had been able to work it into their setup seamlessly, they all seemed to be using lots of workarounds.

So again, where were you? Why do you find it easy to make time for flaming, but not helping others?

[MBTC]

Originally Posted by Barnelby

Oh man, I picked up the demo of dune today and holy pluck. My favorite plugin synth to date and I've tried em all...well except nexus... I'm a logic guy so i dont deal with vsts a lot...but i guess i could fire up abe and try it out. But yeah, good pluck sounds with dune is as easy as pressing a key on the keyboard....I haven't lost faith in the ti2 but I have to admit I am definitely disappointed in this glaring blind spot in its sound. Even though the ti2 is a beast in so many areas, this one gimp is a major limitation to my music and considering that I could afford a tetra and all the plugins a kid could ever dream of for the price of a used ti2....Im kinda at a crossroads here

Glad you like Dune. I really haven't found any sort of shortcoming of this plug-in yet. Hardware-like sound and pretty much any category of trance sound is possible in top-notch form.. warm bass, lush pads or string sounds, amazing leads, good onboard effects and truly amazingly efficient CPU usage. I can produce an entire track using just this plugin and get the polyphony-voice count equivalent of about 5 or 6 Ti2s while my CPU doesnt break a sweat.

[Barnelby]

Yeah for sure. Dune just sounds so clean and punchy....it also seems really thick in the mix, too, which I feel is where sylenth fell short for me....(it sounds good by itself but in tandem with a virus sound it seems pretty feeble IMO)

Yeah this whole thread has been really interesting but I'd like to point out that my original query, and maybe I didn't state it well enough, is that I can open up sylenth, the ES2, dune, whatever, go to ANY preset, and right off the bat get better sharp pluck sounds than I can create with 10 minutes of tweaking with the virus. I HAVE tried other soundsets, I HAVE seen that there are good pluck sounds out there, and if it makes any difference I HAVE read the manual cover to cover more than once.

I am not contesting that with the right amount of time spent with the virus that ANY sound can be achieved, I know that.

Simply put, for me it is weird that with other synths it is hard to NOT get accurate pluck sounds, when the virus takes some coaxing to get that sharp attack.

Please don't beat me up.

[MBTC]

Originally Posted by Barnelby

Simply put, for me it is weird that with other synths it is hard to NOT get accurate pluck sounds, when the virus takes some coaxing to get that sharp attack.

I really think the non-linear attack/decay envelopes are the key -- I wish I could tell you exactly how to achieve that on the Virus, but I'm pretty sure its possible (if not, shame on them)... and even if it's not directly supported you can sometimes do tricks with 2 filters, like an LP + BP that will give you a sharp curve that gives that bite, but finding that sweetspot can be a bit of a chore. Adjusting the resonance peak has an enormous amount to do with it too.

For example Zebra2 can do this type of modification to the envelope slope, but the setting is in a place that's easy to miss until you've worked with it for a while and know where it is.

Just as an experiment a while back, I watched a few sound creation tutorials using the Virus, and tried to recreate the same sounds using Dune. The % tweaks on each parameter and specific settings were a little different, but for the most part I was able to get Dune sounding IDENTICAL with minimum effort. When I say identical I mean in the fundamental areas like how an oscillator sounds under specific conditions, the harmonics etc. I am not implying in any way that Dune supports all the effects possibilities that exist on the Virus, which counts for a lot. It does have a nice sounding reverb, chorus, phase, delay, distort and EQ though.

[Barnelby]

Its funny that you mention that, because just recently I was messing with different filters in tandem and noticed some sweet spots where there is some good pluck potential with a low and hi pass together.

As far as effects go, I agree that dune's are good, but the TI2 still has the best effects I've ever heard. U-he's Uhbik effects are awesome (and the demo is great, limitations aren't that bad considering), but there is NOTHING like running my mopho through the virus effects and twisting it to the next dimension....h ly crap!

But with the release of dune, it seems like yet more evidence that software plugins are getting better and better at an alarming rate. In my opinion, and I'm sure I'm about to take a beating for this, but I don't see how it would be possible for digital hardsynths to always have relevance. Just look at how fast computer technology itself is exploding...it doesn't take a psychic to see that SOME day, maybe not soon, maybe not even a long time from now, but there WILL be a plugin that will dethrone the (current) access virus.

(insert beating here)

Maybe that's not all bad though...perhaps the toppling of the digital synth market will bring on a new age of analogs...

Or maybe there will even be a day when plugins sound better than analogs....(queue creepy sci-fi sounds...made with dune)

[MBTC]

Originally Posted by Barnelby

But with the release of dune, it seems like yet more evidence that software plugins are getting better and better at an alarming rate. In my opinion, and I'm sure I'm about to take a beating for this, but I don't see how it would be possible for digital hardsynths to always have relevance. Just look at how fast computer technology itself is exploding...it doesn't take a psychic to see that SOME day, maybe not soon, maybe not even a long time from now, but there WILL be a plugin that will dethrone the (current) access virus.

This is exactly what I've been saying. And yes, you may get a beating here because of the passion for the Virus... I think I am quickly becoming hated here (which is unfortunate because it is my honest intention to own a Virus again one day and share knowledge / learn from others here).

The progress made in the softsynth arena, even just in the last 2-3 years has been staggering to my ears, and more and more I've heard confirmed reports of some very big name producers using a pure software set up, at least for some tracks.

Ten years ago, all I wanted was a Virus. I was convinced (and probably right) that it was my only option for producing the kind of music I wanted to. However, I was going through a divorce at the time, constantly putting money into a house that was about 4 times larger than I needed, and for whatever reason could not convince myself to take the plunge. Software synths were nowhere close to the capabilities of the Virus.

But, the software has gotten MUCH better. Quadcore CPUs which are much faster than their predecessors are the norm. The advancements on the software front have gone up multiple orders of magnitude while the advancements in hardware are small and incremental in nature.

I don't think software is the death of hardware... What do you think powers the Virus? Its just a computer running software with a tightly integrated control surface and optimized OS.

I sometimes struggled with MIDI timing issues even back in the 80s when I was using the Atari ST as my sequencer. When I first started playing around with modern software DAWs, the tight workflow and lack of timing issues immediately struck me as "this is it... this is what I've been waiting for". However, I wasn't too impressed with most of the soft synths I heard at that time. As you said, much is changing and it is changing fast.

This does not mean I am anti-Virus... I still love these machines and I hope that the whole "total integration" thing works out and reaches a point where it is seamless, timing-issue-free, and provides more than 3 USB outs.

But in the meantime I've got a few really nice plugins in my arsenal, and Dune was truly a milestone in softsynth development IMO.

[Barnelby]

Yeah, I guess it may have been a little extreme to assume that the digital synth world will suffer greatly as plugins get better. Obviously, digital synths will just get better, too. (Check out John Bowen's solaris if you haven't yet). However, as a producer, I feel like if my options are between a 2 thousand dollar piece of hardware and an equal or better plugin and a controller of my choice for an eight the price, the decision is a no brainer. As a performer, though, of course having a keyboard synth would be the obvious choice.