Access Music User Forum

Hi all

I've been working on a Virus TI Snow Midi Editor based on Ctrlr, an alternative to Virus Control. It's a replica of Virus Control but deals only with midi, no audio, and works with usb port or mdi ports.



UPDATE April 9, 2013
The new skin is ready.

UPDATE March 14, 2013
I just received en email from Access saying that I can't use their copyrighted graphical elements in my panel, so now I'm forced to remove the download links until I've changed all graphics.
Access give me some time to change the graphics. Download link is up again.

UPDATE February 24, 2013

The panel is finished. The big panel is no longer supported.

There is a version for Virus TI and another one for Virus TI Snow.

Download Page

It's a work in progress, as Ctrlr is being updated very frequently, but right now it's fully functional, at least in stand alone mode. At this point you can request any patch from the Virus, send patches, load and save patches in sysex format, and load patches from libraries and from Rom/Ram banks (that is, a basic librarian function).

The final goal is to use it inside any DAW as a vst, allowing to automate any parameter with total recall and no latency. Unfortunately, Ctrlr only manages right now 256 parameters, and a Virus Ti patch has more than 500.

For non Snow users: The editor work with non Snows Virus TI, as they share the same engine. The only differences are the number of outs and the Rom/Ram banks, as the Snow only have 64 patches per bank.

There is another version of the editor, this time a big panel with all controls on view. This panel need a bit of work in the library aspect, I'm working on this.


Known Issues:

· The Virus TI can read patches from Virus A, B and C that have a different way to organize the sysex data. Right now the editor can open libraries and patches only from Virus TI.
· Some characters from the name of the patch can be problematic when opening a library/patch and will give an error. I'm working on this.
· The name of the patch can be changed but is not saved right now. Working on this. Fixed
There could be some bug, please report it here.

Ctrlr works as Audio Unit on Mac. Never tested as I'm on Win, but give it a try.

You need Ctrlr. Its a vst/au plug-in to control hardware. You can download it here (select the nightly build). It works as a standalone application too. Install it, run it and open the panel you downloaded. Then select the midi in/out ports (Virus TI Synth if you have it connected with usb or the midi ports if you got it that way) and voilà.

It's a little tricky to use it inside the daw. Ctrlr needs to open the midi ports it uses independent of the daw, and if your midi interface doesn't have multi client support, you will have to close those midi ports in Logic. I think OSX drivers in general do have multi client support, not like Windows drivers.

If this is not the problem, enter in edit mode (a pencil icon) and there you can click on "Midi Thru" and "Panel wants VST midi input" to see if now works.

The panel was mainly done for several reasons: Been able to play without latency (good for live use), allow sending patch changes (having the Snow only 4 parts this is a must) and at the same time having almost the same control as with VC without the problems derived with the USB audio.

I forgot to say that for every part you need to open a new Virus panel and select a different part.

You are right. It's simply a program that sends cc and sysex midi messages to the Virus. Tweak a knob in the panel and the Virus responds, and vice versa.