Korg EMX and Virus?

    Hello, I'm looking forward to get a Virus to use with my Korg EMX, but since I never had used a desktop synth to be sequenced by my EMX there are some questions that makes me doubt wheter I should get a Virus TI Snow or save and wait a little more and get the Desktop. First, I would like to know a little bit more about multitimbrality, I've read some things but it doesn't get very clear to me, my question is: the Korg Emx is divided in 9 drum parts and 5 synth parts, the Snow has 4 parts does that mean that I would be able to use only 4 of the 5 synth part to sequence it via my emx? (Assigning e.g. one sound of the Snow for each synth part in the EMX) if so, the 16 parts of the Desktop version would be more suitable for working with the EMX? Thanks in advance! :)

    Hi,



    I can't help you with the emx specs, so you are your own with that one, but asumed that it can sequence 5 different midi channels, that is is indeed one more than the virus snow can deliver. The snow has 4 parts multitimbrality, so it indeed can play 4 different sounds simultaneously at max. The TI desktop models have 16 parts and have two dsp processors instead of one for the snow.


    Reading about your dilemma, I think you should think a little bit about how you are going to use that synth. To put it a little bit rough: are you an in depth programmer or someone who wanders through presets and adapts a found sound to his own needs. This is important since the virus has an insane amount of parameters to mess around with. If you look at the desktop model, you'll see that the the synth is divided into sections like oscillators, filters, fx, etc. Each of these sections has an edit button and once you press that, you enter the extra parameters of that section. There are at least (roughly) 15 extra parameters per section and most of the sections have a lot more...


    So if you are going deep with programming, you really want those extra knobs of a desktop model. I would therefore advise you to save and get the desktop model. It has roughly twice the processing power of a snow and those knobs are welcome if you are a programmer. Even if you don' t want to save I would still recommend a second hand TI1 desktop over a snow since (in Europe) a second hand ti1 in mint condition is about just as expensive as a new snow. I have owned a TI1 desktop for several years now and the raw power that thing is already a beast in it's own. I never considered updating it to a ti2 since it's dsp power is already way more than I ever need.


    In my view the only reason for getting a snow is when portability is an issue or when you are programming the synth mainly through the virus control software from a daw. I am not saying that Access did not work hard to make all the parameters of the virus easily accessable on the snow, but the intuitive layout/more knobs+more dsp power+more multitimbrality of the desktop models is something to consider.



    Greetz,


    M.

    Forget about chords, then you wont to use EMX.
    EMX synth parts can play only one note per chennel
    EMX is no realy good for sequencing Virus...
    And sure then you bay desktop version you will lose a lote possibilitys of the virus...
    May be good idea use EMX, Virus and programm sequencer... (Wats what i do)