New ghost

Hi,

Remember my ghost notes issue?
Ghost notes...

Anyway today a new ghost appeared to me. Polar is my major midi-controller in my home studio and I was playing my other synth with it. Suddenly sound changed like I was hitting my foot controller to bottom. But guess what? There was NO foot pedal connected. This was so strange that I had to pick up my pedal to test it. And yes, it was this CC message which was changing the sound. When I connected the pedal and pressed it sound went to normal. Putting all this together, Virus is really the first synth which makes these things by its own: sending midi notes and CCs...

Hi,

Investigating these "ghosts" further I downloaded a MIDI Monitor app for Mac OSX and now I am checking with it what's happening with my Polar. You really notice when Virus generates ghost notes but this app revealed that in fact my Polar does lot more than that: it sends foot controller messages (even when there's no pedal connected!), breath controller messages (?!), bender messages and occationally also note on messages. And all this without touching it! In my setup virus is connected with standard midi cables to iConnect midi which is connected to my mac. At the moment I left it over a night to record all messages and let's see what we got in the morning. Of course there's a little chance that iConnect is generating these messages but seriously I don't see this possible. It all points to Virus. To me it's very strange that it can send foot controller stuff without pedal connected.

I would really appreciate if those of you experiencing similar stuff could run MIDI Monitor (or any other app) tests with their units. Also, I wouldn't mind if someone with no issues would check his/her unit for comparison or for just in case. Remember that all those other things except ghost notes are much more difficult to notice. Without those ghost notes I would probably still be wondering why my Virus suddenly sounds different of behaves strangely.... Btw if you leave your Virus for longer period to record midi data with computer check that your computer won't go to sleep and shut off USBs cause this will stop the midi recording.

One more thing I will do asap is to check what's happening when Virus is in "local off" mode.

Anyway I really begin to feel frustrated with all these ghost issues. Maybe it's time to send my unit back to german...? I already contacted to Access support and let's see what they have to say. All this is really a hard for me cause Virus is a big part of my everyday musical work and almost all my live sounds need it. Being critical still I would not consider any other synth for replacing my Virus. Only thing I could think is to replace my polar with ti desktop + midi controller, if this is the only way to get rid of ghosts. Hopefully not.

Very strange indeed ???

I had MIDI Monitor recording all night (11 hours) and all I got was one Breath Control message. Well, I did my experiments with Virus and found out that SUB OSC Vol knob sends CC #34 which is titled "Breat Controller (fine)". Anyway this was all I got and I assume that my mac wasn't sleeping so it really recorded all this 11 hours. One thing to mention here is that before I started this over-night-recording I restarted my Virus. I am just guessing here, but is it somehow possible that you'll have more "ghosts" if you play a lot your Virus and then leave it?

Anyway I'd really like to hear something from Access guys that how it's possible that Virus can send Foot Controller CC out when there's no foot pedal connected? Maybe this could be a hint what's problem here or maybe not. Anyway it's very strange...

I am still hoping if others (having issues like mine or not) testing this MIDI recording for over a night or so....

Hi guys,

I've been discussing this with Access support and their opinion is that these are issues which cannot be fixed with their hardware service. I still don't really know how to think about that. As a professional gigging musician do I just have to accept that my instrument can sometimes play notes on its own or suddenly decrease multi part's level...? Quite amazing. Btw this last thing (multi part's volume dropout) is my major headache at the moment. I was hoping that my unit is broken and I can get it fixed with warranty repair. Now it seems to me that there's no reason to send it to Germany.

P.S. There's one test I (or Accept or anybody interested) could do: Put Virus in the field of mobile phone or similar radio interference field over a night and record MIDI and see if ghosts appear. Earlier I did my over-night-Midi-recording and all I got was some ghost bender messages, but there was no mobile phone near I think.. Maybe those other ghosts need some radio interference, who knows. At least this might be worth checking out...?