Virus TI Bug? - Soft Knobs and "Snap" Mode

    Hey all. I'm hoping I'm missing something here as this is really frustrating...


    If I set the TI's knobs to "snap" mode in the global config, the soft knobs become practically unusable in a live situation. All of the knobs will claim to have a stored preset value of 127 regardless of where I had them positioned when I saved the patch. But when I load a patch, I don't hear their effects on the sound at all. It's clear that the stored value should be 0 when the patch loads (which is exactly what I want to happen). As a result of this, turning the soft knobs will not effect the sound until I turn them all the way to the right and pass through value 127 to activate the snap. At this point I can turn them down to the left, but this causes a jump in the sound as soon as the knob moves to 126.


    So for example, let's say I've programmed soft knob #3 to be the reverb send on a lead sound. I load the patch and I don't hear any reverb. So far so good. But to get any reverb at all, I have to turn the knob all the way to 127 to activate the snap and then turn it backwards. So I go from no reverb to almost an almost completely wet sound at value 126 as I turn the knob to the left.


    To make matters worse, the TI seems to forget the last value I moved the knob to. So continuing with the example above, let's say I turned the reverb send to 50 and then continued playing the patch for a bit. If I decide I want a little more reverb and I turn the knob to the right a bit to value 70, there is no change in the sound. Instead, I have to turn the knob all the way back to 127 to reactivate the snap and then turn it down to 70. This causes a jump from 50 to 126 before I can turn it back down to 70.


    Is this a bug in the OS or am I missing something completely obvious here? If the TI correctly stored the preset soft knob values at 0, I could just turn them all the way to the left to activate the snap at 0. That's how they should work, right?


    All of the regular knobs behave normally in snap mode. In other words, turning a knob doesn't effect the sound until I pass through the value stored in the preset, at which point turning it left left or right increases or decreases the value. If I come back to the knob 5 minutes later, I can adjust the knob from its current state without having to pass through the preset value again, and the LCD will show me the current value as I adjust it as well as what the stored value is.

    Oh. For me that was one of the selling points of the Virus: That it has those assignable soft knobs to tweak sounds when playing live.

    Bass Player and Synthesist.
    Virus TI2 Darkstar | Virus TI2 Desktop | Sub 37 | Voyager RME | Machinedrum | Analog Four | Digitone | MPC Live | NI Maschine+
    Mac OS 13.5.1 (Ventura) | Cubase Pro 11.0 | Ableton Live 9.6 | Logic 10.4 | MainStage 3.4 | NI Komplete Ultimate 13 | RME Fireface UFX+

    Zitat von oliAtBass

    Oh. For me that was one of the selling points of the Virus: That it has those assignable soft knobs to tweak sounds when playing live.


    Agreed, but they do not work in snap mode. This is a huge huge bug that makes the knobs useless for live performance. Is there any chance it will ever be fixed or is Access done with Virus updates?

    I can't replicate it. The Soft Knobs seem to work exactly as I'd expect. Also, you say that you assign a Soft Knob to Reverb Send. How did you do that? That assignment is not available to me!


    Can you give a more detailed instruction on how to replicate the problem you see?

    Bass Player and Synthesist.
    Virus TI2 Darkstar | Virus TI2 Desktop | Sub 37 | Voyager RME | Machinedrum | Analog Four | Digitone | MPC Live | NI Maschine+
    Mac OS 13.5.1 (Ventura) | Cubase Pro 11.0 | Ableton Live 9.6 | Logic 10.4 | MainStage 3.4 | NI Komplete Ultimate 13 | RME Fireface UFX+

    Zitat von oliAtBass

    Also, you say that you assign a Soft Knob to Reverb Send. How did you do that? That assignment is not available to me!


    Ok, I found Effect Send (Reverb) as available assignment.


    So there are three way to set this up:

    • Assign Soft Knob to Effect Send (Reverb)
    • Assign Modulation Matrix Slot 2 to Controller 12, Amount 1 to +63 and send to Reverb Send, assign Soft Knob to Controller 12
    • Assign Modulation Matrix Slot 2 to 10% Constant, Amount 1 to 0 and send to Reverb Send, assign Soft Knob to Assignment 2 Amount 1

    In all these three scenarios the assigned Soft Knob works differently but correct:

    • Soft Knob shows the stored and current value in db and only adjusts if stored value is touched
    • Soft Knob shows the stored and current value (-64 .. +63) and only adjusts if stored value is touched
    • Soft Knob shows the current value and immediately starts adjusting, as if it was an external MIDI controller

    Seems just fine to me.

    Bass Player and Synthesist.
    Virus TI2 Darkstar | Virus TI2 Desktop | Sub 37 | Voyager RME | Machinedrum | Analog Four | Digitone | MPC Live | NI Maschine+
    Mac OS 13.5.1 (Ventura) | Cubase Pro 11.0 | Ableton Live 9.6 | Logic 10.4 | MainStage 3.4 | NI Komplete Ultimate 13 | RME Fireface UFX+

    Zitat von fuzzykeys

    This is a huge huge bug that makes the knobs useless for live performance.


    Since you were talking about live performance, I did the tests on my Darkstar TI2 with OS 5.1.3.0 directly on the hardware without Virus Control or any MIDI I/O involved.

    Bass Player and Synthesist.
    Virus TI2 Darkstar | Virus TI2 Desktop | Sub 37 | Voyager RME | Machinedrum | Analog Four | Digitone | MPC Live | NI Maschine+
    Mac OS 13.5.1 (Ventura) | Cubase Pro 11.0 | Ableton Live 9.6 | Logic 10.4 | MainStage 3.4 | NI Komplete Ultimate 13 | RME Fireface UFX+

    Hey Oli, thanks for jumping in here! Do you have the knob mode set to snap? I'm also doing this directly on the hardware. This is how I'm experiencing the bug on my Ti2 keyboard.


    1. I set the knob response mode to snap.
    2. I load a patch and play some notes on the keyboard.
    3. The patch sounds like all of the soft knobs are turned all the way down to 0 before I start touching any of the controls.
    4. I start turning one of the soft knobs clockwise, but I don't hear any change to the sound. On the display, the stored value of the soft knob shows up in brackets as [127.]
    5. Once I fully turn the knob clockwise to 127, that activates the "snap." At this point, I can turn it back counterclockwise and it will start affecting the sound. The problem with this is that I'll get an audible jump in the sound once I do start turning the knob counterclockwise. I'm clearly hearing a parameter jump from 0 to 126.


    So when I load a patch, the Virus incorrectly thinks that all of the soft knobs have a stored value of 127, but the sound coming from the synth makes it clear that they actually should have a stored value of 0.


    Because you have to pass the knob through the stored value to activate the snap before your knob twiddling will have an audible affect on the sound coming out of the synth, I have to turn the soft knob to 127 before I can use it to affect the sound in real time. The Virus OS thinks that I've correctly activated the snap at 127 and am now smoothly turning the knob counterclockwise back towards 0. But in fact, I'm hearing a jump from 0 126 when this happens.

    Yes, naturally, knobs are set to Snap.


    - What's the version of TI OS you're using?
    - Does that happen with any patch (e.g. from ROM)?

    Bass Player and Synthesist.
    Virus TI2 Darkstar | Virus TI2 Desktop | Sub 37 | Voyager RME | Machinedrum | Analog Four | Digitone | MPC Live | NI Maschine+
    Mac OS 13.5.1 (Ventura) | Cubase Pro 11.0 | Ableton Live 9.6 | Logic 10.4 | MainStage 3.4 | NI Komplete Ultimate 13 | RME Fireface UFX+

    Zitat von oliAtBass

    Yes, naturally, knobs are set to Snap.


    - What's the version of TI OS you're using?
    - Does that happen with any patch (e.g. from ROM)?


    I get exactly the same problem. I save a patch with all the soft knobs at zero. The most important soft knob controls oscillator volume via the matrix. This means when I reload it, the oscillators are essentially off. When I turn the soft knobs in snap mode, they do not pick up at the saved setting. It seems almost random when they actually snap. Pretty pointless feature as it stands!

    I am using the latest firmware too and have the Snow model. I get weird distortion quite a lot too but then I never really had seamless Total Integration to be honest. I had a series of crashes during performance previously. It is quite tempting to just work in the box but I have to be honest and say that the sound is great.

    Zitat von Luddite


    I get exactly the same problem. I save a patch with all the soft knobs at zero. The most important soft knob controls oscillator volume via the matrix. This means when I reload it, the oscillators are essentially off. When I turn the soft knobs in snap mode, they do not pick up at the saved setting. It seems almost random when they actually snap.


    Did some experiments and found the following:

    • A Soft Knob assigned to a MIDI controller will not have a value stored with the patch. This means that Snap mode can not work because there is no reference value, and therefore these Soft Knobs will behave same as in Jump mode.
    • A Soft Knob assigned to a Virus parameter will have its value stored and works as expected in Snap mode.

    Unfortunately:

    • OSC Volume is not available as an assignable parameters (why not?! -> feature request)
    • The only way to assign Soft Knobs to Matrix slots is via MIDI controllers, except for assigning a Matrix destination amount directly. However, that requires the Matrix to use a constant source.
    • The Matrix does not have a "100% constant" source (-> feature request)

    Bass Player and Synthesist.
    Virus TI2 Darkstar | Virus TI2 Desktop | Sub 37 | Voyager RME | Machinedrum | Analog Four | Digitone | MPC Live | NI Maschine+
    Mac OS 13.5.1 (Ventura) | Cubase Pro 11.0 | Ableton Live 9.6 | Logic 10.4 | MainStage 3.4 | NI Komplete Ultimate 13 | RME Fireface UFX+

    Zitat von oliAtBass


    Unfortunately:

    • OSC Volume is not available as an assignable parameters (why not?! -> feature request)
    • The only way to assign Soft Knobs to Matrix slots is via MIDI controllers, except for assigning a Matrix destination amount directly. However, that requires the Matrix to use a constant source.
    • The Matrix does not have a "100% constant" source (-> feature request)


    Found a workaround using the additional envelopes:

    • Set Envelope 4 to Attack: 0, Decay: 0, Sustain: 33.6%, Release: 127
    • Set up a Matrix slot (e.g.2) with Source: Envelope 4, Destination 1: OSC Volume
    • Set up a Soft Knob to Assign 2 Amount 1

    Now, Envelope 4 acts as constant value source for the Matrix slot and the Soft Knob which controls the Matrix assignment has an internal destination and therefore has the value stored.


    Happy knob tweaking!




    PS: Here are the related feature request threads:

    Bass Player and Synthesist.
    Virus TI2 Darkstar | Virus TI2 Desktop | Sub 37 | Voyager RME | Machinedrum | Analog Four | Digitone | MPC Live | NI Maschine+
    Mac OS 13.5.1 (Ventura) | Cubase Pro 11.0 | Ableton Live 9.6 | Logic 10.4 | MainStage 3.4 | NI Komplete Ultimate 13 | RME Fireface UFX+

    Einmal editiert, zuletzt von ozon ()

    Well, I spent the morning changing all my old patches. Proper boring! It is a pity though to use up the spare envelope and a couple of the matrix slots like this. Hope the feature request gets implemented.


    Thanks again for the help!

    Zitat von charonme

    I still have this problem :(


    I just got my Virus TI2.. My problem is exactly the same. I came from using a Virus B and Snap mode was what I used to keep things level. For some reason I can't even manage to set the INIT Volume for individual parts with the TI. Its like it just completely ignores what I tell it to do! So annoying.. If I can't figure these things out this synth is useless for my live set up!