Access is alive

  • My 3 cents:


    1. It would be great to refrain from negative subject lines that are speculative and not very constructive. If one absolutely feels that way, than at least have the courtesy to word it as a positive question rather than a negative claim.
    Morever annoying when such a headline is not even relevant and just comes up again and again when somebody adds a question or comment about his system currently working or how he expects this or that. Access is doing whatever their business strategy is and however they feel about the Virus project today and they are free to do so.
    Is it sometimes frustrating for loyal users ? It sure is. At least they are still standing by their product to this day, compare that to some japanese companies.


    2. Then i look at something like the Micromonsta for $250 with 15 user definable wavetables (sent over usb) and 12 fresh oscillator models, http://www.audiothingies.com/product/micromonsta/


    Marc, i would love love love to send you $250 for an OS update with these options inside the TI, i am sure others feel the same way.
    Is there still enough room for such code on the chip ?


    3. Maybe someone wants to tackle programming a patch that behaves like the Lyra-8 ( https://somasynths.com/lyra-organismic-synthesizer/ ), is there a way to control the pitch of 8 oscillators in realtime or at least 4 oscillators, which should be possible i think.

  • 1. Although very few of us don't express their virus related feelings in a very polite way, rest assured that the vast majority of us provide questions, suggestions, general feedback and concerns regarding our legendary synth out of pure interest and love. And these do cover technical issues and updates. What concerns me personally above all is Access' silence.


    2. This suggestion was posted many times, I'm sure Access is aware. I also included it on my consolidated ideas list (yeh I went through all the suggestions posted until the time of my OP and removed what was already done). I would also be willing to pay for an update but I'm not sure whether this expresses most of us or whether some of us will then be like "come on access you never charged us for an update why you do this now". It's a slippery road...


    3. You do have, technically, 4 OSCs on the virus. Actually 5 if you also include the noise generator. You can affect the pitch of 3 of them individually. Then you also have x8 unison. If that's still not enough and/or you absolutely need 8 independent OSCs you may want to consider layering your virus patches or going the modular way. Jack of all trades, master of none.

  • Hey Psylence, i feel the same way, i guess we are all appreciating what we have yet we would love the Virus adventure to continue and we would like to hear feedback from Access acknowledging this ("we hear you, but it has to wait until xyz" or "we hear you, but there is no money in it, so forget it"), so that we have a friendly conversation between Access and users, that would be the right thing to do.
    It's just a bit more motivating and nicer to look at a friendly or neutral subject line over and over again, than a subject line like let's say "steaming stinky dogpile shit". It would start bothering me reading it for the 20th time.


    2. thanks for the link. If a paid OS upgrade was feasible because enough users would (pre-)order, i would be ok if Access does it and then figure out later how they are releasing it to everyone else. Because i'd rather have it and helped funding it than it doesn't see the light of day at all.


    Looking at your list, there are other ideas that would also be interesting:
    - whatever is last in the Atomizer buffer, convert it to a wavetable. It doesn't matter if it sounds rather abstract electronic than the exact readout of the buffer or if Virus approximates it with a 'formula' instead of a table of waves.
    - oscillator models similar to the ones implemented in some digital synths:
    eg resonant bandpass filtered noise
    CZ phase distortion algos
    8 bit biscuiting of a sharktooth or saw waveform
    Risset's bell algorithm (additive with 11 partials: http://msp.ucsd.edu/techniques/v0.11/book-html/node71.html )
    VOSIM ( http://www.csounds.com/manual/html/vosim.html )


    3. I think the Lyra-8 has a great way of using oscillators as tone generators unrelated to a keyboard. Not only do you have pitch control over every oscillator, but another pitch control as a macro over groups of 2 or 4. Maybe one can do this in the Virus Matrix or the soft control knobs ?

  • What concerns me personally above all is Access' silence.


    we are not silent. i'm looking at this forum every day and if I can help, i'll help. what we don't have is big news at the moment.


    we've never commented on feature request and also on future product development. okay, you might find exceptions to this rule on this forum but i'd be surprised if you find more than 10 in the last 15 years.
    the problem with commenting on feature requests is simple: usually if we agree, that result in people asking "when will you implement this" and if we don't agree, some tend to emphasis their case in order for us to possibly reconsider. both's not much fun, so we stay away from commenting.
    as for product development, we prefer a nice surprise and that's why you'll not hear a lot until there's really something to talk about.

  • i guess we are all aware and thankful to you that you are indeed very much present at this forum, reliably so for many years. I can relate to the points you make, all understandable from your perspective.
    And lastly, i used to have a Virus B back in the day and remember Access presented a new OS with new features when nobody expected it at this point. Thanks Marc.

  • Interesting news: Last week, I wanted to order a new Polar for my home studio and was informed by my dealer that they are not available anymore in Switzerland. No ETA, nothing. It sounded as if they ran out of production?

    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+

  • Marc, thank you for your reply and I have to admit that I see your point fully, although we also like teasers and not only surprises:) I've had a virus since 2010 and an active member of this forum for about the last couple of years, I think this may be the first time you are clarifying why you guys are not commenting on feature requests so this is very much appreciated from my side.

  • we are just backordered on Polars. it'll take a couple of days, that's all.


    (And there goes my hope for the TI3 announcement... ;) )


    Thanks Marc. Odd, that the distributor didn't inform the dealer about this.

    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+

  • Thanks for sharing really nice article. It's really cool that Access still provide support and updates for theVirus TI, especially when the low-level Assembly language is probably hard to write and maintain.