There have been several discussions on here about the virus sounding different in standalone mode, I've felt it in the past - my TI2 sounds delicious when attached via spdif to my TC SK48 then a bit dull when I use virus control in cubase (44khz 24 bit projects)
I've just organised my studio and I plugged the virus back in and it sounded crunchy and delicious using the sk48 as the clock master - set at 44khz.
Due to the ongoing problem of slipping clock when you connect this way, I decided to set the virus as the master clock and the sk48 as slave - boom, the virus sounded just like it does in VC/Cubase, a little bit duller and less.. stereo. ( should note that in the settings of the virus it still indicated 48khz as the sample rate)
This got me thinking - I plugged in the virus to the audio inputs on the SK48 and noticed that it sounded different again at the same input levels - a bit crunchy (but also nicer than VC/Cubase). I worked out that the level sent out by the virus was causing a bit of distortion in the SK48, and if I reduced the output of the virus and adjusted the master level the virus sounded exactly the Cubase/VC.
This has lead me to believe that in certain configurations, especially using digital connections a rather beautiful distortion was introduced by my audio card not syncing correctly to the virus and that is the reason we hear different virus sounds depending upon application.
Now the challenge - to make the virus sound like it does when it's out of sync - to my ears I'd need to add a tiny bit of distortion/sample rate conversion to achieve the crunch, a bit of extra high eq to open up the stereo field and maybe a stereo widener to achieve the same kind of sound.
Marc - you know about these things - does this make sense?
TobyShark