Hi everyone! I'm brand new to the forum. I've been playing with synths for almost 30 years now. Lots of years in cover bands, and I've been a part time film composer for about 20 years now as well. I have mainly been using software VI's for the past decade.
So I have always wanted a Virus, and maybe a year ago, when I really didn't have the time to appreciate it, I bought a used Virus KC on Reverb. I played with it a little, but mainly set it aside until some film projects I had going were all caught up (they still aren't, haha).
So just last week, I decided to have a go at learning this beast a bit better. I was programming some basic stuff that I always like to coax out of new machines, when I suddenly realized, the 2nd-to-highest Ab was not triggering from the keyboard, unless I hit it at full velocity. I am NOT a keyboard tech, but I also knew that for as old as this thing is, and where I live, I should at least investigate this myself. I found a few videos on YouTube about cleaning keybed contacts, so I opened it up, pulled the keybed, cleaned all the contacts, and reassembled it. I plugged it in, powered it on, and then found out that NONE of the keys worked, haha. Great. The next day, I open it again, check the three plugs I had to unplug and plugin. They all seemed fine, but I did it anyway. Now I put it back together and turn it on again. It all works! .......for about 5 minutes. Then I "think" I hear a pop in the audio, and all of a sudden the keybed is unresponsive again. It's still on, still looks normal, but no sound. I gave up on it for a few days and restarted experimenting today.
I turned it on, and it immediately worked just fine, like magic. After a minute of playing, right in the middle of playing, I here the "pop" again in my headphones and the keyboard won't trigger the synth anymore. So now I have a plan though. I hook up the midi ports to my laptop with a controller keyboard separate of the KC. Even though the KC won't play notes from it's own keybed, it triggers them just fine from the midi-in port. I also hooked up my KingKorg midi out to the KC's midi-in. Same deal. Works just fine. At a certain point, I also realized that every time I power the Virus off, and back on, it responds to it's own keyboard again, for a while. To me, that may be the weirdest part. If it was a physical flaw, like a solder joint or bad connection, that wouldn't fix it, but it seems to fix it temporarily, every time.
So here are my thoughts:
- I love the sound and functionality of this thing, big time.
- I KNOW there are no good repair centers for this thing, short of maybe Sweetwater, which is still 6 hours away, and a shot in the dark, plus shipping.
- I spent about $1000 on it, and I don't feel like I can really trust it in it's current state, though I'd really love to integrate it into a few projects, both live and in my studio.
- I also have reasonable skills as a hack carpenter, and have messed with enough electronics, I think I could transplant it into a custom case as a tabletop unit and just use it that way, never having to deal with it's own keybed again.
Anyone else ever seen this done? Anything in particular I need to consider? I do like the idea of having something really unique when I'm finished, and I figure I could do it for the cost of a little nice wood, and a lot of elbow grease.
I'd appreciate any input if anyone has any. I think I'd basically just separate the left end of that front panel from the keybed and everything else, and remount it, the i/o back panel, and make a new power jack with a more standard plug. Just thinking it over for now.
