Personally, I love the nasty and violent sounds on the TI. It has plenty of soft pads too, and there are loads of free sound sets on the web or you can program your own if you want a different tone. The synth engine is better than anything else I have either owned or played with.
As for the Snow, I have never touched one so I can't compare notes.
You might be out of luck for a gig bag. The smallest cases seem to be the custom ones by Anvil. Check out this thread.
http://acapella.harmony-central.com/showthread.php?t=2078482
You want to sidechain, which will probably require a sequencer to route the audio properly. Watch this.
I do something a bit like this in Logic Express 8. I use the TI connected to the USB to control MIDI, but use my MOTU 828 mkII as the audio interface for all my synths (including the Virus TI). This is because Logic Express is crippled to only allow you to have a single audio interface; I think the pro version supports multiple interfaces. There is a way to create composite audio devices in OS X, but sadly the TI interface doesn't work with this (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1215).
If your sequencer allows you to have multiple audio interfaces and to assign track inputs from them, you should be able to do what you are talking about. If it doesn't, then you will have to use your TI like I use mine, routing your TI's audio through the M-Audio soundcard. I have not found this to be a problem yet, personally, but it is certainly not as nice as being able to get zero-latency audio from the TI's USB connection.
Did you look at the tutorial for Logic that comes with the manual? I think it describes how to get an individual audio track per instrument in Logic on pages 7 and 8. You have to create the plugin as a multi-channel plugin. From the manual:
"6 - Mixing and Routing
You might have already spotted that the Logic tutorial song uses the Virus Control mc. “mc” stands for Multi Channel. In order to make use of the additional audio channels you need to create an Aux object in Logic’s environment.
Track 5 of the Tutorial session (“Dub Pad”) sends it’s audio to USB2 instead of USB1. As a result, the multi-channel version of the Virus Control plug-in can output this particular part on an Aux bus instead of the instrument’s main outs. You can switch the output assignment of a part in Common > Output > Main Outs drop-down menu as shown in Step Four."
The manual says:
"MIDI Device ID
1 to 16, Omni (17): Identification number for transmitting/receiving System Exclusive data (see glossary). To allow SysEx communication between two devices, they must be set to the same device ID. If set to Omni, the Virus will receive Sysex data with any ID, and transmit with ID = 17."
Maybe you can change the device ID on the TI or the NI machine so that they no longer match? Doesn't look like there is a filter for SysEx data on the TI itself. Another option would be to use a sysex filter on your sequencer if it allows it.
Sadly, the TI software checks to see if you have connected the TI to a hub, and refuses to let you do so, so at the very least make sure that you plug the TI in directly. I have asked tech support on this forum to explain why the software checks for this, and nobody has given me an answer that I know of.
You have to be careful with USB hubs and audio gear. Generally, USB hubs don't respect the sensitive nature of audio gear and will treat the signals coming from it as non-critical. This is fine for stuff like a USB mouse, but when it comes to audio gear, timing is essential, and your USB data stream needs to be untouched. To date, I have not had a good experience hooking up any audio gear to an external hub when USB is concerned. You should try it out and see what happens since every bit of gear is different; if you get clicks, pops, or cutouts, you will know that you have a device that absolutely has to be connected to a USB hub built-in to your laptop.
I don't own a Firewire hub, so I can't speak to whether or not Firewire hubs work any better. My guess would be yes, since Firewire has always seemed like a remarkably better interface standard than USB (which makes me sad since USB seems to be "winning"), but that is all it would be - a guess. Anecdotally, the MOTU audio interfaces that use Firewire can be daisy-chained without issue, so that bodes well for Firewire hub-based systems. Again, try it out and see. With an external hub for either USB or Firewire, make sure you buy one that is self-powered (i.e. has a plug you have to plug in to the wall use it), since those tend to have fewer problems.
Rather than external hubs, hubs that connect to the internal motherboard of the laptop seem to be the best. I bought a PCI Express (a.k.a. ExpressCard) USB hub for my MacBook Pro since this should essentially be just as fast and reliable as a built-in USB jack, but I was unable to use the TI with it due to the fact that it still sees the PCI Express adapter as a hub. So, I use my built-in USB ports on my MBP for my Virus TI and my MOTU 828 mkII, and use the 4-port PCI Express hub for non-audio USB devices like my mouse. I also use some Bluetooth devices to free up built-in hubs, such as a Bluetooth keyboard. Anecdotally, I have tested out my MOTU 828 with the PCI Express hub and I have not had any issues with it so far; this is in direct contrast to attempting to route the 828 through a USB hub built in to my Dell monitor, which gave me clicks, pops, and dropouts. So, if you do go with a hub, try to use something that plugs in to the PCI bus directly (i.e. either a little card that slides in to the special opening on the side of your laptop - depending on what kind of laptop you have, you might not have one of these expansion slots). For reference, I got one of these from NewEgg.com: http://www.rosewill.com/products/1346/productDetail.htm . If you do have a slot, note that the ExpressCard slot is smaller than the old school PCI laptop slots, so make sure you check the type before you buy anything.
Good luck - post back with any more questions and to let others know what you ended up doing and what your experience was.
That's weird. You should try the USB and see if you can get audio out of it there.
Install the USB drivers in OS X, and also reset the TI (i.e. do a clean install of the TI operating system). After you plug the USB cable in to the Ti and connect it to the Mac, you should see "USB link established." After this, go in to System Preferences. You should see the Virus in the Sound preference pane in System Preferences as an interface. You can then set the TI as the output for the Mac, and play music through it via iTunes. You'll hear the music come out of the inputs on the TI and the headphone jack.
Try this and let us know what happens. If you can get audio through the USB, then the audio in your TI still works, so then we have to figure out why it is ignoring input from the keyboard.
Oh, you whiteout elitists. 
I don't want to turn this in to a Mac vs PC thread, but I'll share my anecdotal experience. In 2005 when I decided to take the plunge and buy a computer for recording, I checked out the Sound on Sound forums. The Mac forums were full of people talking about making music, and the PC forums were full of people talking about problems with their computers. I ended up getting a Mac based on this alone, and I've never had any trouble with it.
It pains me to see you having so many technical issues. The main reason I bought the TI was because I hated losing my creativity by having to deal with tech issues, and so far it has not disappointed me.
The general feeling for XP based on all the research I did is that you should optimize it for music and not install anything you don't need, like the other poster suggested. I have several friends making music on a PC so it certainly be done hassle-free with the right setup.
I'm using Logic 8 on Leopard (not Snow Leopard yet) with OS 3.1.0.0 and everything works flawlessly for the most part.
Technically neither setting will hurt your mixer so long as you are careful setting the levels.
I have my Virus hooked up to a MOTU 828 mkII, and have bounced back and forth a bit with my input settings. I've got it currently set up as a +4db stereo input with analog boost to bring the signal up. I've had some trouble with the signal being too weak or too strong before based upon the sound being played.
Ultimately, it doesn't matter much so long as when you go to record, you get as loud a signal as you can get without clipping/distortion. The louder the signal, the less noise when you record. With an analog mixer, it should be more forgiving to clipping than my digital mixer. Just watch the level meters and adjust the output of the TI as well as the input setting on the mixer to make sure you get the best of both worlds.
Marc,
As part of this fix, will you guys please make it possible for Virus TI owners to be able to enable/disable the USB hub check as part of their configuration? I'd love to be able to use my TI from a hub if the hub is sufficiently fast enough to do so and doesn't create issues. Apparently, it is possible to use the TI via a hub if there is a workaround for the i7 iMac internal hub problem, which makes me wonder why the hub check is there in the first place.
Keep up the great work as always!
Thanks,
- max
The arpeggiator simply plays a sequence of MIDI notes; it's not there to process external audio.
If you want to chop up external audio using the TI's arpeggiator to define the pattern of the chopping, you might want to set up a MIDI-driven audio gate in your sequencer. You would feed the Nord audio signal in to the sequencer, and control the MIDI gate with note on/note off messages from your TI's arpeggiator. Make sure you turn on "Arp Note Send" setting in the Global MIDI menu so that the arpeggiated notes are sent. I would tell you how to set up the MIDI gate, but that will be different with each sequencer package.
There might be a way to create a "noise gate" patch in the TI and use this to chop up the signal, but I'm not familiar enough with the TI's sound programming to help you here.
Something else you might want to try is setting up a second MIDI track that can receive the controller movements and record them while the loop is playing. I don't have Live so I'm not sure if this possible there, but I would be surprised if it wasn't. The advantage of this is that you can edit the controller data to your liking. Finally, you'd record the output when you were satisfied with the outcome.
I had the same question when I first messed with SPDIF. Regular RCA connectors worked fine for me a I recall. I hasome high quality RCA cables that came with a digital video appliance, so I used those. I had to fiddle with the sync settings to get it working with my MOTU 828 mkII.
Good luck!
Wow, I just realized that the case you posted was not the SKB - but it looks just like it! SKB makes really solid gear; I have a few of their cases, and I think they are worth the extra money.
This is the one I was actually talking about: http://www.boss-safety.com/sho…handle-wheels-p-8349.html
What about this?
http://www.casesbypelican.com/app-1650.htm
I was considering one of these for my TI Polar. Didn't buy one yet. Seems like either that or the THON case is the way people tend to go. The thing I like about the SKB case is that it has a little extra room so you can cut the foam to hold manuals, headphones, cables etc. around the keyboard, unlike most cases which would only hold the keyboard by itself. This one way also be small enough to go in carry-on luggage on a plane, but I'm not sure - the wheels and handle are mainly what is making me think it might be suitable.
I was able to register my second hand Virus, but I think it was because the previous owner had not registered it themselves.
I appreciate the speculation, but I'd really like to know for sure from an Access engineer or support tech. I can plug my MOTU 828 in to whichever USB port I like regardless of which one it is connected to when I install the driver, so unless there is a specific reason I need to do this for the Virus, it should work in any port.
