Beiträge von Fuseball

    From my own experience, the problem is with Ableton Live (both 8 and 9). I find that the VC plugin completely throws out Live's MIDI clock output. If I sync my Elektron machines to Live's clock then they are a good half-beat late when VC is loaded. I don't have Maschine, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is reacting the same way as my Elektron kit. As soon as I remove VC from the project everything steps back into sync. I think other plugins can mess with Live's timing and latency but none to the degree that VC does.


    VC does not cause this behaviour in Logic, even with "Live" mode disengaged. I guess that Logic is managing its MIDI clock output differently, or at least with the correct priority, compared to Live. Much as I enjoy using Ableton for composition, this issue alone is pushing me to learn Logic as my main DAW from now on.

    Classic analogue polys please. Jupiters, Junos, Prophets, Oberheims, Yamaha CS series etc.


    I think it's all about tweaking the oscillators and filters to resemble classic designs and keeping modulations simple. They would make the perfect starting points for creating your own sounds based on the right raw materials.


    And if anyone can make the Boards of Canada ROYGBIV bass for me, I'll be very happy. 8)

    I think that the trance-like sounds are what's still very current in modern dance music, even if the genre has changed. It's certainly where the money is there to be made, which explains why so many commercially available soundsets aim at that market. It's the same with Massive and ranks of dubstep sounds (which again has splintered into a number of other styles).


    I certainly never meant to say that the Virus is only good at those aggressive EDM sounds. I would never have bought one if I thought that was the case. I only wish more sound designers thought it worthwhile to make sets for more classic analogue tones. I don't make what would be considered modern dance music, maybe electro at a push, but I like the versatility of the Virus and its reliability compared to vintage gear. I'd far rather gig with it than my Juno 60 for example.


    Anyway, I really appreciated the link to Howard Scarr's soundset. I'd missed that one and found some excellent patches in there.

    I agree. The world doesn't really need another bank of hardstyle or trance presets for the Virus. The casual observer could be fooled into thinking that is all the Virus is good for.


    I would love to see a more classic analog-style soundset compiled by somebody. Ideally really well-sculpted musical tones without too much wild modulation - so that they act as great starting points for tweaking into our own patches. Analog is having a bit of a renaissance at the moment, so I'm sure there's a market for these sounds if a skilled sound designer is up for the task.

    To be honest, I would be very surprised if Access did create a rack extension. But at the very least I can use my Snow as a monotimbral unit via MIDI and the analogue output for my favourite Virus sounds now. :)

    Looks like Reason 7 will have support for MIDI Out (at long last). Would this make it possible for Access to create a Rack Extension version of VCC? Would be great to be able to use the Virus Ti fully integrated into Reason.

    Yes. I have a Snow and the Virus Ti Factory Backup and Virus Ti2 Factory Backup preset banks are all available via VCC. Of course, if you want to use those presets away from the computer then you will need to transfer them from the factory backups to the Snow's internal banks.


    Hope that helps.

    I completely understand your frustration but upgrading the OS on a computer you rely on so heavily for music production, before giving the OS time to reveal any problems out in the wild, is often not a good idea. I've been burned before by being an early adopter only to find that various bits of hardware and software don't work as they should. That's on both mac and PC.


    It's why my studio mac is back on 10.6.8.


    Where I think Access have made a mistake, is by not testing or reporting the issues (4.5.3 not working at all, 5.0 beta not playing in sync) and shouting very loudly that mac users should hold off upgrading to 10.8. They should have known this in time to get the word out before 10.8 hit the App Store. I'd be pretty annoyed in your situation too, but probably more annoyed with myself for needlessly upgrading to 10.8.


    I suspect that getting OS 5.0 to work with 10.8 is their biggest priority at the moment and I can't see that a release version will appear without it being resolved.


    It's not ideal, but as a temporary solution can you use your Ti over standard MIDI cables and audio?


    Edit: Didn't see Marc's response. Sorry I've been a bit harsh.

    Having used (and briefly owned) all three, I can safely say that the Virus Snow is the best sounding and best integrated of the Virus, GAIA and Ultranova.


    You can get 4 separate parts out of the Snow (3 over USB and 1 analog out) and it should integrate into your Logic workflow with ease. It's a lot like a very useable and great-sounding soft-synth, without eating up your mac's resources. :)


    The Ultranova only allows you one instance of the AU editor at a time as it is not a multi-timbral synth. I didn't warm to the Ultranova's sound. The good quality effects cover up a synth engine that doesn't quite deliver. Horrible to edit too.


    The GAIA is fun to play with but, again, the sound of it isn't up to the standard of a half-decent soft-synth. It's a much simpler / more limited synth engine and doesn't do things like oscillator sync properly (disables the filter wtf?). I never got it to integrate particularly well with Logic or Live either.


    The Blofeld is the only other modern synth that can give the Virus some competition in terms of editability and sound quality. It's a bit more buggy than the Virus when working as a multi-timbral synth though and doesn't have the multiple outputs or audio over USB.

    Ah. Looks like the 15 and 17 inch Macbook pros have the S/PDIF input via a Toslink mini-plug adapter.


    Macbook Pro ports


    Toslink adapter


    I only have a 13 inch MB Pro, which doesn't have the extra input socket. Apologies for getting a bit confused there. Let us know how well it works. I'm pretty sure I have an S/PDIF input on my iMac that I've never used! :)

    The Duet looks nice but I would worry that I was paying for stylish looks over functionality. For around the same money you could get a Focusrite Saffire Pro 40, Presonus Firestudio or Motu 8Pre... all of which have 8 inputs.


    I have a Motu 8pre, but the Saffire Pro 40 looks particularly good - 8 inputs, 10 outputs and even S/PDIF. If you need a more portable solution then maybe an Edirol FA-101, although I don't think the A/D convertors and pre-amps are quite as good as the others. I've gigged with a MacBook Pro and FA-101 without any problems though. The TC Impact Twin (as recommended by nms) also looks like a very good package. Only 4 inputs and outputs but excellent quality and also has S/PDIF support. Much more portable than a full-rack width unit so may be a better choice for use with the MacBook.

    If you can stretch to it, I would invest in a decent Firewire audio interface. It should give you far better results than the audio-in jack on the MacBook Pro. If you get an 8-input one then you can use all the analog outs from the Virus too. :)


    You would need some kind of interface to use the S/PDIF output anyway.

    Whilst not a perfect solution for everyone (those of us who like to keep our DAW PCs and Macs disconnected from the internet for example) maybe a wiki for Virus Ti functionality would work. Every control and function could be described, with examples and tips, and easily updated as new functionality is added. It could effectively be an evolving online manual and resource.


    I think it would need the involvement of Access to really make it work and be definitive (and ideally host it). They could even link to it from Virus Control. ;)


    You shouldn't.
    VC plugin, or more generally audio-over-USB may cause glitches ; but MIDI over USB is rock-solid. This is the way I use my Virus TI most of the time.
    As long as you don't instanciate the VC, you shouldn't have any issue.


    I think he's saying that he switched all his controller keyboards/devices to MIDI from USB, not his Virus... so that he can free up USB bandwidth for the Virus to use VC without glitching.


    This makes sense. I run a very lean system here, with no external drives or unnecessary controllers taking up USB bandwidth. The only things on my USB ports, besides keyboard and mouse, are the Virus Snow, DSI Tetra and Akai APC20. I can switch the Tetra to use MIDI if I need to and the APC20 is for live performance, so I can disconnect that if it causes me any problems.

    That sounds good - probably the slightly faster model of the iMac I use. If you look at the USB configuration in System Profiler and you see a lot of USB Buses listed, that is a good sign. My iMac lists 5 USB Buses and 2 High-Speed Buses. This means that I can plug the Snow into a USB socket where it is the only device on that USB bus.


    I have not tried running any music software under Windows 7 on my mac, so I do not know how well it works. Should be fine with OS X. I use Ableton Live and Logic.

    I think, with hindsight, Access should have upgraded the USB to at least 2.0 from the current 1.1 when they introduced the Snow and Ti2 range. It seems that the poor support for 1.1 devices by modern motherboards and USB chipsets is causing most of the problems reported on this forum, and I can only see that situation getting worse as both PC and Mac move further away from the slower standards. The Ti range really needs a PC or mac system optimised for using USB 1.1, as it is so bandwidth dependent, particularly if you use the USB audio options.


    Although my 4-year-old iMac setup works near perfectly with the Snow, I know that if I had to buy a new mac, I would quite likely lose the ability to use the Snow in my studio due to the newer, inferior handling of USB on the i5 and i7 models. it sounds as if PCs using these chipsets have exactly the same problems.


    If Access wish Ti users to be happily making music with their synths well into this decade, then they might need to address this issue sooner rather than later. Personally, I would like to see them develop at least a USB 2.0 upgrade for the Ti range, with the ability for current users to send their existing synths to Access to have the upgrade fitted (for a reasonable fee of course). :)

    I have seen some VST-like interfaces created using CTRLR, but I have never personally got these to work satisfactorily. There has still been nothing from Waldorf themselves.


    The matrix interface on the Blofeld is okay for creating sounds once you get used to it but not ideal for live tweaking. I find the Virus Snow much easier to use thanks to the Virus Control VST and the three knobs below the screen can be usefully configured to tweak the right things.


    The Blofeld is *almost* a great synth but the lack of VST support and couple of annoying bugs let it down.