Beiträge von prophonic

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.

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 ?

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.

...and in case the resonance behaviour is too different from the ladder or the multimode filters, it would be great to add a squelchy diode filter model such as MS20 diode ring (Sallen Key), diode array (Steiner Parker, EMS Putney) or "super ladder" (transistors connected as diodes).

You know, the Microwave I (the one with analog filters) came out in '89 or '91 and while it had limited technology (of course state of the art at the time with their ASIC chip) the wavetables are even today a great source for coming up with all sorts of sounds, harsh, soft, abstract, aggressive, smooth transition, stepped transition. I am pretty sure each wavetable (derived from the PPG) is only available as a single wavetable without multisamples etc. And that's totally fine.
That would be the approach i would go for.

I can only give you a general idea, hope you don't mind.

You CAN fill those Virus hardware banks with sounds.
Since these banks are NOT normal ram banks (they are flash rom i believe), the writing process is DIFFERENT from writing to a ram bank, and NO, this is not done in the vst plugin "Virus TI".
What you do in the "Virus TI" plugin is, that you PREPARE banks for this process. Once you have created a few banks within the "Virus TI" plugin, they appear as selectable banks in the folder of your computer where the other banks are located.

Now these banks can be flash written to the hardware.

Quit your DAW and "Virus TI" plugin, and instead open Virus Control CENTER (that separate standalone application).
Here you can select banks from your folder and specify, to which bank inside the Virus hardware you want them to be written.

Hope that helps. For further questions PLEASE consult the manual. That's what i did, many many years ago.

thanks for the explanation. See the whole idea in 2 steps:
1. a showcase of wavetables, which everybody can compare by listening to them instantly. All wavetables would need the same pitch, the same resolution, the same length. Then people vote for their favorite top 3 or top 5.

2. Let's say 10 wavetables get selected. The originators of these 10 wavetables will supply those wavetables once again, now this time in a format, that Access would specify, so that they have the flexibility to convert it, multisample it, resynthesize it, cut, wash, dry it as much as they deem necessary.

I think if it gets too complicated in step 1, you might lose half of the participants. I am a lazy dude, i would contribute and send in 3 or 5 wavetables as aif 44.1kHz mono 16 bit with the pitch and length i am told.
All other format questions i would only care about should my wavetables get selected and Access contacting me in which format i need to resend it

I think this makes it much easier

quickly, somebody call the health department!

Congrats to your purchase. I hope you'll put it to good use. Lots and lots of possibilities with this machine.
There is a great tutorial by Howard Scarr about Synthesis, very useful:
Where do I get started?

yes, that's perfectly normal. The idea is that you use Virus Control (the plug in) to compile your own "best of" set and then write them into the (hardware) banks of the TI. But really, this only makes sense if you are going to use the Virus away from the computer, playing live or using a non-computer setup. Downside: it is quite time consuming to get your best of set together.

On the other hand, should you always work with the computer, the Virus Control plug can host an unlimited amount of banks. These banks could be project or genre related and are much quicker set up, edited, etc.

Well, i clearly lack your depth of theory in this. For listening and comparing purposes 44.1kHz (slightly below F-1) makes most sense. A 96kHz version should be supplied for the top favored wavetables later on.
But first of all, somebody should talk to Access if they are cool with this idea.

Here is a youtube How-To-Do-It for generating the correct pitch and length:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCXIoEn8_Fk

Calculations:
44.1khz - F-1, -23.43 cents, 32 beats, 161.499bpm
96khz - F#0 +23.26 cents, 16 beats, 175.781bpm

I think the Virus wave tables are coded differently, some form of resynthesis, so there are no phase problems, but that is pure speculation.

John and his guys make them in batches. So far there have been 2 batches, one in october, the other in november.
I am sure after Namm they will do the next run. Until then he is busy finalizing the cv/gate expansion board.
Definitely my best buy in 2015.

i have a few synths with memory for user waves (Evolver, XV-5080, SY99). In all this time i uploaded waves to the SY99 once, it was just too tedious and 2 years later it didn't matter with new projects.
I guess most people are as lazy as i am. Ask any Blofeld user how often they change their waveforms.
While we all want the freedom to do whatever we like, ironically we never really use it later on.
Exceptions to the rule may exist.

However, would i love modern and fresh sounding wavetables in the Virus ? Hell yes.
So here is an idea for you guys who ask for user wavetable import:
why not ask Access if they are down to host a wavetable competition here on the website.
We agree on a root key, length, format and normalization level and post them.
Let's have people vote for their favourite top 3 or so and Access can implement them with the next OS update.
I would contribute a few of my own if somebody gets the ball rolling, but it won't be me.
So the ones of you who feel they need the latest wavetables please get to work and talk to Marc.

I was using Virus Control exclusively for years and just recently got back into editing directly on the Virus hardware (when sequenced from Engine). It took me a few seconds, but i found everything logical and intuitive considering how much you can do with the Virus.
I am pretty sure all parameters are accessable from the front panel.

ok, great!

Virus TI with Social Entropy Engine is a great combination: 8 tracks sequencing, independent length, forward/backward/pendulum, arpeggiator, chord memory, etc

Dear Marc,

Are suggestions still welcome at this point or is it better to wait until further notice ?

I vaguely remember a posting from you, that there might be another vintage character for the character section coming at one point, either based on another classic synth and/or with a few user-adjustable parameters. I like "vintage 1" a lot, it would be great if there was a parameter to adjust the balance between fundamental and harmonics. If you use eq instead, you would have to boost with a shelve filter (which would make it boomy).
Also fantastic for Analog Boost, if one could choose between a click and a prelapse of the waveform itself (same length as the click).

Lastly, a wavetable going from triangle to saw to square would allow a great blend of classic wave mixes, as would be one that goes from negative saw (ramp) to triangle to saw.

Happy new year to all at Access!

wav files are here:
https://www.gearslutz.com/boar…no-poly.html#post11428856

I had the opportunity to do a comparison, so i recorded the unfiltered waveforms of a Prophet 5 Rev 2 (SSM 2030), Korg Mono/Poly (SSM 2033) and the TI through the same A/D converter. Filters fully open, envelopes neutral. With the Virus TI i chose a single Hypersaw wave, the Eat Pulse wavetable Index 0, and the Alternator wavetable index 3, which sounds the most resembling to a triangle of the wavetables to my ears, also included is the classic triangle.
Eq, punch, character were all set to off. Hear for yourself and have fun, i let you know later which is which.
Each waveform is played in 3 octaves always in the same order within the same file. To keep it more interesting the order of the saw file is different from the square and different from the triangle file.

Hi Ben,

I heard you have a direct connection to Santa who is more busy than usual these days. Not only packing gifts, feeding elks, polishing his sleigh (Craig Ferguson would ask at this point if "polishing his sleigh" is a euphemism), but also carving sounds with probably trembling hands in the arctic cold.

So... could you please drop him a note and ask if he would tackle the lead sound from David Bowie "Ashes to Ashes". It comes in maybe 30 seconds before the fade out. I think Nick Plytas freestyled this one and to this day it's one of the most beautiful and haunting sounds.

The other one would be equally cool: any of Richard Barbieri's sounds from Japan's "Ghosts". Not sure if they were done on a Prophet 5 or a System 700.

merci

thanks Marc. Right, no free placement of building blocks. In my experience even in a modular system though, most effective patches have a vco or an audio input module as the first building block, so it doesn't make much of a difference.
My focus was on the dependencies within the modulation matrix and how "character" and the distortion pedals come into play. You pointed out that "character" works on the sum of the oscillators and the pedal distortions on the sum (of oscillators or on the master bus ?). Which raises the question if all the effects are in a serial signal flow or if each has its own send/return bus in parallel.
Ultimately, wouldn't it be great to be able to decide where in the signal flow you want to place them, i believe so, that's what i meant with modular.