TI 2 Desktop - couple of issues adding up.

    Hello,


    All in all, I bought this synth, and it seemed to work fine so far.

    But now over the last weeks, the issues have been adding up.


    I can't change any parameters, high screeching occurs,

    notes sometimes freeze infinitely.


    Is everyone going through this or is it just me?


    I found a couple of manuals and workarounds for this.

    But this worked only for one session or until I restarted the unit.

    This is getting quite painful tbh.


    Do I have to pay to get this repaired?

    ATM it seems all knobs are locked.

    Not good. High screeching means a DSP crashed. Which occurs rather rarely (except for some known bugs, like using Audition or the Demo Song).


    If the DSPs crash regularly, they are broken AFAIK.


    Contact Access Music support.

    Bass Player and Synthesist.
    Virus TI2 Darkstar | Virus TI2 Desktop | Sub 37 | Voyager RME | Machinedrum | Analog Four | Digitone | MPC Live | NI Maschine+
    Mac OS 13.6.6 (Ventura) | Cubase Pro 13.0 | Ableton Live 9.6 | Logic 10.8 | MainStage 3.6 | NI Komplete Ultimate 14 | RME Fireface UFX+

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    What Oli says. The DSPs are interleaved, meaning one DSP serves all odd parts and the other serves all even parts.


    Might be worth checking out what happens if you only use part 2 (, 4, 6, 8...) and whether the misbehavior stops. Likewise, worth checking out using only parts 1 (, 3, 5, 7...). If it crashes even with this separation of DSPs, there's a common denominator. If it crashes only on one set of parts then one of the DSPs is broken.


    Have you already tried re-flashing the firmware?

    Leterel, I hope you get this resolved ASAP!


    I suggest buying one of the few remaining DSP chips. I got 3 on Amazon for $26 a piece.


    As I understand it, our Virus TI2’s contain 2 of the following chip:


    FREESCALE SEMICONDUCTOR DSPB56367AG150


    There aren’t many left, so now is the time.

    Here’s a link to an Amazon vendor who still has a few in stock:


    https://a.co/d/a56OeVC

    Not sure I'd buy them ahead of time if they're not broken (yet). There are distributors in Asia and elsewhere sitting on stock that's going to sell rather slowly, so prices should remain stable for the foreseeable future, in my opinion.


    Best to check first whether a DSP is broken or whether it's something else.

    Zitat von abraxa

    The DSPs are interleaved, meaning one DSP serves all odd parts and the other serves all even parts.

    AFAIR this is only the case in SEQ mode, and Part 1 is always handled by both DSPs in case you have a sound which is very complex or needs many voices.

    Bass Player and Synthesist.
    Virus TI2 Darkstar | Virus TI2 Desktop | Sub 37 | Voyager RME | Machinedrum | Analog Four | Digitone | MPC Live | NI Maschine+
    Mac OS 13.6.6 (Ventura) | Cubase Pro 13.0 | Ableton Live 9.6 | Logic 10.8 | MainStage 3.6 | NI Komplete Ultimate 14 | RME Fireface UFX+

    Zitat von oliAtBass

    Not good. High screeching means a DSP crashed. Which occurs rather rarely (except for some known bugs, like using Audition or the Demo Song).


    If the DSPs crash regularly, they are broken AFAIK.


    Contact Access Music support.

    I just called the support hotline from here:

    https://www.virus.info/contact

    Which is: +49 2361 970 97 77


    It turns out it's the KEMPER Showroom Germany hotline.


    A nice bloke told me I'd have to write a mail via the "Contact Us" subsite.

    He told me I'd have to wait one day at least. I'll ask again if nothing happens

    'till the 11th of September.

    Zitat von abraxa

    What Oli says. The DSPs are interleaved, meaning one DSP serves all odd parts and the other serves all even parts.


    Might be worth checking out what happens if you only use part 2 (, 4, 6, 8...) and whether the misbehavior stops. Likewise, worth checking out using only parts 1 (, 3, 5, 7...). If it crashes even with this separation of DSPs, there's a common denominator. If it crashes only on one set of parts then one of the DSPs is broken.


    Have you already tried re-flashing the firmware?

    Sorry,


    I don't fully understand how I can use part 2,4,6,8 or 1,3,5,7.

    Is this somewhere in the settings?

    Do you mean physical outputs?


    So far no potentiometer is reacting to anything, except the volume knob.


    I also had issues in the past where I first flashed to the new firmware,

    then somewhat half-bricked the TI 2 Desktop

    and then I fixed it by cleanly flashing it.


    I don't wanna to anything to worsen the situation at the moment.


    If one of the mods or the e-mail response is to re-flash the firmware, I'll do it.

    I don't wanna sound like a dick here,

    but I managed to solder a shitty distortion pedal which had DIRE defective contact

    six years ago.


    I don't think it would be such a good idea to replace a DSP chip on a 1.400,00,-€ expensive

    device. Plus I don't have an electronic engineering background plus the multiple times

    the manual the site and the rack-plate state:

    "Don't tinker on this thing." I know it is possible.

    I know that people do it, but I'm not completely into soldering

    modular synths just yet.


    Isn't this also SMD soldering?

    Which requires special knowledge, a cool hand, and expensive equipment?

    Zitat von oliAtBass

    AFAIR this is only the case in SEQ mode, and Part 1 is always handled by both DSPs in case you have a sound which is very complex or needs many voices.

    I don't know if this is important, but I can switch between SEQ MODE > MULTI & SINGLE. I can browse through presets, but that is it.


    I also forgot to mention:

    I directed to this thread in the "Contact Us" Mail so there won't be 2 different tickets "floating" around.

    I don’t recommend trying to repair a synth yourself (heck, I would never try that!).


    That said, a number of contributors on this and other forums have talked about techs working on the Virus for them (some have even done their own repairs - obviously those are people facile with a soldering iron and PCB’s). As I understand it, most of the parts are easily replaced standard electronic components, with the exception of the DSP’s. The biggest technical difficulty is that the Virus is built in surface-mount fashion. If a qualified technician services a Virus TI or TI2 and finds that the problem is with the DSP, for the lack of that one very inexpensive part, your precious synth many not be reparable.


    I don’t know that having a few of the DSP’s on hand will solve everyone’s problems (or even anyone’s), but it seems like a pretty cheap form of insurance.


    My 5 year old Yamaha CP4 (digital stage piano) had an octave of keys which didn’t respond correctly to velocity. Fortunately for me, there’s a music gear chain here in Israel that is the official Yamaha importer and repair servicer. They had all the requisite specialized Yamaha parts on hand, including what they called a “voice card” (they told me this in Hebrew, so I’m not sure if we would really call it that - I’m translating - I suspect it was one the proprietary Yamaha DSP’s that drive this wonderful instrument). Since Yamaha has a very strong spare parts program, stocking parts for years after they stop manufacturing a given model, this was a complete non-problem.


    The Access importer here in my little country is much smaller than that chain. I doubt they have the requisite DSP’s in stock, so I didn’t want to take any chances. I love my Virus TI2, and I intend to use it for many years!

    Wait. Your Virus still plays sounds? When mine crashed, it didn’t produce sounds anymore and the noise was insanely loud.


    From what I hear on that recording and what you wrote above, I’d say it’s hum from a grounding issue.


    PS: listened to it again on different speakers. Is this recording heavily compressed? The noise seems to be much louder when no other sounds are playing. Are all the sounds coming from the Virus TI?

    Bass Player and Synthesist.
    Virus TI2 Darkstar | Virus TI2 Desktop | Sub 37 | Voyager RME | Machinedrum | Analog Four | Digitone | MPC Live | NI Maschine+
    Mac OS 13.6.6 (Ventura) | Cubase Pro 13.0 | Ableton Live 9.6 | Logic 10.8 | MainStage 3.6 | NI Komplete Ultimate 14 | RME Fireface UFX+

    Einmal editiert, zuletzt von ozon ()

    Zitat von oliAtBass

    Wait. Your Virus still plays sounds? When mine crashed, it didn’t produce sounds anymore and the noise was insanely loud.


    From what I hear on that recording and what you wrote above, I’d say it’s hum from a grounding issue.


    PS: listened to it again on different speakers. Is this recording heavily compressed? The noise seems to be much louder when no other sounds are playing. Are all the sounds coming from the Virus TI?

    I had one instance where the notes just froze infinitely.

    Yeah, I can play the demo or play something via the MIDI keyboard still.


    But the humming appears randomly.


    This is probably not a grounding issue since restarting the device fixes the issue

    but then it comes back.


    I don't think software grounding issues exist...right?

    No compression at all.


    I recorded this directly from the Acces Virus TI 2 Desktop to my ASUSTeK H81I-PLUS Motherboard.


    I also have a Mackie mixer that generates real humming/grounding buzz sounds.

    Either that or the cables.


    This is 100% generated by the Desktop TI.

    I can reproduce this issue and worsen it by letting the demotrack run for a couple of minutes its now 3 times as loud. This sounds like a solid mic-on-amp-feedback.


    This happened so far mostly with "HEADPHONES OUT". I'll check out the other outputs now.


    Update:

    I am testing various Outputs now:

    This is the demo song with Output 1 L+R & Headphones now:

    https://vocaroo.com/1em0ypt1Td52

    Zitat von Leterel

    This is the demo song with Output 1 L+R & Headphones now:

    https://vocaroo.com/1em0ypt1Td52

    Are you sure this is the proper recording? Sounds.... not as if it was recorded from the Virus.


    I downloaded and checked your previous recording in Cubase. The buzz cycle is neither at 50 nor 60 Hz, but 278 Samples or 172 Hz. Therefore it's rather not hum from a grounding issue. If it worsens during the Demo Song, an issue with the Virus sound engine seems more probable. If that is the case, you will have the same result regardless of the Output. Can you verify this?

    Bass Player and Synthesist.
    Virus TI2 Darkstar | Virus TI2 Desktop | Sub 37 | Voyager RME | Machinedrum | Analog Four | Digitone | MPC Live | NI Maschine+
    Mac OS 13.6.6 (Ventura) | Cubase Pro 13.0 | Ableton Live 9.6 | Logic 10.8 | MainStage 3.6 | NI Komplete Ultimate 14 | RME Fireface UFX+

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    Zitat von oliAtBass

    Are you sure this is the proper recording? Sounds.... not as if it was recorded from the Virus.


    I downloaded and checked your previous recording in Cubase. The buzz cycle is neither at 50 nor 60 Hz, but 278 Samples or 172 Hz. Therefore it's rather not hum from a grounding issue. If it worsens during the Demo Song, an issue with the Virus sound engine seems more probable. If that is the case, you will have the same result regardless of the Output. Can you verify this?

    I am some sort of random-dice-rolling-dilemma when I "boot up" the Virus.


    Today I had no audio output in the demo song in one case.

    Then I rebooted the Synth and the demo song was working, but it ignored tapping BPM speed

    or the transpose buttons.

    I also was able to turn knobs and get visual feedback from the display but the patch ignored my changes.

    Did I do some sort of lock that I am not aware of?


    I gotta be honest here. I am not 200% adept to using the Virus like y'all.


    I ask the manual and ChatGPT for help or try around. I am not versed in the routing matrix or the sequencer

    but I know that some stuff here is seriously wrong.


    ///


    I have a budget Mackie mixer here and some budget cables.

    But the last time I wrote this post I had this issue when I connected the Virus to my shitty PC onboard soundcard.

    I know about the ground hum of the PC onboard soundcard.


    I should've mentioned maybe also that I recorded this sound with my smartphone, which explains the low quality

    and artifacts. I was in a hurry and just wanted to make a point, sorry.


    ///


    I also just read about how you get Output 2 and 3 only via Surround Sound or multiple Instances via DAW.

    So this is not really an option for me since I just wanna use the Virus 100% as a hardware synth.


    ///


    [Blockierte Grafik: https://abload.de/img/screenshot18me2y.jpg]


    https://abload.de/img/screenshot18me2y.jpg


    ///


    Edit: Just found out the Limit to upload pictures on here is 1MB my picture is 998 Kilobytes big.

    998 Kilobyte > 1000 Kilobyte.

    Kinda strange math tbh.

    Had to use a filehoster for this so I'll delete the picture in the next weeks or so.

    It’s definitely not normal that you have to reset your Virus frequently to fix various problems. It should be rock solid especially if used without TI. It could be that the firmware was not flashed properly or destroyed by cosmic rays (yes, possible but highly improbable).


    More likely is a hardware issue.

    Bass Player and Synthesist.
    Virus TI2 Darkstar | Virus TI2 Desktop | Sub 37 | Voyager RME | Machinedrum | Analog Four | Digitone | MPC Live | NI Maschine+
    Mac OS 13.6.6 (Ventura) | Cubase Pro 13.0 | Ableton Live 9.6 | Logic 10.8 | MainStage 3.6 | NI Komplete Ultimate 14 | RME Fireface UFX+

    Gefällt mir 1

    So far the support tells me that everything is fine.


    I use Windows 10 Pro Version 22H2.

    I am not able to install the Virus Suite anymore.

    I suppose the support dropped. Otherwise

    I would've reflashed the device.

    So what's the next step?

    Virtual Machine with Windows 8 and trying to re-flash

    from the virtual machine? Could this work?


    I got the feedback that I should stop using the Demo song

    as it triggers errors.


    So I asked for a list of things that trigger errors.


    I know a lot of mental power goes into building such a device

    and I know it was supported a long time ago, but I also know

    that software like VCV Rack is a little complexer and crashed less on me.


    I also wonder if Behringer didn't clone this synth since they knew what

    kinda issues they'd expect if they cloned it.


    Is everyone experiencing this stuff?

    Am I missing something?

    I just wanted to play this thing. =/


    Also:

    Yeah, I heard about cosmic rays messing everything up by flipping bits when

    you don't expect it. That's why older computers in space have an advantage

    since the die is further apart and stuff like that. Quite heavy stuff. xd