"OsTIrus" VST Plugin released (public) - Emulator for Virus TI/2

Zitat von Ecaroh

Hi All!

Being 2 x Hardware Virus owner (Desktop + Darkstar) I am so glad this plugin came available.

With my Intel Mac OS 11.7.10 (Big Sur) I could make it work both in Logic and Numerology hosts.

But with my M1 running 14.4.1. (Sonoma) there's problem: Logic does not even recognize it and Numerology sees it but freezes when I try to open this plugin (this colorful wheel spinns endlessly and app stops responding and you need to force quit it).

Installing procedure was same: putting AU component to its folder and also firmware.bin there. And I needed also run this command line in Terminal to Mac OS to accept this plugin.

Has anybody have same problem with newer Mac OSs and perhaps is there any fix or something to try?

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Note: on Ventura, to install 5.1.7.00.pkg, you have to click on OK (window which refuses on M1) this 10 times, because it comes back 10 times... then it can then do the installation

Zitat von Ecaroh

Installing procedure was same: putting AU component to its folder and also firmware.bin there. And I needed also run this command line in Terminal to Mac OS to accept this plugin.

Has anybody have same problem with newer Mac OSs and perhaps is there any fix or something to try?

did you try the vst3 plugin version?

on my mac i created a separate folder called OsTIrus inside the vst3 plugin folder and put the plugin and firmware file in it.

Zitat von DJRobertV

When I compare it sounds exactly the same for all patches, Ostirus and TI2 hardware, no difference to me, it might be subjective. Which makes sense because they did a exact 1:1 emulation of the Motorola DSP56xxx chip of the Virus TI/2, and you use the same ROM file of your TI/2 hardware synth.

LOL! Did you listen to the provided example?

In case of one of my sounds, it's measurable. There's a very prominent bump at 5kHz which sounds really nasty.

Also, I found some discussions regarding distortion not being the same on Discord, and some mention of processor rate having an influence on the tone of sounds. So... the result of the emulation is not 1:1 of the Virus TI hardware, maybe because the emulated DSP doesn't run at the actual processing rate of the hardware.

PS: I did some intensive testing and experimenting, and today the difference between the OsTIrus and my Darkstar TI2 is virtually inexistent -- if the gain staging matches! As the Virus has several gain stages, and seemingly all of them have an impact on the final sound, its pretty important to use exactly the same levels on the hardware (via TI or AURA) and the OsTIrus plugin. One contributing difference in my case was that the sound of the OsTIrus was going through the attenuated Out 1 instead of the full volume USB 1 output. As a result, the level was different, and I started to compensate in the DAW and with Part volume, the latter having an impact on overall saturation of the sound.

Zitat von Lioio

Go back to this page.NOTA: It is for personal use, provided that you own the hardware: it is a mixture of 2 files (that of Ostirus + the Harware driver), to be placed side by side in a folder on your computer. This "driver" does not belong to us, we cannot share it, you have it with your Hardware (when you install it the first time) which allows you to use and operate the VST.

Yes, I have Virus TI2. Tell me in which folder this driver is located. Thank you.

C:\Program Files\Access Music\Virus TI\Common

After doing some experiments, and working on an unfinished track which already had some Virus TI recordings which needed to be re-done, I have to say:

This is a dream come true!

I can even use Render in Place now in Cubase 13 and it works flawlessly.

The OsTIrus is what Access should have done for a long time...

Zitat von blinde_Q

did you try the vst3 plugin version?

on my mac i created a separate folder called OsTIrus inside the vst3 plugin folder and put the plugin and firmware file in it.

I did not test vst3 but in fact I managed to make this OsTIrus AU-plugin to work in Logic Pro X. So problem is probably with Numerology app. Anybody familiar with that? It's a great sequencer for nerds (maybe the best in terms what you can actually do with it) but it's not flawless. Probably there's something with Numerology vs. Sonoma or M1. As said earlier I could make it work in Numerology in my older Intel Mac with BigSur.

Have U tried this (https://dsp56300.wordpress.com…-faq-access-virus-ti-snow)?

On MacOS, plugins do not load because they are not properly signed

A: Plugins on MacOS need to be signed manually after installation. To do so, open a Terminal and execute the following commands (if you have installed the plugins in a non-standard location or renamed the files, modify these commands to reflect those differences):

sudo xattr -cr /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3/OsTIrus.vst3
sudo xattr -cr /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST/OsTIrus.vst
sudo xattr -cr /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components/OsTIrus.component
sudo xattr -cr /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/CLAP/OsTIrus.clap
sudo xattr -cr /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/lv2/OsTIrus.lv2

Zitat von bestspec

Have U tried this (https://dsp56300.wordpress.com…-faq-access-virus-ti-snow)?

On MacOS, plugins do not load because they are not properly signed

A: Plugins on MacOS need to be signed manually after installation. To do so, open a Terminal and execute the following commands (if you have installed the plugins in a non-standard location or renamed the files, modify these commands to reflect those differences):

Code

sudo xattr -cr /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3/OsTIrus.vst3
sudo xattr -cr /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST/OsTIrus.vst
sudo xattr -cr /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components/OsTIrus.component
sudo xattr -cr /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/CLAP/OsTIrus.clap
sudo xattr -cr /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/lv2/OsTIrus.lv2

Yes. To make it work in both my Macs (Intel with BigSur, M1 with Sonoma) I needed to run that command line. As said earlier that made it to work in older one but with M1 there’s this problem with Numerology. Numerology let’s you load this plugin but freezes when you do it. On the other hand Logic works in both so there’s some incombatibility with M1/Sonoma/OsTIrus/Numerology

It's very impressive indeed... Low CPU too.

Ok. I pretty much managed to install it to my both Macs and I can use it my AU host app (Numerology).

Now about the sound: What do you think about it? With my short experimentation I can saty that some sounds are close but some are not. I need to check this closely and try make A/B comparison with hardware Virus. It seems that some presets of mine does not load correctly. The most evident are some which use hypersaw but when loaded to OsTIrus have some other oscillator.

In OsTIrus is there a way intialize program? It would great to start from zero with both in HW Virus and plugin and hear how sound develops when you edit them both with exact parameters…

Zitat von Ecaroh

In OsTIrus is there a way intialize program? It would great to start from zero with both in HW Virus and plugin and hear how sound develops when you edit them both with exact parameters…

load the same -Init- Preset.

You can try my --Init-- Preset that is more minimal that the original one: Virus TI - Empty Bank

Zitat

an empty preset bank with a customized init preset. even more minimalist than the original.

OSC Balance is set to OSC1

(no phasing, detuning, cutoff/filter link and other sound-changing settings)

Zitat von Ecaroh

Now about the sound: What do you think about it? With my short experimentation I can saty that some sounds are close but some are not. I need to check this closely and try make A/B comparison with hardware Virus. It seems that some presets of mine does not load correctly. The most evident are some which use hypersaw but when loaded to OsTIrus have some other oscillator

That's an interesting observation! If it is repeatable you should definitely report it and submit the preset which does not load properly.

I also had a preset which was sounding different, but with saturation and distortion being a vital part of the sound, it was mostly due to gain staging (as the OsTIrus runs in Multi Mode not in Seq Mode and has a main volume knob affecting Out 1, 2, 3) and to some degree the very nature of using unison (without detune) to get some random phase shifting and interaction of the unison voices. Which, maybe due to the way of how the random generator in the virus is initialized, can sound different one some days (I know this sounds like some esoteric BS, but I've had that also happen on the hardware, and it was verifiable because I recorded takes on different dates).

This is game changing. Now i can continue projects and use sounds from the virus anywhere on the road.

I'm in love

Hi all!

Now when I managed to load my presets correctly (I did it a bit different way) I can confirm that sound is very very close.

Biggest downside is that I get some hanging notes. When I read OsTIrus discord chat I get a feeling that it’s quite typical…

It's early days i'm sure they'll iron out some bugs. Like access had to themselves

Zitat von MichaelDow

It's early days i'm sure they'll iron out some bugs. Like access had to themselves

Just to make this clear: They cannot iron out bugs of the Virus firmware.

About those stuck or hanging notes:

I have had couple of Virus TI2s for 12 years now. In fact 3 units (Polar, Desktop, Darkstar). At the moment I have those last two. All of them have had same stuck notes so I'd say it's very likely firmware problematics. I have also noticed that some patches generate hanging notes much more often than others. Virus can also generate hanging notes just by itself (left alone). As a gigging musician years ago I made a silent patch which I try to remember load everytime I go to a break (to prevent a ghostly hanging notes from PA-system)...

But this been said hanging notes in OsTIrus are somehow different. At least based on my short experience with this plugin. On one occation everything seems to play fine. But on the other time some sounds generate these stuck notes everytime you hit them. In general I'd say that hanging notes in harware Virus are much more rare and not that consistent.

Of course this does not prove anything. It may or may not be a consequence of same firmware bug.

****

To be honest, I do not understand at all how this OsTIrus is made. I know it's "emulation" and it uses a real firmware and it's qualitatively different than normal software models of synths, right? I am curious if someone could explain this difference a bit more in simple terms, if that's even possible.

Zitat von Ecaroh

To be honest, I do not understand at all how this OsTIrus is made. I know it's "emulation" and it uses a real firmware and it's qualitatively different than normal software models of synths, right? I am curious if someone could explain this difference a bit more in simple terms, if that's even possible.

None of the plugins by The Usual Suspects "model" a specific synthesizer. Instead, they run the original unaltered synth firmware on an emulated Motorola 56300 DSP (Digital Signal Processor). This is done by running a software which emulates the instruction set of the Motorola 56300 DSP on your computer's processor (Intel, ARM, Apple Silicon) and then loading and executing the original firmware on these emulated DSPs.

So in fact, it's not a model or emulation of the Virus TI, but the very brain of the Virus TI - running on a different (emulated) "hardware". And the OsTIrus plugin only acts as a remote control (very similar to the original TI Virus Control plugin) offering a user interface for the firmware running on the emulated hardware. Therefore, given identical settings, it should sound absolutely identical (something which I wanted to prove with a null test when I find a suitable sound - one that is sufficiently complex but does does not introduce random elements).

So any differences in sound or behavior, must be either a bug in the emulation of the DSP 56300 or (more probably) a bug in how the OsTIrus plugin controls the firmware. This is obviously not trivial. The Virus TI has three operation modes (single, multi, sequencer), which trigger different behaviors. And depending on the firmware behavior, knobs have different functions or ranges. This must be properly reflected in the UI and the corresponding values which are sent to the firmware.

Many thanks ozon ! Very well explained 👏