Rotary Encoders on the virus keyboard?

    I just got virus ti2 keyboard and its been so far getting to know what it does. One of the reasons why I picked it over other synths is its ability to fully integrate with my DAW. The problem I find though is that when I want to automate the GUI in real time using the knobs on the keyboard, I have to first dial in on the value I have for the selected parameter before automation and this just ruins the flow for me. Any chance virus would be making a synth with rotary encoders soon? :(

    I probably could, but it has no computer integration and the virus sounds and looks cooler.

    Philosophically I am absolutely with the led-ring / encoder fraction of people...


    However - and beside cost factor - it is an old unsolved story what to prefer - pots or encoders. See that Dave Smith lately offers two versions of his synths and the initial versions were with endless encoders - the second ones with pots again by user requests...


    With the Virus you also have to consider that many pots are multiply assigned to (oscillator / filter) pages and therefore to more than one parameter. Well, the envelopes are not that way, great for programming but useless for live tweaking - anyone who tweaks envelopes live? I also remember complains about the pots in the Virus reacting far to slow - hopefully this is just an OS4 beta issue...


    My personal preference would be: The 3 value knobs should be endless encoders with led ring as these are intentionally meant for live tweaking and value jumps or dead zones are unacceptable here.


    I can't imagine people would accept price increases - the virus is already on a top end here. Compare Arturia's Origin - a great synth of it's own too - however, the special sale these days confirm also that it's difficult to sell enough units at a price point of 2.500€... even the HW is far advanced to a Virus.


    To get something really new it needs to have a total redesign of Virus HW - the facelift to TI 2 is just maintenance and no innovation at all. The Virus is a great concept but lacks processing power. Polyphony is practically far less than claimed as the fat sounds are too often unison taking many notes and patches with complexity level starting at 4 (i.e. 4 basic polyphony "counts" by itself). It's easy to keep a virus busy with just one fat pad sound and for that it's simply too expensive. The constant and very welcome OS maintenance also have the backdraw of taking more and more DSP. More features? 3rd envelope, more complex filter models,.... useless without a heavy dsp power increase... All this is even more a shame because the Virus has one of the best multimode behavior of any synth I know- means glitch free patch changes.


    To end up, I always missed dedicated buttons for direct sound change. Just up/down buttons for a life synth is ridiculous..


    Let's dream on, what about step sequencer buttons / knobs like a Radias or Origin... or come back to earth, a much cheaper Virus box (than snow too) without any fancy knobs just controlled by TI would be very often a more than sufficient solution too...


    8|