Being blonde is as much of a quality as being a brunette, redhead, or bald.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/quality?s=t





Devon

DSP chips are more about cost savings than pure performance - they're less complex and more specialized so they can run with a simpler general purpose CPU for control (typically a 16-bit microprocessor), a smaller operating system using less memory (measured in kilobytes rather than megabytes or gigabytes), and they produce much less heat than Intel or AMD chips (nobody wants a noisy fan in their synth). In terms of pure processing power they're nowhere near even a several years old general purpose CPU from AMD or Intel, though they're optimized for exactly the types of instructions you need for real-time audio processing. Most DSP chips are around 500 MIPS (million instructions per second) or less. Even the CPU in your iPhone is several times more powerful than that (I'm guessing around 3 to 4,000 MIPS in the latest model). Intel CPUs do 80,000 MIPS or more.

It's all in the algorithms. Those used in the Virus are
1) Very efficient
2) Very high quality
3) Proprietary, with the source code only known to Access developers

#1 is why the Virus can have up to 100 voices with just two simple DSP chips (the same type used in surround sound receivers, cheap stereo systems with digital effects etc.). A port to native x86 code could never be that efficient, but with lots of Assembly/SSE code it could be done with a few percent CPU usage (Zebra, Sylenth1, Dune etc. are all ~1-2% CPU for simple chords on a modern CPU.

#2 is why it sounds so good.

#3 is why no clone will ever sound exactly the same regardless of how much processing power is available.

I'm thankful that different developers have developed their own algorithms. If all plugins had filters and oscillators that sounded exactly like the Virus, it would be a very boring world.

The TI2 Polar makes a great balcony synth for these hot summer nights. Add a huge fan, some drinks, an iThing and you're set for some good fun.

For producing sw is probably easier to deal with, but if you are a balcony guy, go for the virus.

I kinda disagree, check Lexicon reverbs released for PC. They take sooo small amount of power, yet sounding great and having lexicon flavor

p.s. now was thinking...if our cellphones CPUs are so powerful, why virus is still on old DSP chip :X

I'd hazard a guess that it's because these threads are usually started by people who are already using softsynths, and want to know if buying a Virus will turn them into Armin.

It's the Virus that these questions are always about. When was the last time you saw the same question about a Blofeld/Lead/Motif/Prophet?

Everytime of the week this kind of question appear. It's amusing how it's always the same people debating.

Yes it's something.
I'll bet 50 bucks on the virus.

Funny thing is that it seems that Armin doesn't use very much the Virus. His main keyboard is a Nord Lead. In his studio session videos he mentioned more the Fabfilter synth and stuff.
The trance guys which are for many a bit the "big boys" Infected Mushroom using more Nord Modular, Surge. Amit Duvdevani doesn't remember about the name/version of this "thing" in the rackspace (Virus TI) in a actual studio video... It seems the Virus has today not this usage people expect.

500 MIPS is very fast for a DSP chip.. The original Virus B (16 part, 24 voices) runs on a 150MHZ dsp that can produce a peak of 270 MIPS.


Which is crippled down by bad software, yes. Most of the crunching on mobile phones is anyway related to graphics, which is run on a separate dsp-chip.. also known as a gpu.

Not Armin, but Orjan Nilsen! That guy knows how to use the Virus and his tracks are pure heaven.

Armin mostly uses Twin2 and V-Station for his latest stuff.

only picking the definition to suit you, nicely done, whereas the 'quality' you actually meant was very diff

qual·i·ty (kwl-t)
n. pl. qual·i·ties
1.
a. An inherent or distinguishing characteristic; a property.
b. A personal trait, especially a character trait: "The most vital quality a soldier can possess is self-confidence" (George S. Patton).
2. Essential character; nature: "The quality of mercy is not strain'd" (Shakespeare).
3.
a. Superiority of kind: an intellect of unquestioned quality.
b. Degree or grade of excellence: yard goods of low quality.
4.
a. High social position.
b. Those in a high social position.
5. Music Timbre, as determined by harmonics: a voice with a distinctive metallic quality.
6. Linguistics The character of a vowel sound determined by the size and shape of the oral cavity and the amount of resonance with which the sound is produced.
7. Logic The positive or negative character of a proposition.
adj.
Having a high degree of excellence: the importance of quality health care.

Armin was just a name I plucked out of the aether, it's just an illustration that a lot of people will think they need a Virus as it's the only way to sound like producer X

And just for the record, Nilsen stated that Sylenth1 was pretty much a replacement for the Virus for 'that' sound. I came to the same conclusion 2 years ago when I sold my Ti.

Yeah, I saw that video too. Only I hated the sound he made with Sylenth1. Not that it's a bad VSTi, just the Virus has some magic in its code.

Blofeld and Largo use the same code. Some Largo patches can be very CPU intensive, and I don't think that the DSP chip in Blofeld is quite as powerful as the one in Virus Ti. So, it's easy to imagine that a Virus VSTi would require a very fast CPU.