Most modern well designed VSTs sound better than the Virus

[EnGee]

After reading this much about the Virus and listening to different examples, I have the conclusion that the Virus is actually a genre related synth!

Actually, the whole clashes of the opinions in sound quality of a named synth are genre related in its core!

[Vectorman]

Yeah, I think saturation is a big part of the virus sound. I also read an interview with Kemper where he said he did not model analogue components, his process was to listen and tune.

I've had that thought before...that since Kemper didn't have the DSP power available back then to do actual circuit simulation, he instead looked for ways to massage the sound until it simply sounded "good" to him, even if that particular shade of "good" was far away from the sound of any particular analog synth.

In regard to the filter saturation and distortion FX, I've noticed that a large portion of the Virus sounds I like most aren't even using the filter saturation at all and aren't using distortion FX either (or if they are using the latter, it's dialed down very low and subtle). Still sounds "Virusey" to me even with those things taken out of the equation. Many Virus users seem to gravitate towards the more distorted stuff, but one of the things I like most about it is how effortlessly it does "smooth," and not just on sounds with lower filter cutoffs.

I don't do psytrance or any other club music genre, by the way. I don't have any strong influences in electronic music apart from maybe Thomas Dolby, William Orbit and Patrick O'Hearn a little bit (honestly, bands like Rush and Yes were a bigger influence on me in my formative years than anybody in electronic music). So my liking the Virus has nothing to do with wanting to cop the sound of any club artists from the synth's peak period of popularity.

[recursive one]

In regard to the filter saturation and distortion FX, I've noticed that a large portion of the Virus sounds I like most aren't even using the filter saturation at all and aren't using distortion FX either (or if they are using the latter, it's dialed down very low and subtle). Still sounds "Virusey" to me even with those things taken out of the equation.

But what about the "character"? I have an impression that even by dialing it all the way down in the "analog boost" mode you can't fully disable it, but I may be wrong (EDIT: no, it unlikely affects the sound when turned all the way to the left, but still there is some amount of character often dialed in even on the clean sounding presets, which adds some very subtle distortion here and there in the signal path and perhaps helps to smoothen the sound a bit).

Anyway, saturation is an important factor but it may be not the only important factor.

[Stokely]

I owned a Virus kB (B version) but only got it for live use. The convenience of software is too great for me to use any hardware at home (I'm just a hobbyist)...no audio cabling, no mixer, no midi, etc Conversely, for live, I like hitting a power button and playing. No usb or computer issues and no laptop to worry about (eventually I might bring an ipad into my live rig though, logistically it's simpler)

The Virus was just a joy to play. The build quality was great, the key action was great, the aftertouch was very "controllable"--by that I mean that it was so easy to make it happen when you wanted it, probably more a compliment to the programming than the hardware--and tweaking the knobs was great fun. I only bothered to program a few core patches, during gigs I'd just go to town tweaking them during songs. I can do the same things on the computer but short of setting up some complex controller surface with Logic it's going to be a slower, more tedious process to tweak sounds. And, the thing sounded outstanding to me, the fx in particular. Granted, this was for live use in a classic rock band to boot, so I never sat down and tried to compare the sounds directly to those from my software.

[tasty tatsyn]

Virus filters still rock in my opinion. Who cares if they're ancient? They have their own sound, to my ears at least.


It is also interesting what Urs stated in that thread:

On the downside: It's easy to create a sound in Zebra that's crap. Happens to me all the time. Doesn't happen that often in the Virus. That's because the Virus has virtual analogue parameter ranges within a virtual analogue flexibility. For the same reason that the Virus pretty much always sounds "good" one can't really dial anything into it that's not virtual analogue (including PPGish). Thus, for the broader range of stuff you get out of Zebra (or Absynth, or Tera, or XYZ) you have to pay the price that there's a lot of crap inbetween the beautiful spots.

Pretty much summarizes my thoughts about many of the soft synths.

And this Sums it up for me and we can look at it two ways:

1 - Personally, i love the flexibility and exploration options VST's have to offer [softsynths+FX and ALL the combinations they provide between them], sure i Won't ever make a Hit song with my music but what i like the most when going into the cave/spaceship is the exploration...

I Don't want to make something like POP music or THESE DAYS META MUSIC.... where every track "sounds like" the one before, god, even on my own (self contained) albums i hardly ever use the same (even many times self designed) presets... i'd be bored with it...
This is the same reason i respect and like listening to david Bowie so much...

(just an observation)_:
these days and although i like a lot of bands/music groups/etc i get totally bored after listening to 3 or 4 of their tracks and need to listen to something diferent.....

2 - If you want THAT Sound..... it's like eating that mushroom variety you like so much and never get tired of it...

[recursive one]

What puzzles me about Virus is how it manages to sound very full and fat, it fills nicely the sonic space and several Viruses create dense, coherent mix with little efforts. When I'm trying to make mixes of similar sounds made with Spire, I always feel that the whole thing sounds too thin and something important is missing. Ofc, this "something important" may be my lack of mixing skills though

[chk071]

1 - Personally, i love the flexibility and exploration options VST's have to offer [softsynths+FX and ALL the combinations they provide between them], sure i Won't ever make a Hit song with my music but what i like the most when going into the cave/spaceship is the exploration...

The problem is, ESPECIALLY for the "exploration", synths which sound good over the whole bandwidth will be the most fun. With synths which have a narrow sweet spot, when exploring and experimenting, you will often hit the borders of such sweet spots. For example, when messing with wavetables which don't have too many harmonics in Largo, when turning up the filter, and almost hitting the point of self-oscillation, it will sound sweet. Do the same in Z3TA, and it will become harsh, shrill, metallic, and ear-piercing unpleasant. Not good. Also many soft synths simply don't get beefy enough, or sound very static, and predictable, while others come to live. Not sure, but, it might have to do with things like oscillator drift, light saturation, non-linear tuning, and stereo spread, more top and bottom end, stuff like that.

[tasty tatsyn]

yes, i felt that with Z3TA per ex:

i liked the low end on filters and resonance but... when it goes mid/up it gets reaaaaly harsh and with most VST's there always a similar issue somewhere...

Most Vst's also sound static in a way too, i also agree on that so that's where the exploration comes in, creating your own patches and modulations with custom built FX chain in DAW/EQ/ETC and this goes to recursive point ---->

["Viruses create dense, coherent mix with little efforts. When I'm trying to make mixes of similar sounds made with Spire, I always feel that the whole thing sounds too thin and something important is missing. Ofc, this "something important" may be my lack of mixing skills though "]

and thats why i never got Spire even tough i like it it just isn't close enough and i have more then enough vst's already..

[tasty tatsyn]

Btw both these tracks sound great but it's obvious the diference on recursive one track...... but i also like recursive 100% Diva track so.... you can hear the diferences but it's all good music.....

Having said that there's something you guys should consider, these synth examples on youtube, etc... come full of external FX a lot of times (many of those times Analog Compressors,limiters,....) and the player also makes a huge impact as it was said previously

another thing to consider is that analog/VA synths usually come with really good saturation and Limiters and that by itself can explain somewhat how they sit better in the mix then an unprocessed VST by default

so i'll show a litle example of what i got out of icarus with 1 preset... granted after external FX it uses nearly 40% of my CPU the virus would save all that CPU


*-* WARNING, on some parts IT's Loud AS f**k!!! so turn down volume if you're listening on headphones *_*

https://soundcloud.com/tatsava-news/ton ... ue-tension


so my point is, to me VST's have a life of it's own they just require more attention and effort, altough a VST that sounds reaaaaally close to a virus would be awesome!!!!!!!

[andymcbain]

What puzzles me about Virus is how it manages to sound very full and fat, it fills nicely the sonic space and several Viruses create dense, coherent mix with little efforts. When I'm trying to make mixes of similar sounds made with Spire, I always feel that the whole thing sounds too thin and something important is missing. Ofc, this "something important" may be my lack of mixing skills though

It both puzzled and delighted me this weekend when creating a "dirty" low register FM / High Pass filter lead for a new track. Plugged straight into the front analogue inputs of my interface with no FX apart from the built in phaser and a bit of the "light" distortion. Absolutely massive sound, which was somehow "dirty", "smooth" and "glossy" all at once. I've never achieved the same results from a synth in the box, which is why I will never sell the Virus C.

I do wonder whether the D/A - A/D conversion has a part to play in the result.

[recursive one]

I do wonder whether the D/A - A/D conversion has a part to play in the result.

I use my Snow in the TI mode so no DACs here. Just an exceptionally well programmed and tuned sound engine.

Though I've heard that Virus sounds even fatter, bigger and better when the audio comes through its DACs, so probably DACs add some further magic.

[Hooj]

Though I've heard that Virus sounds even fatter, bigger and better when the audio comes through its DACs, so probably DACs add some further magic.

This another "Virus" discussion which has been argued to death in the past on various different forums.

I'm still not convinced there is much difference (soundwise) between the analog outs vs. USB (or S/PDIF). Personally I prefer using the TI mode as well, unless of course I need to run the sound through a hardware compressor or a pre-amp, in which case i'll switch to the analog outs.

[kurodo]

Maybe the Virus was just a very happy accident?
Sometimes things come together in a magical way, even beyond the expectations of the creators.

I've heard the Virus in Massive, Spire and Icarus but none of them completely nails the Virus on its own.
Perhaps the Viper will be the next real contender? although the platform it was developed on will probably
come at a very high cost in terms of CPU.

[Hooj]

Sometimes things come together in a magical way, even beyond the expectations of the creators.

This is very true

[adamszabo]

although the platform it was developed on will probably come at a very high cost in terms of CPU.

Nope, the whole sound engine was written from scratch in assembly so its very optimized.