Nexus 2 vs Virus Ti2 Desktop

[Prevalence]

Hi all,

I would like to ask all you experts about these two synths. Both are about the same price if you take Nexus with ALL the banks, but how do they compare in terms of sound/patch quality? Does the Virus have as many banks available? Personally, I'm a preset whore

Obviously one is hardware and one is software and Nexus has many Virus samples. So in some ways they would appear to offer very similar things and aimed at simliar music genre's?

I can see that the Virus would be good for reducing CPU usage and would appear to work perfectly as a VST. It's also a very sluttish piece of furniture

For me, I would love own some such synth furniture but Nexus, it would seem, is the cream of the cream in terms of software-only and hugely popular.

So, with £1,400 to spend which would you choose (or chose), and why?

Bestest, Paul

[aMUSEd]

Hi all,

I would like to ask all you experts about these two synths. Both are about the same price if you take Nexus with ALL the banks, but how do they compare in terms of sound/patch quality? Does the Virus have as many banks available? Personally, I'm a preset whore

Obviously one is hardware and one is software and Nexus has many Virus samples. So in some ways they would appear to offer very similar things and aimed at simliar music genre's?

The Virus has tons more presets but is also unlimited in that's it is a synth not a preset player. However I'm not sure they really compare in terms of genres - this seems to be a common misconception. While Nexus seems aimed at a certain market the Virus can be used for pretty much anything and although it does have banks made by the same names associated with Nexus (i.e. Vengeance) personally I find them the most boring patches compared to the more adventurous ones by people like Howard Scarr, Ben Crossland, Sasha and Rui Peixioto so even if you are a preset whore I'd say you have a wider range to draw from with a Ti. Also from what I've heard of Nexus everything seems far too saturated with reverb etc for my taste.

[cryophonik]

Hey Paul!

I have both Nexus2 (+75% of the expansions) and a Virus Polar TI (first generation, but there's little realizable difference b/t the TI1 & TI2). As aMUSED mentioned, there are a lot of misconceptions regarding the Virus, but there are probably even more regarding Nexus (especially Nexus2). Yes, Nexus is a rompler that comes with tons of ready-to-go presets, but it is very tweakable. You'll hear people complain that using Nexus will make you sound like every other Nexus user, but that's not the case at all if you choose to do some tweaking. Even though I use it sparingly, no one has ever recognized a Nexus sound in any of my tracks. My collaborating buddy Avery Parker is a self-proclaimed Nexus whore and uses it for 90% of the sounds in his tracks - he tweaks the sounds beyond recognition and no one has ever noticed a Nexus sound in his tracks.

But, to answer one of your main questions, yes there are a TON of patches out there for the Virus TI, both commercial and free. One of the cool features of the TI is that you can keep the soundbanks in a folder on your computer and instantly load or save them right from the Virus Control (software interface for the TI series) without having to do a manual dump to/from the Virus/computer. I've never actually counted, but over the years I've downloaded dozens of free soundsets (many from the Access website) and purchased a couple, which I'm sure give me instant access (pun intended) to well over 5,000 sounds (maybe closer to 10K) between the factory and third-party banks. So, the bottom line is that, even as a preset whore, the Virus makes a whole lot more sense than Nexus IMO. And, yes, the Virus is a soooo much more than a trance machine. It's a monster synth capable of doing nearly anything you want a subtractive synth to do - the many freebie banks that you'll find will clearly demonstrate its strength in almost any genre. HTH.

[Prevalence]

Thanks aMUSED and Dave!

Your replies pretty much confirm what I thought. Certainly the Virus is a synth capable of almost anything it would seem! So it does make you wonder why people would choose Nexus? It doesn't even come in a nice box for all that money hehe.

Dave, just out of curiosity what is the difference between the Virus Polar and the regular model? And do all the same patches work with the Snow?

Bestest, Paul

[Ingonator]

Thanks aMUSED and Dave!

Your replies pretty much confirm what I thought. Certainly the Virus is a synth capable of almost anything it would seem! So it does make you wonder why people would choose Nexus? It doesn't even come in a nice box for all that money hehe.

Dave, just out of curiosity what is the difference between the Virus Polar and the regular model? And do all the same patches work with the Snow?

Bestest, Paul

The only difference is that the Polar has a silver colored case and a 3 octaves keyboard. The big keyboard has 5 octaves but costs the same. So people seem to buy the Polar mostly for it's design and the smaller size. The snow is compatible with all patches but has only around half of the DSP power of the "normal" TI desktop.

[lee dc]

Certainly the Virus is a synth capable of almost anything it would seem! So it does make you wonder why people would choose Nexus?

Nexus is sampled-based, ie, a ROMpler, so it can also do a lot that the Virus can't, eg, there's the Dance Orchestra expansion for Nexus that contains lots of workstation-style strings, brass, etc. And being a plug-in, you can run many Nexus instances at once. Really, they're very different things.

[Prevalence]

@Ingonator - thank for answering the question on the Polar I had wondered that for ages!

@Lee dc - so you can only have one instance of Virus in a song? Very restrictive! Thanks.

Bestest, Paul

[Ingonator]

Certainly the Virus is a synth capable of almost anything it would seem! So it does make you wonder why people would choose Nexus?

Nexus is sampled-based, ie, a ROMpler, so it can also do a lot that the Virus can't, eg, there's the Dance Orchestra expansion for Nexus that contains lots of workstation-style strings, brass, etc. And being a plug-in, you can run many Nexus instances at once. Really, they're very different things.

Did you not hear that the Virus TI could be used as a plugin (Virus Control software) with several instances too? Just connect via USB and the hardware works like a DSP expansion. That's what "TI" is all about, meaning "Total Integration" !!

And most important: Virus TI is a WAVETABLE synthesizer with around 100 wavetables. It contains additional digital waveforms, could also do hypeersaws, granular synthesis, formant synthesis and Wavetable PWM. The memory contains 4 RAM banks and 22 ROM banks. 7 of the ROM banks can be overwritten. That makes 26 x 128 = 3328 patches in memory and around 10000 available. Enough said...

PS: Guess from which synth many of those Nexus samples come??

[Prevalence]

Certainly the Virus is a synth capable of almost anything it would seem! So it does make you wonder why people would choose Nexus?

Nexus is sampled-based, ie, a ROMpler, so it can also do a lot that the Virus can't, eg, there's the Dance Orchestra expansion for Nexus that contains lots of workstation-style strings, brass, etc. And being a plug-in, you can run many Nexus instances at once. Really, they're very different things.

Did you not hear that the Virus TI could be used as a plugin (Virus Control software) with several instances too? Just connect via USB and the hardware works like a DSP expansion. That's what "TI" is all about, meaning "Total Integration" !!

And most important: Virus TI is a WAVETABLE synthesizer with around 100 wavetables. It contains additional digital waveforms, could also do hypeersaws, granular synthesis, formant synthesis and Wavetable PWM. The memory contains 4 RAM banks and 22 ROM banks. 7 of the ROM banks can be overwritten. That makes 26 x 128 = 3328 patches in memory and around 10000 available. Enough said...

PS: Guess from which synth many of those Nexus samples come??

Yes I know that the Virus has the VST control software etc, but when lee dc said.....:

"And being a plug-in, you can run many Nexus instances at once. Really, they're very different things"

......It just threw me a bit!!

Virus wins hands down then!!

Bestest, Paul

[Ingonator]

@Ingonator - thank for answering the question on the Polar I had wondered that for ages!

@Lee dc - so you can only have one instance of Virus in a song? Very restrictive! Thanks.

Bestest, Paul

Your question about the Virus models could also be answered by a look at the Access homepage:
http://www.access-music.de/
http://www.access-music.de/products.php4

[MacQ]

Hmm ...

All the Virus love and the Nexus hate ... you're not really getting the full picture. I like Nexus and VSTi's because with my Virus, it was buggy as hell. Bear that in mind. If you're a live player, sure, the Virus TI is killer for live applications. But honestly, unless you're looking for a specific Virus-only sound (there aren't too many), you're better off buying Nexus and a few choice expansions (some of them are useless) and Sylenth1 + Zebra 2. That'll get you 99.9% of the way there, and be a heck of a lot more flexible as well.

I'm speaking as someone who's owned a Virus C, Virus Powercore (for sale, by the way), and also a Virus TI. It's just not worth the money for what it does. There are so many better options in software now, and the "Virus" sound is hardly on this impossible-to-reach plateau anymore.

Honestly, you could pick up Nexus 2 with a few expansions, Sylenth1, Zebra 2, Effectrix, CamelSpace and CamelPhatt for messing stuff up, and still have money left over. All of that will price you about $1250 USD, so you'll literally have about $1100 USD left over. So heck, pick up Vember Audio Surge to round out the palette. A way better use of your money, in my opinion.

Do not underestimate the WORKFLOW you have with VSTi's. It's one of the reasons I have a Roland Fantom-X, Motif XS Rack and Roland XV5080 that hardly ever get turned on. Workflow with VSTi's is WAY WAY better.

~Stu

[mbncp]

[..]Did you not hear that the Virus TI could be used as a plugin (Virus Control software) with several instances too?[..]

You can only run a single instance of the ti plug, unless you have more than one ti.
But you can access 16 parts with it, but be aware that you won't be able to play more than 2-4 of these at the same time, depending of the number of voices, fx, osc,... being use for each patch.

As a musician (I mean the guy that uses these white and black keys) I find that usb audio integration totally useless, as it brings over 3000 samples latency.
You can still use the analog outs but then the plug will reports these 3000+ samples delay to the host, so on playback your tracks will play too early.
Other than that it's a nice synth, and the vst editor is pretty well done.

[brok landers]

Hmm ...

All the Virus love and the Nexus hate ... you're not really getting the full picture. I like Nexus and VSTi's because with my Virus, it was buggy as hell. Bear that in mind. If you're a live player, sure, the Virus TI is killer for live applications. But honestly, unless you're looking for a specific Virus-only sound (there aren't too many), you're better off buying Nexus and a few choice expansions (some of them are useless) and Sylenth1 + Zebra 2. That'll get you 99.9% of the way there, and be a heck of a lot more flexible as well.

I'm speaking as someone who's owned a Virus C, Virus Powercore (for sale, by the way), and also a Virus TI. It's just not worth the money for what it does. There are so many better options in software now, and the "Virus" sound is hardly on this impossible-to-reach plateau anymore.

Honestly, you could pick up Nexus 2 with a few expansions, Sylenth1, Zebra 2, Effectrix, CamelSpace and CamelPhatt for messing stuff up, and still have money left over. All of that will price you about $1250 USD, so you'll literally have about $1100 USD left over. So heck, pick up Vember Audio Surge to round out the palette. A way better use of your money, in my opinion.

Do not underestimate the WORKFLOW you have with VSTi's. It's one of the reasons I have a Roland Fantom-X, Motif XS Rack and Roland XV5080 that hardly ever get turned on. Workflow with VSTi's is WAY WAY better.

~Stu

all so true ... i have 2 viri here, since the very first beginning i was a betatester for access ... they're really nice (and they really made my day back in the days), but ... yeah ... i don't turn them on often anymore ... they're maily there to look good (if i clean them from dust that is ) ...

[MaxSynths]

Do not underestimate the WORKFLOW you have with VSTi's. It's one of the reasons I have a Roland Fantom-X, Motif XS Rack and Roland XV5080 that hardly ever get turned on. Workflow with VSTi's is WAY WAY better.

Way better for you For me is the opposite. I turn on my keyboards, press rec on the sequencer, then I play different sounds on different keyboards and in one take I have all I need at zero latency and a total of 2 mouse clicks (rec & stop).

To answer to the OP: you need to know what you really need. Everybody has his workflow, musical genre, preferences and so on. It's not a matter of X vs Y, it all depends on you (unless you are planning to buy Largo, stay away from it ).

[cryophonik]

Hmm ...

All the Virus love and the Nexus hate ... you're not really getting the full picture.

Sorry, but I'm not seeing any "Nexus hate" in the above threads. I see some positive comments and some objective comparisons of the differences b/t a Virus and Nexus, but no hate.