A poll for Virus owners

[recursive one]

Spire is the closest you get.
I have a Access Virus C and Spire sounds almost the same.
The sound is lower in Spire compared to the in your face sound from my Virus but that can be fixed by adding more volume in spire.

The sound is so close that a A+B test would make it impossible to guess which is virus or spire.

Indeed Spire may sound similar but not the same and far from almost the same. Ive tried recreating few patches and very simple patches just using pitch to lfo mudulation and the sound is just different. But saying that from all the tryouts to recreate it Spire got the job done closest.

Yeah, that's it. Among software synths Spire does the most "Virusy" VA/hypersaw sounds but saying that they sound almost the same is a stretch. Indeed, even at very simple patches the difference may be apparent due to the different behaviour of envelopes, LFOs and stuff and Spire has different character overall, brighter and cleaner sound.

That's not to say that they are miles ahead from each other in terms of sound quality and the range of possible sounds though. I'm happy to own Virus which gives me these exact sounds I've heard in my favourite trance and psytrance tracks made in 2000's, but for actual productions I'm fine with using Spire and Serum (loaded with Virus wavetables). These days I don't have much time for making music therefore I prefer native plugins because of much quicker workflow. Virus is sitting on my desktop and patiently waiting.

[tripleflows]

This is where the fun begins: Access Virus driven by a Synthmorph sequence

[maschinelf]

I owned a virus ti2 desktop more than 5 years back, sold it and never regretted my decision. Imo the virus is not a bad synth in itself, but ultimately not worth it unless you're looking for that specific character, and it's not like it oozes a whole lot of character anyway. At the time I sold it, the choice was between keeping either the virus or Nord modular G2, which imho was a very easy decision. Also I think modern vstis have far surpassed the virus in terms of capabilities and also in terms of sound quality (or character or however you want to put it). Meanwhile, the NMG2 still occupies a niche which other vstis have not made completely redundant. The last few years though, there has been a growing interest and availability of modular soft synths (e.g. falcon, reaktor blocks, softube modular, and VCV rack looks very promising), so I think the NMG2 is also no longer as unique as it used to be. Still probably my favorite synth though.

[chk071]

I owned a virus ti2 desktop more than 5 years back, sold it and never regretted my decision. Imo the virus is not a bad synth in itself, but ultimately not worth it unless you're looking for that specific character, and it's not like it oozes a whole lot of character anyway.

Really? I think it is full of character. At least compared to most soft synths.

Yeah, sorry for posting the same video 10 times.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpxEWALJ1yk

[chk071]

TBH, my latest experience demoing ANA 2 has once again shown me, that hardware synth still seem to have that extra little something soft synths just don't seem to have, even though they deliver "extra clean oscillators with high quailty anti-aliasing filtering", "zero delay feedback filters to closely mimic analog behavior", and "audio rate modulation", and all the fancy marketing buzz. Where's the character, dear devs? All is so fkn whitewashed these days.

[maschinelf]

Possibly, but imho certainly not $2000 worth of character .. more like $200, maybe

EDIT: if you can put a monetary value to character, which ofcourse is highly subjective. Basically what I'm trying to say is if I bought a ti2 again, I would not want to pay more than $4-500 for it.

[chk071]

It surely is pricey. Seems to work for them though.

[maschinelf]

Actually to be fair, $4-500 is pushing it .. $8-1000 is imo a fair value.

[Synthman2000]

Possibly, but imho certainly not $2000 worth of character .. more like $200, maybe

EDIT: if you can put a monetary value to character, which ofcourse is highly subjective. Basically what I'm trying to say is if I bought a ti2 again, I would not want to pay more than $4-500 for it.

Good luck with that, you won't even find a Snow, and I know why. In the UK a TI2 desktop is normally about £200-300 less than what they cost brand new, which is £1,460.00

If you can find one these days.

I think the value or lack thereof of the Virus (the full virus capabilities including all the wavetable functionality) depends somewhat on the genre of music that you produce. For some it is almost genre defining. I would miss mine sorely, for some electronic genres probably completely unnecessary.

[rod_zero]

I am very surprised when I read that people think the Virus has its own character.

I also had a Ti and honestly while it is a very powerfull synth I wouldn't say it has its own character.

Character for me is when you listen to a track and you can recognize a synth because it has such a distinct sound, for example: Juno, Moog Model D, Voyager, sh101, 303, prophet 05, cs80, ms20, OBXa and even the Nord lead in some genres. But I have never came a across a song that screams "there is a Virus Ti all over it" the way I can recognize any of the previous instruments.

The supersaw sound that is more characteristic comes from the JP8000. Maybe back in the day the Virus was more recognizable because there were few synths with such powerfull engine, but now?

Maybe the Virus suffers from its own popularity, there are so many copy cats that just drown its "sound" in a sea of sameness.

[maschinelf]

Possibly, but imho certainly not $2000 worth of character .. more like $200, maybe

EDIT: if you can put a monetary value to character, which ofcourse is highly subjective. Basically what I'm trying to say is if I bought a ti2 again, I would not want to pay more than $4-500 for it.

Good luck with that, you won't even find a Snow, and I know why. In the UK a TI2 desktop is normally about £200-300 less than what they cost brand new, which is £1,460.00

If you can find one these days.

I think the value or lack thereof of the Virus (the full virus capabilities including all the wavetable functionality) depends somewhat on the genre of music that you produce. For some it is almost genre defining. I would miss mine sorely, for some electronic genres probably completely unnecessary.

Agreed about the value based on genre, and that to a lesser or greater extent would be true for any sound source in relation to a particular genre. I actually mentioned right after that that imho a fair value is around $8-1000. Though that is not what I would pay for one, or only do so if I had unlimited funds AND space. It's not something I'm really looking to buy anyway, considering I sold one a few years back. If I could get my hands on an older Virus B or C for $2-300, that would be a bargain.

[kobal]

the virus can cover lot of sounds, it s swiss army knife of synths, but in all areas there is a one trick pony to beat it , thats often the problem with very versatile tools, they do most things decently, but just decently while a one trick pony do one thing , but you can t beat it at that thing.

still i would buy it as a plugin for let say 350 euros max..it s still better than lot of plugins (from what i remember cause i owned one for few years but i like more the raw sound of some analog synth)

[Synthman2000]

I am very surprised when I read that people think the Virus has its own character.

I also had a Ti and honestly while it is a very powerfull synth I wouldn't say it has its own character.

Character for me is when you listen to a track and you can recognize a synth because it has such a distinct sound, for example: Juno, Moog Model D, Voyager, sh101, 303, prophet 05, cs80, ms20, OBXa and even the Nord lead in some genres. But I have never came a across a song that screams "there is a Virus Ti all over it" the way I can recognize any of the previous instruments.

The supersaw sound that is more characteristic comes from the JP8000. Maybe back in the day the Virus was more recognizable because there were few synths with such powerfull engine, but now?

Maybe the Virus suffers from its own popularity, there are so many copy cats that just drown its "sound" in a sea of sameness.

Copied ? I have not heard a single synth yet that will do everything I need of the Virus and I own a fair few soft synths.(which get used as well)

Unfortunately I think you were not listening to the unique synthesis capabilities of the Virus TI2 / Snow. The sonic elements that exist nowhere else. It need not be a problem though maybe you did not need them for what you were doing. Then you would miss it much less.

The interesting thing with the Virus TI2/Snow engine is that is does many things well and a few things that nothing else does. That makes it very desirable, for myself it just completes the picture of the sonic story I am wanting to paint. I think it is very much a genre thing though.

If you are not putting 100pct effort into your music it won't make or break it though. It is merely a luxury that I would very much miss in the event that I no longer have it available.

[v1o]

Has anyone done a Virus Sound bank for Spire yet?

[egbert101]

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