Access Virus vs. Z3TA2

[MFXxx]

Bottom line here in my opinion is hardware vs software. Own both and various other vsts. Sounds on vsts nowadays are more and more comparable to hadware. Hardware however has that feeling of independance and an actual instrument. Whilst i love vsts with hundreds ot there and tens of thousands of patches there is not a vst that compares to the feeling of booting up a piece of hardware and jamming straight away (or within a few seconds). No pc boot, waiting for the respective apple/microsoft logo and jingle, waiting for background services to load and systsem settle load up standalone (or host), check keyboard and volume all set and jam in the one place all you kit is. Hardware is more portable which can be important.

Sound wise zeta could sound like a virus but its not a virus! Whilst some may arguably have a different point of view, I love my virus and have yet to find any softsynth that replicates and sounds like a virus. Lets face it if there was Access would have probably gobbled it up or the creator would be very rich.

One pluggin worth mentioning here is synthmaster, for dance (as well as other genres and sounds) it hits the spot and will most definately evolve into a goto pluggin.

My wish nowadays would be for someone to release a hardware keyboard with controllers that all the plugins would easily load into. Out of sight, out of mind is a creative brickwall in work flow on occassion.

Could arguably say plugins are your fast food and hardware the al la carté....but there are some plugins getting close and in some cases better than hardware for certain sounds...The wobble would be massive

[Richard_Synapse]

The sound quality gap between hardware and software is going to close soon if that hasn't already happened. There is no magic in a DSP chip, it's just a digital processor, and not even a particularly fast one by today's standards.

Where the TI really shines is ihmo in the FX department, it has much better algorithms than most software as well as dedicated FX hardware. Then again this is more of a convenience issue, as there is of course software plugins available to compensate for that, e.g. Breverb or Aether for a good reverb, etc...

Richard

[osiris]

IMO Massive can sound more like a Virus than Z3ta+.

[JimmiG]

A total newbie probably could sit down and produce a fairly decent dance track with the Virus assuming they have a few good ideas and listen to current trends.
So yeah in the right hands the Virus really is a hit machine because it was built for the kill.

I think this is where the "mystique" surrounding the Virus comes from. Lots of "big names" write hits with it, so it *must* be far superior to other hardware and software, right?

In reality, you can write a hit with almost anything, even free Synthedit stuff, provided you're good at what you're doing. But using something with great effects and presets that sound great and "in your face" on their own, but still work beautifully in mix, even without tweaking them, makes this a whole lot easier.

[SLiC]

I have the Powercore Virus, best of both worlds IMHO, power of a Virus (or Z3ta) without the CPU hit.

So, it is a Virus, in software only....

Z3ta 2 = £69
Virus Ti over £1500....

The Virus Ti hardware would have to be A LOT better for the average home studio (assuming you already have a PC, control surface/keyboard, soundcard...) but if you gig, I would go with the hardware....

[mkdr]

I have the Powercore Virus, best of both worlds IMHO, power of a Virus (or Z3ta) without the CPU hit.

So, it is a Virus, in software only....

Z3ta 2 = £69
Virus Ti over £1500....

The Virus Ti hardware would have to be A LOT better for the average home studio (assuming you already have a PC, control surface/keyboard, soundcard...) but if you gig, I would go with the hardware....

Been looking forward to acquiring a Poco Virus too. Already got a few cards to run it on(dirt cheap stuff!). But what i do have now is a Virus B and it's miles ahead of Z3ta's sound.. It's not so much the "quality" or ease of use of it, but the character of the sound. Attitude. But Z3ta can make nice sounds too, no doubt, and i use it all the time. There's just no sense in comparing these, even though they have a very similar sound structure.



Btw.
2x poco cards = 100-150e
poco virus plugin = ~350e
equals
32 multi parts, 128 voices of Virus B sounds with 128 samples latency. All ITB.

Compare that to TI's 3 stereo outputs, over usb(facepalm)... for over 3x the price..
No sense at all in getting a TI

[Uncle E]

The sound quality gap between hardware and software is going to close soon if that hasn't already happened. There is no magic in a DSP chip, it's just a digital processor, and not even a particularly fast one by today's standards.

Sure, DIVA proves that a native softsynths can sound more like an analog than most hardware VA's. However, its massive hit on the CPU shows that the capabilities of DSP's is possibly not so trivial as you're making them sound.

[Uncle E]

I think this is where the "mystique" surrounding the Virus comes from. Lots of "big names" write hits with it, so it *must* be far superior to other hardware and software, right?

The big names have created a sound that other people aspire towards. If somebody wants that sound, it's far easier for them to simply buy a Virus rather than learn to make the alternatives sound the same.

In reality, you can write a hit with almost anything, even free Synthedit stuff, provided you're good at what you're doing. But using something with great effects and presets that sound great and "in your face" on their own, but still work beautifully in mix, even without tweaking them, makes this a whole lot easier.

Exactly! Amazing presets and preset handling is still part of what sets the Virus TI and Omnisphere apart from other softsynths.

[Uncle E]

Compare that to TI's 3 stereo outputs, over usb(facepalm)... for over 3x the price..
No sense at all in getting a TI

As a longtime Powercore Virus user myself, I must say that I do prefer the TI's sound and preset handling quite a bit. However, the 3 stereo outputs (actually 2, since the 3rd is for processing external audio) is a huge issue that keeps me using the Powercore version in the end.

[mkdr]

Compare that to TI's 3 stereo outputs, over usb(facepalm)... for over 3x the price..
No sense at all in getting a TI

As a longtime Powercore Virus user myself, I must say that I do prefer the TI's sound and preset handling quite a bit. However, the 3 stereo outputs (actually 2, since the 3rd is for processing external audio) is a huge issue that keeps me using the Powercore version in the end.

How is the preset handling done on the Poco Virus? Just plain 128 vst preset patches and banks? Because in that case Cubase's Mediabay makes things on par with the TI. Or are there some other complications?

What i've done with my VirusB is a sysex loader program that lets me go through all the sysex files i have on HD, with one click previews. So i have kind of an Integration going on there too +total recall of course

[Uncle E]

How is the preset handling done on the Poco Virus? Just plain 128 vst preset patches and banks? Because in that case Cubase's Mediabay makes things on par with the TI. Or are there some other complications?

I think it has its own preset menu. Patches are organized into folders by type but, once one is loaded, clicking the arrow for the next preset just goes to whatever is next order, not by type.

[inaheartbeat]

The sound quality gap between hardware and software is going to close soon if that hasn't already happened. There is no magic in a DSP chip, it's just a digital processor, and not even a particularly fast one by today's standards.

Sure, DIVA proves that a native softsynths can sound more like an analog than most hardware VA's. However, its massive hit on the CPU shows that the capabilities of DSP's is possibly not so trivial as you're making them sound.

Yea I gotta echo this one. I have Diva and think it is fantastic but if you put it in divine mode you are going to eat up your CPU and this can get annoying when you are tweaking a patch and all of a sudden you find your CPU just pinned. That is something you don't have to worry about with the Virus at least. You end up getting something then freezing your track and then you can't just play with it cause you have to unfreeze and tweak. That is not a lot of fun. Try sticking Tremor and Diva together in a project. That is a real stress test for your PC. The Virus lets me tweak away and it doesn't matter to my PC.

Previous poster said something about the effects in a Virus being a big positive attribute vs soft-synths. I have to agree up to a point. I will say that Nexus 2 has a really good delay and reverb built in. Best of all soft-synths I own. I will also argue that I can glue great effects on the back end of the soft synths. It is nice to not have to take the CPU hit to get your sounds though.

A correction to a previous post I made while under the influence of post-surgery painkillers...I said the next OS release (V5.0) of the Virus software would add two new oscillators. This is wrong. It adds two new envelopes. Lesson....no posting on painkillers.

[stillshaded]

It's funny.. I rarely see people talk about some of the features in the Virus that make it so great in my mind.

The TI unique features (as compared to previous Virus models) are where it really shines. To start off you have a really great wavetable synth. It has some of the best wavetables I've ever heard (and this is a particular area of interest for me). Then, there are the unique modes that you can run the osc's in: granular and formant. Also the new speaker emulator, stomp boxes, formant and comb filters all reek of awesome. Combine all this with the flexibility of the mod matrix, and the quality of the filters and effects, and you have a very unique and awesome sounding synth. Another recent addition (that I requested and I can't help but wonder if took the idea from me), is the 'analog drift' in the mod matrix. Whenever I have leftover matrix slots I route drift to as many parameters as i can, helps to liven up sounds considerably.

I've used softsynths much more than I've used the Virus. To me it seems that the Virus sounds as if each component is just a bit more indulgent with the DSP cycles than a softsynth would be, and it does add up to a better instrument. Also I just think it's one of the best designed synths out there. You can't do absolutely anything with it, but it is limited in a way that I like. It allows me to do all kinds of mayhem, but it's limited enough to where I can always keep track of what's going on.

All this said, I also have an sh09, it wipes the floor with any digital synth I've ever heard though

[JimmiG]

I have the Powercore Virus, best of both worlds IMHO, power of a Virus (or Z3ta) without the CPU hit.

So, it is a Virus, in software only....

Z3ta 2 = £69
Virus Ti over £1500....

The Virus Ti hardware would have to be A LOT better for the average home studio (assuming you already have a PC, control surface/keyboard, soundcard...) but if you gig, I would go with the hardware....

Been looking forward to acquiring a Poco Virus too. Already got a few cards to run it on(dirt cheap stuff!). But what i do have now is a Virus B and it's miles ahead of Z3ta's sound.. It's not so much the "quality" or ease of use of it, but the character of the sound. Attitude. But Z3ta can make nice sounds too, no doubt, and i use it all the time. There's just no sense in comparing these, even though they have a very similar sound structure.



Btw.
2x poco cards = 100-150e
poco virus plugin = ~350e
equals
32 multi parts, 128 voices of Virus B sounds with 128 samples latency. All ITB.

Compare that to TI's 3 stereo outputs, over usb(facepalm)... for over 3x the price..
No sense at all in getting a TI

The advantage of the hardware Virus with its analog outs is that 15 years from now, when people view PCI-Express the way we think of the ISA slot today (you remember ISA, don't you?), it will still work just fine as a standalone synthesizer. Those Powercore cards will be completely useless with no slot to plug them into, and the software plugin itself will be incompatible with your DAW, your audio card and the operating system.

My 26-year old JX-8P is still working fine today.. can't say that about the music software I had for my Commodore 64 that came on some kind of proprietary cartridge...

[tehlord]

A total newbie probably could sit down and produce a fairly decent dance track with the Virus assuming they have a few good ideas and listen to current trends.
So yeah in the right hands the Virus really is a hit machine because it was built for the kill.
The effects are already designed for a club type of sound and that helps a lot.
The same cant be said of a lot of softsynths that come drenched with in your face presets that sound like shit in a club.

This is complete and utter nonsense.

The virus is just another VA plugin with a large dongle. It sounds great, but it's really no different than using any other plugin except that it's not as flexible.