KVR Audio

izonin · Post by **izonin** » Wed Jul 20, 2016 9:16 am

For HyperSaws - Electra2

Spire is capable of recreating the sweet and mellow side of the Virus, but not the dark/aggressive one.

For powerful, multilayered sounds - Dune 2.

4damind · Post by **4damind** » Wed Jul 20, 2016 9:47 am

EnGee wrote:
4damind wrote:
Btw. I replaced my Virus XL often with the always mentioned synth like Spire or Sylenth. I think they are close enough for many sounds.
What about Dune 2? Is it very near to a Virus?

I don't have a Virus, so that I'm asking because in the net I'm finding mixed results. Sometimes very interesting sounds and sometimes very boring sounds for the Virus. So, it is just a guess that Dune 2 can sound near. I also noticed that LuSH has a very nice preset called "Hyper Saw" which sounds really nice in additional to great plucks. How near those sounds to a Virus or Roland? I have no idea!

The overall character of Dune2 is different, it's a bit more polished and remembers sometimes to Roland synth. For the features yes, but the Unison implementation of Dune2 allows completely different sounds you cannot create with the Virus. So there is a bit overlap but with my testings other synth like Sylenth are closer to the Virus because there is more this "rough" a bit digital sound.
Btw. in the past the envelopes of Dune2 were not very snappy, this was fixed not so long ago with a extra mode...

Synthman2000 · Post by **Synthman2000** » Wed Jul 20, 2016 10:05 am

All I can add, is saturation or drive not similar to punch on a Virus? I have no idea as I do not own one but this tends to fatten most synths up. Sometimes this is on the filter and sometimes the oscillators themselves.

Predator is decent and good for the current price.

I find Dune sounds rather like Zebra in terms of its overall sound quality (maybe not individual components/osc/effects of course but as a whole). Lacking in high end and sounds a bit constricted the highs/muted and smeared. I certainly do not feel Dune or Zebra rank high in the HF fidelity, or stereo separation stakes personally. Subjectively I appreciate this might be someones "warm sounding". But as I have said multiple synths bring a musical soundscape together, light and dark working together and if all sounded the same we would have that to moan about !

Maybe this character comes from the type of filtering in the band width limited oscillators ?

EnGee · Post by **EnGee** » Wed Jul 20, 2016 10:11 am

4damind wrote:
EnGee wrote:
4damind wrote:
Btw. I replaced my Virus XL often with the always mentioned synth like Spire or Sylenth. I think they are close enough for many sounds.
What about Dune 2? Is it very near to a Virus?

I don't have a Virus, so that I'm asking because in the net I'm finding mixed results. Sometimes very interesting sounds and sometimes very boring sounds for the Virus. So, it is just a guess that Dune 2 can sound near. I also noticed that LuSH has a very nice preset called "Hyper Saw" which sounds really nice in additional to great plucks. How near those sounds to a Virus or Roland? I have no idea!
The overall character of Dune2 is different, it's a bit more polished and remembers sometimes to Roland synth. For the features yes, but the Unison implementation of Dune2 allows completely different sounds you cannot create with the Virus. So there is a bit overlap but with my testings other synth like Sylenth are closer to the Virus because there is more this "rough" a bit digital sound.

Thanks. The picture is getting clearer now that I began to understand why LuSH 101 reminded me of Dune 2. I think it is the overlapping between some of Roland synths and the Virus.

Yes, I agree that Dune 2 has a wide range of sounds, especially that the FM oscillator and the Detuning parameters can give it another dimension not possible by other similar synths.

db3 · Post by **db3** » Wed Jul 20, 2016 10:51 am

4damind wrote:The overall character of Dune2 is different, it's a bit more polished and remembers sometimes to Roland synth. For the features yes, but the Unison implementation of Dune2 allows completely different sounds you cannot create with the Virus. So there is a bit overlap but with my testings other synth like Sylenth are closer to the Virus because there is more this "rough" a bit digital sound.

+1. Spire also rougher more digital sounding

chk071 · Post by **chk071** » Wed Jul 20, 2016 11:08 am

Not sure if it was already posted in this thread (or even if i posted it...), so, here's a comparison between Spire and Virus on Youtube:

recursive one · Post by **recursive one** » Wed Jul 20, 2016 11:18 am

These comparisons are not really relevant. Envelope behaviour is different, Virus has lots of filter saturation modes, Spire has none. Virus chas "character" section (also some kind of saturation applied post filter), Spire has warm/soft knobs, xcomp and boost which have similar functions but affect the sound in a completely differenr way. So as you are going from basic sounds to complete patches you are going to use in tracks, you end up with them sounding very different.

chk071 · Post by **chk071** » Wed Jul 20, 2016 11:31 am

Sure, fair enough. Oscillators, unison, or filters are only some parts of the equation. I can already hear from audio demos of the Virus that the envelopes are different. Anyway, i think the oscillators, and the Infecto filter at least are very closed. And i'd be damned if the oscillators actually weren't modelled after the Virus.

recursive one · Post by **recursive one** » Wed Jul 20, 2016 11:37 am

chk071 wrote: And i'd be damned if the oscillators actually weren't modelled after the Virus.

Only the saw wave perhaps. Not sure about others, there are lots of things you can do to oscillators both in Spire and Virus which aren't simliar in design or sound at all. The 9x unison over saw wave may sound like Virus hypersaw, but not 100% (btw, unlike Spire, Virus doesn't have per-oscilaltor unison, only the global unison and dedicated hypersaw oscillator).

tasty tatsyn · Post by **tasty tatsyn** » Wed Jul 20, 2016 10:30 pm

recursive one wrote:All in all, there is currently no single VST synth which may fully replace Virus, but a combination of them with a decent set of effects can do all things Virus and beyond that if you aren't after this very specific Virus character

******************************************

These comparisons are not really relevant. Envelope behaviour is different, Virus has lots of filter saturation modes, Spire has none. Virus chas "character" section (also some kind of saturation applied post filter), Spire has warm/soft knobs, xcomp and boost which have similar functions but affect the sound in a completely differenr way. So as you are going from basic sounds to complete patches you are going to use in tracks, you end up with them sounding very different.

and to me this wraps it up i tought multiple times about getting a virus but never got it because i always postponed starting a psytrance project

nice tracks recursiveone and may i add the sound qualityu in the virus one is impecable but......might i add a little video to this discussion and the (main)reason i never got an access virus, besides bigger investment

this is why... although it's hard to match the virus in some psy sounds in others some vst's sound better to me... more... i can achieve sounds with multiple vst's it's impossible even getting close with virus... the other way around is not so obvious... i mean you might not get there but can get preety close to it

in the end i always pass on virus because i feel i have more variety with multiple vst's but if it's the virus SOUND/character you're after... there's no obvious shortcut...

chk071 · Post by **chk071** » Wed Jul 20, 2016 11:38 pm

Tbh, the video rather shows what a difference good or bad sound designing can make. I won't state which one is the case in the video now.

"Mh.. yeah... let's turn that ring modulator knob then, and see what it does... or sync the oscillators to see if it's closer... mmh... the Virus sounds "darker"... let's tune up the one oscillator one octave then, to see if we get close... naaah, that's not it..." *dials back the one octave detune*. Sylenth1 sounds very nice there though, no doubt. But the guy doesn't really know what he's doing. I also watched his "Hive kills Sylenth1" video once, and wasn't impressed either. I think that's also the problem with these kind of comparisons. People just don't know how to get things sounding close. Or they do sounds they don't know anything about. I've listened to supersaw comparisons for example, and the synths weren't even detuned consistently. Or the envelopes weren't set up so that it sounds close. He even had a hard time to set up the amp envelopes so that they match. Seriously, what is a comparison worth, if you can't do all that.

If it was for that video, i'd get Sylenth1 over the Virus too every day btw. But it's just badly made. I'm sure a more skilled, and more caring sound designer could do much better.

stillshaded · Post by **stillshaded** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 12:08 am

lol this thread is so dumb.

Going on and on and on about the virus's hypersaw is like getting an elektron rytm and going on and on and on about whether you can get the kick drum to sound exactly like an 808.. as if that proves anything.

I had a TI for 6 years and rarely used the hypersaw. It was good and all, but it's a small part of the synth.

The most interesting parts are the special wavetable modes. Until recently, I had never encountered a softsynth that got similar sounds. But I tried the demo of Icaraus the other day, and I was surprised to hear that you could do some similar sounding stuff.

People might suggest serum, but it doesn't come close IMO. You have to have those cracked out ways of mangling the wavetable. Serum has some cool ones but it's not the same. I don't really know what it is exactly, but I know how it sounds.

tasty tatsyn · Post by **tasty tatsyn** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 12:12 am

i saw the same as you but have a different interpretation...

i think at some point he's getting fustrated with sylenth sounding better on this sound and starts to explore the virus to see if he could do something that would make virus sound better then sylenth on this particular patch....

the sound is preety simple to build/replicate... they both just sound diferent

**EDIT
we can start a new INTERNET FIGHT! and ask recursiveone to try to pull off that pluck sound XD he does have a virus too

**

chk071 · Post by **chk071** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 12:17 am

tasty tatsyn wrote:i saw the same as you but have a different interpretation...

i think at some point he's getting fustrated with sylenth sounding better on this sound and starts to explore the virus to see if he could do something that would make virus sound better then sylenth on this particular patch....

the sound is preety simple to build/replicate... they both just sound diferent

Yeah, like all the other synths. It's not easy, definitely. I had good results making Spire sound like Sylenth1 though. It's really 98% there IMO, at least for some "typical" sounds. As i said, not sure about the stuff in the video though. Not impressed really. If you need 5 minutes to even get the amp envelope right, there's surely something wrong.

tasty tatsyn wrote: **EDIT
we can start a new INTERNET FIGHT! and ask recursiveone to try to pull off that pluck sound XD he does have a virus too

**

Hehehe, why not.

NerdMcBoon · Post by **NerdMcBoon** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 12:33 am

Like many other synths, the Virus TI has it's own unique sound and capabilities. What I like most about the Virus are the wavetable oscillators, which are extremely crispy, even on lery low octaves, and the internal effects, which are really, really good. It also has a very logical and super quick to use structure.

It does what it does really well (and that's not just trancy superhypermegasaws).

However, other synths do other things really well. The Virus TI could never do the things Zebra or Bazille can do. If I'd have to choose between a Virus TI and Zebra, I'd choose Zebra every time, even if the Virus does a few things better than Zebra.

Any VST like Virus TI !?