Motorola DSP563xx Emulator (BETA) (Access Virus, Nord Lead, Waldorf MW...)

[jamcat]

Ghostwave, I thought the emulator itself is totally legal and requires no permission from anyone. It seems like you’re correct about the first part, that it just started out as an experiment to see if they could do it.

But now it looks like focus has shifted to how they can best monetize it, whether it’s getting picked up by Access or squeezing donations out of it. And that’s really what the rest of the weirdness has been about: Not a fear of getting shut down so much as a fear of getting shut out.

[Freaqpeak]

OK, but why is everyone involved with this so cagey about it? And why is it supposedly free, but you have to join some secret Discord channel to get it, and "donate" money to get the latest version? It all seems to operate like a Russian server.

I mean, come on. Nothing about this is normal.

What the hell do you think Discord is?

Using Community based platforms during development means closer relations to users, better and more bug reporting etc etc. Better and faster interaction between both users<->users and users<->devs.

Ever heard of Teams? Slack? Discord is the secret shady ip-logging russian and north korean version of those...servers..

[Gam456]

Ever heard of Teams? Slack? Discord is the secret shady ip-logging russian and north korean version of those...servers..

No way

[jamcat]

What the hell do you think Discord is?

The reinvention of IRC (which was the reinvention of BBS.)

[chk071]

OK, but why is everyone involved with this so cagey about it? And why is it supposedly free, but you have to join some secret Discord channel to get it, and "donate" money to get the latest version? It all seems to operate like a Russian server.

I mean, come on. Nothing about this is normal.

What the hell do you think Discord is?

Using Community based platforms during development means closer relations to users, better and more bug reporting etc etc. Better and faster interaction between both users<->users and users<->devs.

Unfortunately, there only had been the initial beta of the Virus TI emulation. It has quite a few bugs, which weren't fixed until now.

It's like their microQ emulation. There were a few minor updates in the beginning, and, after that, more or less radio silence. Last version is almost a year old. It also has a few long standing bugs.

I really like what they do, but, they should rather concentrate on polishing than on new releases.

[D-Fusion]

OK, but why is everyone involved with this so cagey about it? And why is it supposedly free, but you have to join some secret Discord channel to get it, and "donate" money to get the latest version? It all seems to operate like a Russian server.

I mean, come on. Nothing about this is normal.

It is shady because it is Piracy
When you donate to a project like this you donate to a pirate group.

It would be a different story if the companies that made those Synth where Ok with this Project but they are not.

The Thread on Gearspace got shut down in 2022 for Review and has not been opened again for a Reason.

[Ghostwave]

But now it looks like focus has shifted to how they can best monetize it, whether it’s getting picked up by Access or squeezing donations out of it. And that’s really what the rest of the weirdness has been about: Not a fear of getting shut down so much as a fear of getting shut out.

This is definitely not the tone I get from the discussions on Discord. Some of the stuff they are working on will benefit all emulators, not just the Virus TI one. They're ambitious and ambition takes time.

[Gam456]

OK, but why is everyone involved with this so cagey about it? And why is it supposedly free, but you have to join some secret Discord channel to get it, and "donate" money to get the latest version? It all seems to operate like a Russian server.

I mean, come on. Nothing about this is normal.

It is shady because it is Piracy
When you donate to a project like this you donate to a pirate group.

There is no piracy, they are not emulating the Virus, only the DSP

[D-Fusion]

OK, but why is everyone involved with this so cagey about it? And why is it supposedly free, but you have to join some secret Discord channel to get it, and "donate" money to get the latest version? It all seems to operate like a Russian server.

I mean, come on. Nothing about this is normal.

It is shady because it is Piracy
When you donate to a project like this you donate to a pirate group.

There is no piracy, they are not emulating the Virus, only the DSP

Wrong.

It is no different than downloading a Keygen for a product to unlock it except on this Project The Emulator is the Keygen and the Rom is the product you use to unlock the Virus inside the program.

Are Keygens ok since you have to find the vst for it by yourself and the Keygen doesn't Emulate the Product?

[aMUSEd]

Well I paid for my Virus Ti but since Access no longer support it this is probably my only option to run it on M1 Mac

[Gam456]

OK, but why is everyone involved with this so cagey about it? And why is it supposedly free, but you have to join some secret Discord channel to get it, and "donate" money to get the latest version? It all seems to operate like a Russian server.

I mean, come on. Nothing about this is normal.

It is shady because it is Piracy
When you donate to a project like this you donate to a pirate group.

There is no piracy, they are not emulating the Virus, only the DSP

Wrong.

It is no different than downloading a Keygen for a product to unlock it except on this Project The Emulator is the Keygen and the Rom is the product you use to unlock the Virus inside the program.

Are Keygens ok since you have to find the vst for it by yourself and the Keygen doesn't Emulate the Product?

No
Most of piracy altering the software, or emulate an anti piracy system, to be able to use a keygen. Many of them don't even require anything, just and installer. The software is already hack.


OsTirus. They only emulate the DSP hardware, they don't provide the OS or any links. They are not even altering the OS. There is no hack at all.

[mcbpete]

Yeah, it's the exactly same as things like MAME which has happily been going for over 25 years ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAME#:~:t ... %5Bedit%5D ) - None of the copyrighted compiled source files (i.e. roms) are included with the application - It's the onus of the end user to either legally (or illegally!) source/extract this content

[chk071]

Well I paid for my Virus Ti but since Access no longer support it this is probably my only option to run it on M1 Mac

If you can run it. The CPU requirements are brutal.

[chk071]

OK, but why is everyone involved with this so cagey about it? And why is it supposedly free, but you have to join some secret Discord channel to get it, and "donate" money to get the latest version? It all seems to operate like a Russian server.

I mean, come on. Nothing about this is normal.

It is shady because it is Piracy
When you donate to a project like this you donate to a pirate group.

There is no piracy, they are not emulating the Virus, only the DSP

Frankly, with all the reverse engineering they did, it's surely at least "grey zone".

Anyway, there were enough discussions about this. And, they also got in contact with Waldorf, and asked if they want to cooperate, which would have helped massively with performance, as far as I understood, but, Waldorf said no, because the emulator used to much CPU. Which is kind of understandable, considering people will always compare it to how soft synths run.

[gaggle of hermits]

under the dmca in the US at least, reverse engineering for the purpose of interoperability (ie getting something to run on a machine you have when the vendor doesn't support it) is fine.

see also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Comp ... ectix_Corp.

upshot: the court determined that the emulator was "transformative" enough to not be an issue to Sony. as this is a software emulation of hardware products, I'd expect the results to be more or less the same.

it's a bit fuzzier in the EU as there is a provision in the 1991 directive but not to share information derived from the reverse engineering. whether releasing an emulator constitutes "sharing information" is an exercise for the reader.

but, seriously, though Roland probably would if it were them, would access sue over products that are basically now discontinued and the founder is off making guitar amp simulators? that would be kinda ironic.