Waldorf Micro Q Emulator (Vavra)

[numerouno]

Sadly, most of these VA synths from "56300" era are blown away by contemporary, native VSTs. All that is good about them are big collections of professionally crafted presets.
After spending a day with Virus C emulator, I can say that the sound is sort of "muddy" compared to Spire, Diva etc. And not in a good way. Of course, there are many useful patches!
True analogs such as MiniMoog, Prophet 5, will always be competitive, because of their unique character. But everything that Viruses & Nords do, can be done better by native VST synths.
When I was young, I wanted Virus, JP, AN1X, but didn't have the money. When I got the money, I've decided to invest in a powerful i7 machine and completely skip hardware synths. Several times I questioned this decision, but today's experience proves I was right.
In practical use, even Sylenth1 would do the job and no one could tell the difference. And now we have the original Virus C in VST! No cables, no need to record synth audio output, no crowded rooms, complete portability on laptop + option to use advanced virtualization techniques to port your existing virtual studio to a newer, more powerful computer.
With proper maintenance, virtual studio may last you longer than hardware one. It didn't seem that way in the beginning, not at all, with crappy PC components, buggy OS, an so on.
So yeah, I'm gonna keep Virus C for all the nostalgic retro trance sounds... It's great fun. Really, the nostalgia keeps the Virus going. You recognize a patch from your favorite track from 20 years ago and you're like WOOOOOOOOW

Now if Roland could release a proper JP-8000 plug-in...

If you can find me Roland's design spec/docs for their custom programming of the Toshiba chips inside of the JP8000/JP8080 we will make a 100% accurate emulation happen

[frag]

If you can find me Roland's design spec/docs for their custom programming of the Toshiba chips inside of the JP8000/JP8080 we will make a 100% accurate emulation happen

JP8000/JP8080 in VST would be awesome... I don't actually need it, but who wouldn't want to have it in software version.
Virtualization of Virus made it "immortal"
If the chips in the hardware die, we will still have the plugin as long as there are computers and people running them.

[osiris]

I played with this for awhile last night. Like I said earlier the 50% size GUI fits the screen, but letters too small. 75% is WAY bigger, but I can move it around. Volume is at the bottom right corner on Osc tab and once you bump it up will stay for every patch. Also, once the primary bank is loaded, switching between presets doesn't even make it blink. Even if you select another bank. Unlike the Virus emu. I can get this really weird, but lovely jerking effect when the preset changes coming from the effects section on it. It's like the sound gets momentarily drunk. This thing really shows its age on the Pads. They're awful. What I did like were the Basses and Leads. Good stuff. It 's very interesting that this is based on the same chip, but sounds so drastically different than Osirus.

[rasmusklump]

Well, the chip doesn't make the sound.
The processor in your pc can play back Metallica songs as well as the Carpenters

[muki]

…the 50% size GUI fits the screen, but letters too small. 75% is WAY bigger, but …

yes
kind of same here:

in logic the plugin-frame, which features additional options,
eats up space so that 100% is a tick too big - bottom gets slightly cut (probably 50 pixels y-axis) whereas 75% has blurry letters
esp for example the OSC "Pulse/Saw..." grey letters become unreadable
very uneasy
at 50% it is essentially unreadable

imho the gui wastes quite a lot of screen realestate
the "part select" module is way too big - could be a lot smaller
the switch knobs (generally) are too big

actually imho in re part select module on the left there is no need for a graphical switch
the space used could be half or even less

in the upper part with smaller switchknobs and more condensed
one could free up those peksy 50-100 pixels that get lost and cut in a logic window (@ 100%)

what is that pumpkin for ?

the grey letters (OSC foot, wave select etc) are too blurry, too small (in comparison), too unreadable

...just a few thoughts...

[felis]

Is the 'Save' function in Varva working correctly for anyone?

Edit: might be user error, I've got to mess with it a bit more.

[osiris]

No. This is pretty much still beta so no save.

[fundorin]

Just made some custom graphics for Vavra. Available for free at the same place as the plugin itself.

[DJDJ]

Just made some custom graphics for Vavra. Available for free at the same place as the plugin itself.

This is cool! I downloaded it on the discord, but how do I install it?

[SLiC]

Very nice skin, much more appealing to me than the orange one!

[osiris]

That's beautiful. MS20 inspired?

[numerouno]

Changelog

1.2.36 (2023.04.28)

* Imp: Added Arp Pattern Length parameter
* Imp: Plugin does not crash without OS but displays an error message instead
* Imp: Plugin can now load the initial state from .syx files, too
* Imp: Initial state is loaded even if the Device ID of a dump does not match
* Imp: Output gain can be boosted by +6 db or +12 db via context menu, this setting is saved per instance in a DAW project

* Fix: Patch Browser displayed broken text if a .mid/.syx contained other dumps than Singles
* Fix: Patches couldn't be loaded from Patch Browser if the device ID of the patch did not match the device ID of the emulated device
* Fix: Loading Global dumps from initial state is skipped because it might break editor to device communication
* Fix: Switching from Multi back to Single mode was problematic / did not work
* Fix: Sorting in Patch Browser may lead to a crash

[frag]

Changelog

1.2.36 (2023.04.28)

* Imp: Added Arp Pattern Length parameter
* Imp: Plugin does not crash without OS but displays an error message instead
* Imp: Plugin can now load the initial state from .syx files, too
* Imp: Initial state is loaded even if the Device ID of a dump does not match
* Imp: Output gain can be boosted by +6 db or +12 db via context menu, this setting is saved per instance in a DAW project

* Fix: Patch Browser displayed broken text if a .mid/.syx contained other dumps than Singles
* Fix: Patches couldn't be loaded from Patch Browser if the device ID of the patch did not match the device ID of the emulated device
* Fix: Loading Global dumps from initial state is skipped because it might break editor to device communication
* Fix: Switching from Multi back to Single mode was problematic / did not work
* Fix: Sorting in Patch Browser may lead to a crash

Audio output appears to be more stable, now it's same as Virus C on my computer. There are no glitches. It feels like a real instrument. Fantastic! Output gain is very useful.
As far as I'm concerned, I would only make GUI smaller but with bigger fonts in browser. That's it.
Also, behavior on patch change is strange, particularly with patches using FX. Weird echoes happen, it's difficult to describe. Did hardware do that as well?

This is close to completed.

Is Nord Lead 3 next?

[frag]

Audio output appears to be more stable, now it's same as Virus C on my computer. There are no glitches.

Unfortunately, dropouts are back after shutdown & restart. They are not as frequent as before, though!
I can't figure out why this happens - same DSP emulator as Virus C, same audio driver, CPU, everything is same, yet Virus C is super clean, and Micro Q glitches.

Take more look at CPU, ASIO optimization, whatever it is, something "fishy" is going on

UPDATE
This could be related to process priority. When I set realtime priority for the host, Micro Q is again glitch free.
Perhaps Virus C, that is Osirus, runs with higher priority by default? But isn't this controlled by host, instead of plugin itself?

[SLiC]

I have not had any drop outs (windows), I wonder if it’s configuration dependent?