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-- Second hand Virus C or a new dual core pc? which would you choose?

Second hand Virus C or a new dual core pc? which would you choose?

Right, ok, so I posted a queery about Dual core pc's the other day and I askewd people whether they valued software over hardware last week, but I'm in a bit of a pickle trying to make my mind up over what to spend my hard erned money on.

At the moment, I have a pc with 2.4GHz processor, 1 gig ram. I use Sonar 5, Reason 3 and a few VSTi's. I also have a Novation KS rack.

Do you think I'd be better spending my money on a second hand Virus C or using the same money to buy a pc with dual core Pentium d 2.66GHz processors x 2. It also has 160 Gig Hard drive and some audio applications bundled. The computer would be about �180 cheaper and I could use the extra money to buy Absynth 3 and FM7 which are half price at the moment.

Both would be about the same price, give or take a few pounds.

New computer, you can come as close as **** to recreating the Virus C sounds with samples and a good sampler, plus you already have a good synth.

i'd say you go for the synth... pc prices drop very fast... i'm sure you'll be able to get that pc with a much cheaper price in the next few months. synths on the other hand are not... their price don't drop that much... and it's a hardware for life :P besides, you could still use the pc you using right now temporarily until u save that money to get another new pc, to play with your virussSsssss

The virus of course

As Leng said, you can get a pc like that much cheaper very soon

virus. no vst on the best pc ever will come close for a good few years yet

Dude get the synth. Hardware is so stupidly fun. I used to have a Virus C, sold it to buy my decks. One of my biggest mistakes ever.

Virus C.

As others have said, PC's are cheap.

I guess if you are really struggling with your computer falling over and you really need a new DAW to get your shit done, then that would take precedence. But looking at your specs, there should be no reason why that is happening.

virus 4 sure!!!

yeah , only get the new pc if ur current one is being a bitch....
if not , well u can do almost al ur synths in the virus so u dont load ur cpu with vst instruments....

second thought dual core pc sounds neat.... mmmm

hard choice!

Hey guys. Quick question.

If you have an external keyboard like the Virus, how do you use that with your DAW? All I have is VST/DXi virtual instruments and an external MIDI keyboard controller.

I'm assuming you get your DAW to control your Virus during playback and have the sound output of the Virus connected to the input of your soundcard to be recorded as pure audio into your DAW? For input, you would just use the Virus itself.

Am I correct? I don't have any experience doing this thus my doubt.

quote:

Originally posted by David Adams Hey guys. Quick question. If you have an external keyboard like the Virus, how do you use that with your DAW? All I have is VST/DXi virtual instruments and an external MIDI keyboard controller. I'm assuming you get your DAW to control your Virus during playback and have the sound output of the Virus connected to the input of your soundcard to be recorded as pure audio into your DAW? For input, you would just use the Virus itself. Am I correct? I don't have any experience doing this thus my doubt.

In cubase sx3 you can add a synth when you use the external instruments, pressing F4. That way you can use it inside the DAW environment which is really one of the greatest new features of cubase. Another possibility would be to route the output to a mixer and also connect the pc outputs to that mixer, that's the (oldskool) way I work.

Ontopic: I'd go for the virus TI, it's awesome. Stretch your budget a little, it's completely worth the money.

the virus of course!!! A dual core CPU is ubercheap at this point anyway *strokes his AM2 X2 4600+*

Its probably just me but if I were you I would get a second hard Virus B for 350 quid, spend 700 quid on a silent dual core PC and then stick the rest into acoustic treatment for your room.

It just doesnt make sense to me to spend 1500 quid on a Virus TI when you get most of the Virus sound with a second hand B Model...

There are so many things you could buy with 1500 quid. Damn. You could get an awesome pair of monitors like ADAM P11as *AND* a dual core PC.

You could buy every single effect by voxengo, absynth 3.0, FM7, impOSCar, a digital audio workstation and a Virus B for that money and still have loads left over.

quote:

Originally posted by Derivative Its probably just me but if I were you I would get a second hard Virus B for 350 quid, spend 700 quid on a silent dual core PC and then stick the rest into acoustic treatment for your room. It just doesnt make sense to me to spend 1500 quid on a Virus TI when you get most of the Virus sound with a second hand B Model... There are so many things you could buy with 1500 quid. Damn. You could get an awesome pair of monitors like ADAM P11as *AND* a dual core PC. You could buy every single effect by voxengo, absynth 3.0, FM7, impOSCar, a digital audio workstation and a Virus B for that money and still have loads left over.

Hmm
24 vs 80 voices, global delay/reverb vs single delay/reverb, wavetables, hypersaw, Total integration (works flawless now btw), ... I don't think this is "most of the virus B".

This is going to turn into a hardware vs. software thread....

quote:

Originally posted by DeZmA Hmm 24 vs 80 voices, global delay/reverb vs single delay/reverb, wavetables, hypersaw, Total integration (works flawless now btw), ... I don't think this is "most of the virus B".

I would take a pc and later on go powercore with the multi virus powercore license. Which gives you like 4 virus B's in on package for about the price of a virus c

Hypersaw isn't rocket science, neither a real necessity. Total Integration doesn't exist, but automation does as it's a plugin. It runs smooth and doesn't require any pc processor power. No problems with delays/reverbs, you just create another instance. And you've got a lot of voices. So you miss a few wavetables, so what

People tend to overestimate a lot of stuff here, I'd do it the cheap way, I'd have both the pc and a virus, and personally think that would be a better way as well than spending it on a way too expensive TI.

In short: I sooo agree with Derivative.

Powercore with multiple virus licences isn't really that cheap tbh, and I know you can emulate a hypersaw using 3 saws and 3x unison but the point is you can have 2 hypersaws, so you have 18 osc's without significant polyphony drops. Imho I think it's totally worth the price, you do have a dedicated machine to program but I can see why some people prefer a powercore. It's all up to your personal workflow really but saying it's overpriced isn't right.

quote:

Originally posted by DeZmA Hmm 24 vs 80 voices, global delay/reverb vs single delay/reverb, wavetables, hypersaw, Total integration (works flawless now btw), ... I don't think this is "most of the virus B".

Oh please. The only thing that really matters are the convertors/balanced inputs/outputs and the Hypersaw/new wavetables.

The point is - is it worth the extra �1100? Hardly.

Virus B gets you the same saw, sine and square wave oscillators as the TI. The same sub oscillator. The same LFOs. The same Filters. The same envelopes. The same mod matrix (but half the assign slots). The same effects. The same arpeggiator. The same Vocoder. It also gets you 2 more outputs but lets forget to mention that

You learn to work within limits. You dont need 80 voices or global reverb/delay. They are nice to have sure. But not �1100 nice. I work just fine within 24 voices. Record and layer the results for more voices.

90% of the sound of the Virus TI is the sound of the Virus B because it is exactly the same engine only with some bells and whistles on top (noteably the hypersaw oscillator, new wavetables and the moog filter)

Unless you use the hypersaw and the new wavetables in most patches, you will be designing essentially the same sounds as I am on my Virus B.

The only difference worth paying that much money for are the balanced input/outs and the convertors which are better on the Virus TI. But even then I have so many uses for �1100 I get the feeling I would probably spend it on something else. Like an Oberheim Xpander.

As for the TI feature - I really fail to see the point if you work with hardware and plan to add more of it. Especially analogue. Because then you have to go outboard so whats the point? Even still its easy as hell. I control my Virus B sort of like a Fruity DXi plugin - just map all the CC values to your midi controller. Real time monitoring means you can tweak sounds on the fly. When you get something you like save the patch. Record it. Move on to the next sound. Doesnt fit as you build more elements into the track? Load up the old patch and fiddle. Its easy. I dont get why people are going ape over total integration. You can get half way there by setting up midi control properly. And the money you save can be spent on other toys...

I have the TI and first, no, Total Intergration is not working flawlessly now. The latest OS update made it much worse for alot of people. For some the vst won't even load anymore. The vst plugin takes up 30-40% CPU when open. That's correct. It takes up to FOURTY PERCENT of your cpu just do have it display now. Obviously the cause of this is the useless "Plasma UV Meters" they decided to add. They spend time adding stupid shit like this that makes the plugin take up more than twice the CPU it did instead of putting out updates to fix everyones problems. And this thing has ALOT of problems. Bottom line, don't get the TI for Total Integration, if you ever getting it working by the time you get it working it'll have raped all the inspiration right out of you. Make sure you have a nice soundcard that you can use regular midi and analoge outs.

quote:

90% of the sound of the Virus TI is the sound of the Virus B because it is exactly the same engine only with some bells and whistles on top (noteably the hypersaw oscillator, new wavetables and the moog filter)

Gotta agree, while the HyperSaw is cool and definatly makes it alot easier to make patches quickly that you would have to make by layering on a C, the WaveTables aren't that great. I pretty much only use patches I create and I haven't made a patch with the wavetables yet, theres 64 of them, so it's hard to find a good one I guess.. anyone know of any good ones?

Its not really about good ones :\ They are basically all different timbres. What you use depends on what kind of timbre you want. Access refuse to disclose what the wavetables are or what source they came from - possibly for copyright reasons. I dunno. If they based one of the wavetables off a Wurlitzer for instance, they would not be able to use the name or say they ripped it from a Wurlitzer. Access wont even tell you what the wavetables are if you send them a private email (which I did. No dice).

Before the Sunesha forums died I managed to bag a chart of all the wavetables, numbered from 1 through to 64 with a spectrum of each wavetable. So you might not know what they are but you will at least know what they look like. If you are persistant I guess you could check them off against spectrums of looping samples of various instruments and so forth. Its on my old PC so I'll post it here when I find it.

As for the Wavetables I have a rough idea of...

1 is a sine wave.
2 is a triangle wave.
14 is an organ.
42 is an e piano. I use this wavetable as the basis of all my choral type sounds weirdly enough.
60 sounds like a Clav.
53 is some kind of chime/musicbox/glockenspiel I think.
45 is another type of chime/musicbox with an added 7th (very 'chinesey')
29 I am fairly certain is a harpsicord.
10 is...an oboe?
19 might be an oboe too...?
30 is another organ.

etc etc.

If you want to build vaguely convincing real instruments like a Harpsicord you can do so by mixing in a bit of wavetable 29 against a detuned saw. Same deal with an organ except you would use wavetable 14 and probably mix in either another wavetable or a bit of square at low level tuned up a 5th. You really need to experiment.

Also if you pitch wavetables down really far you can make amazing drone ambience. Alot of the spaced out pads and atmospheric effects I build are mixed wavetable sounds pitched down between 24 and 48 semitones. Then transposed another octave down.

I think the Wavetables are one of the best bits about the Virus. It doesn't really sound very analogue (especially the filter and saturation and modelled distortion effects). Everyone should explore the digital darkside of their Virus every once in a while. Theres so much potential for sound design by mixing wavetables with analogue modelled waveforms. Or mixing wavetables with wavetables.

Some shit I built using wavetables:

[[ LINK REMOVED ]]
(wavetable 42, 31)
[[ LINK REMOVED ]]
(wavetable 42, 42, 31)
[[ LINK REMOVED ]]
(wavetable 42, 42, 41)
[[ LINK REMOVED ]]
(wavetable 14, 32, SLAVE)
[[ LINK REMOVED ]]
(wavetable 30, 64, 6)
[[ LINK REMOVED ]]
(wavetable 31, SIN, 31)
[[ LINK REMOVED ]]
(wavetable 44, SIN)


But yea. Lets say you have this kind of oriental string sound in your head. Try building a typical VA string sound using 3 oscillators set to 14, 32 and 45. Rectify it. If you mix all the oscillators in the right proportion you get a little bit of chime and a hint of 7th underneath the grit of the strings. Just keep it subtle.

Oh yeah - All the wave tables sound shit pitched up more than 12 semi tones. The only time I would do that is to accent the main oscillators.

So for instance on that choral pad sound I had 2 vocal formants with 10 semi tones difference and a 3rd wavetable (31) pitched up 19 semi tones but with the volume waaaay down.

Nice, I like those dark ambient sounds. I'm really not into realistic sounds, which is why I don't like the wavetables I guess.

Check out www.infekted.org and tell me if you can find that chart again!

The thing about those 'realistic' type wavetables (i.e. wavetables modelled on real or electomechanical instruments) is that you can turn them into something completely alien sounding with the LFOs and mod matrix. If you can build a half realistic sounding flute on the Virus (pretty easy with 0 PWM squares and a touch of FM), all you have to do is tweak a few buttons and you can turn it into literally anything.

Thats the beauty of wavetables. If they morphed in between each other it would make modulating pulsewidth of a sine wave oscillator very interesting. Shame about that

Also, I have gotten about 5 invitations from infekted.org but they all looked like phishing attempts so I never signed up. Waaah.

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