I really don't understand the whole "limited edition coloring" phenomenon. Seems like a low-rent marketing scam/gimmick to generate excitement
("look we changed something! And its in limited quantity") hoping to get a few suckers to line up and say "my current one is white so I want black now", or of course vice versa, just as a gesture from the marketing dept to try to manipulate the human psyche.

Who cares? Its not like anyone will be able to get parts for their "limited edition snow" in 20-30 years or so to keep it going like new, which is what makes classic cars or limited edition antiques exciting.

An utter waste of time.

I have to agree wholeheartedly! it's blatant consumerism and marketing at it's most ugly underbelly image. On THAT note, I feel MOOG has fallen prey to this SAME sheepish marketing scheme, even with some of the new names of color schema of them with similar adjectives that mimic "Snow" or "Toxic"...absolutely nothing has changed as far as innovations, just the color. I do not mean to be slamming Moog because they DO analog very well, albeit expensively and at least I find even their "Slim Phatty" blatant marketing to the hip hop scene's incessant booming bass....but it INDEED is "SLIM" in that it's slim on features, compared to a Voyager, et al. To me it's like placing a wrapper on a pound of LARD that states "DIET LARD" or in my example, "SLIM (on features but it's)PHAT"...we synthheads have to bear a tiny bit of why even the "big three" (and others) will continue to repackage the same turd (did I say turd?) for years and years with no added innovation, whereas Access has always continued to strive to make instruments better and surprisingly better even through free updates. My rant shouts out to companies such as korg, whom has repackaged and renamed the very same triton engine for how many decades now? Then there's yamaha doing same with tyros, when yamaha actually had an innovative light-sequencer, Tenori=On, which they dropped like a rent-a-date! Dare I mention roland continuing to repackage the jupiter? What about re-exploring Additive Synthesis or something to remain "relevant" in an age where technology of software synths could easily push in the 6 feet of dirt on their graves unless they remain innovative as Access, Waldorf, and Radikal Technologies has and still do?
I have absolutely no GAS for Arturia's MiniBrute, BUT, I think they see the future and my prediction is the software synth companies will more and more come out with hardware as Arturia is and FYI--they have almost a YEAR or backorders because they will not compromise and keep manufacturing in France. it's what they put out NEXT that will keep me on the edge waiting.
Rant over but I think I make some relevant points ABOUT remaining relevant!! Happy Thanksgiving to those that celebrate it on here, wherever you are! We have to be thankful for companies such as Access that even their older incarnations of Virus still blow everyone else out of the water!!!

At least it's not called "VIRAL YELLOW SNOW"!!!! LOL!

LOL!... At least a yellow snow edition would show some creativity on their part instead of this black/white toggle.

Honestly the color changes would all make sense to me if it were a case of marketing people supplementing the technology innovation instead of supplanting it... as an example I alluded to before, if an automaker decides to make a limited edition of a car, it can be awesome if the car is historically important enough to be recognized several decades later. I don't think we will be able to buy replacement parts to keep our Ti Snows going in the year 2033, nor will we probably even care.

Admittedly without having actual insight into the company, as an engineer myself, I feel like Access is undergoing one of those moments I've seen in a few companies where the resource allocation has shifted from technical innovation to marketing. When that happens, the dead-end has been marked on the map and it is only a matter of time before the company goes belly up and blames things like the economy, current politicians, changing times and increasingly finicky consumers. The real problem, in my experience, is that some bean-counter in the back with the books decides hey marketing people cost $X per hour, while engineering people cost $X*2 per hour, and make a case to some CEO making $X^X per hour that the company can save money and increase sales by cutting engineering (thus innovation) and increasing advertising, thus kissing the arse of the CEO and making him feel more entitled to his already inequitable salary. The pattern continues ad infinitum.

Well, on an "up-note" and always being a person to be able to see the glass half-full rather, at LEAST Access IS releasing something! This also means that unbeknownst to anyone else, that Access may INDEED announce something new and cool at NAMM! I say this emphasising that a big part of being competitive is not showing your competetors what you may have up your sleeve because otherwise, company "B" may rather than wait until a product is actually complete, releasing it barely with it's "baby clothes" on such as case with Elektron's Analog Four. The O.S. is not even half-complete, no user manual because they are not even SURE if they can impliment projected specs! THAT's unacceptable marketing laced with greed and too much more psychologically to even go into here. I used that example because it truely shocked me because what they are BANKING ON is those diehards like *some* Apple "loyalists" that will stand in lines outside a store for days for the next iPhone when Apple had JUST released their last iPhone or iPad not even 6 months prior! It's a bit like the "sheep/sheeple" mentality. I swear Apple could put their brand on a toilet seat and charge $600. and those same "loyalists" would be in same lines! None of these companies would even attempt such things if people did not allow themself to be manipulated, let alone think FOR THEMSELVES!!
Remaining optimistic here that Access is currently working on something new and big. Would even be openly filled with glee if they released a hardware advanced polyphonic sequencer with innovative sampling that could be ALSO side-chained in a Ti set-up with ability to map those samples and morph across key-range:-) Happy Thanksgiving!

My prediction for access at NAMM this year...old snow now gone slushy, black snow, get it ; ) & hopefully a full release of OS5...it's only been 11 months since they announced it FFS. Thats it.
Access loyalist's will defend them by saying that they are giving there synths extra features at no cost to them but guess what, access don't give a shit about existing owners (my experience anyway) they already have your money. The extra features are to try & sell the same TI they have been doing for 7 years because they no longer have the resources to develop a new synth. The whole 'darkstar' thing is like putting lip stick on a pig, it might look prettier but it's still a pig :lol:

I would have to disagree with Access not "having the resources...", as Access, as I recently learned, is a subsidiary of a much LARGER industrial electronics and metals company, which I think is quite cool! I am a free-agent in this life and not a loyalist to none other than God Himself and I firmly believe creativity is alive and well!
You can at LEAST acknowledge that Germany, as well as most of the Industrialized world except maybe China, has undergone a financial meltdown as of 2007 to present!
My own family roots are from Industrialists from the mid 1800's and remember when their factory fell on some hard times due to the 1970's USA Environmental Protection Laws implimented where if you were a huge company, you could pay the half million usd dollar fine and keep polluting to your heart's delight--my family had to re-engineer their whole operation and proud to say release only steam rather pollutants to this day. However, ANY financial meltdown or economic downturn, e.g. recession, is going to take patience even on we waiting "consumers" because as you well-know there's a revolutionary turn taking place in the synth market, where softsynths are more than likely making hardware makers kinda re-evaluate their approach based upon this. This ALSO depends on how Access may have patent-protected their Total Integration. Where software synths have a nebulous future as well in that just how LONG will company A continue to make O.S. and Driver/Code Updates to not ONLY stay up with Apple or Intel O.S. and their updates, but what about all the compatability updates for plethora of audio interfaces and DAW's for these all relatively small softsynth companies? Sorry so long but doing some "critical thinking" trying to see the whole picture from all angles, inside and out!
Access really did an innovative thing with the whole Ti concept and have to give them kudos for actually sticking with it in the long evolution of getting VC to work relatively stable! Right?
Perhaps Access has been doing R&D all the while to ensure the next step in this Ti journey has less bumpy roads for them and their customers?! Innovation and ingenuity as well as progress does not always happen in our self-created concept of "time'. Seven years...yet you have THE SYNTH of THE FUTURE!! Also, like it or not, real analog is making a comeback full-circle! I BET there's ALOT of the major synth maker's exec's having incredible loose bowels in viewing how successful Arturia is witheir hardware synth Minibrute. The past is the future and the future is the past--always has and always will be as it's the human way! Rant over and back to the mother ship!

Berni, did the Ti give you an incredible electrical shock at some point that it has left an electrical bad taste in your mouth to this day yet? LOL!

Meanwhile great products continue to emerge from other vendors in the economy... an example being Maschine, also from battered Germany :)

Lol..I have had a virus since the A model & probably know way more about access than you do. They do not manufacture the virus & they do not write the software for it....Now lets see if my predictions come true. If not I will show my arse in Macy's/Burtons window. Until then...give it up eh. If they have the resources they are not using them very well.