I've tried all popular VSTis and the synths in Reason. I must admit that I am a huge fan of Thor, Zebra2 and Massive. The GMedia synths are also awesome.
I had always wanted to understand why everyone loved the Virus so much, so I bought a TI earlier this year.
I can safely say that the TI is one of the most unique sounding synths out there, it really does not sound like any VSTi I have used (and don't let anyone tell you otherwise!). I actually find that it compliments the aforementioned synths really really well (I use it alongside Zebra2 mainly, which has a way less aggressive tone in general).
These are the main things that set it apart for me:
- The oscillator sound (classic oscillators) have a slight edge to them. Some people have called it aliasing, but it's not really aliasing per se. This little bit of dirt actually makes a pretty big difference to the overall tone.
- The filters, still the best I've ever heard. I also love the analog model.
- The FM algorithm is indeed awesome, especially when used with Hard Sync, extremely aggressive and interesting sounds may be produced using this method.
- The distortion algorithms are some of the most awesome I've heard, and when you add the new distortions in v3, I must admit that these are by far my favorite distortion algorithms in any instrument. The only thing that actually rivas this is the Scream4 distortion unit in Reason, but that is quite different in tone.
- The punch knob, a small bit of detail that really makes a world of difference to certain sounds.
I think the dark tone of the Virus is a result of the following:
- The dirty sounding oscillators, if you compare the classic oscillators to most softsynths, you will see that they don't have the sharp treble that most other synhs have. This sharp treble actually is one of the things that makes softsynths sound more sterile to my ears.
- The analog boost section, since this does boost the low frequencies, the highs end up feeling duller. I usually have Analog Boost off in my personal init sound and only turn it on when I need that extra bass.
Overall, it is a brilliant one-of-a-kind instrument, and one which I could not easily replace with anything else.
Kudos to Access!
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