Good thread and one that keeps coming up. I went back to softsynths last night to compare and found them so much easier to fit into my mix. So many Virus patches sound either too loud, or too quiet to sit properly.
Softsynths sound almost like they have a compressed output which standardises the level across patches. Virus patches on the other hand are all over the shop, which as you say, makes auditioning and finding the right sound a nightmare. To get some patches to cut through means you have to crank the volume up, but then it instantly seems too loud. Weird.
I think that the Virus inherently operates with a much greater dynamic range. My only advice is put HEAVY (and from my experiments so far, I mean heavy) compression on the 3 virus mixer channels, in your DAW template file.
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