Quote:
Originally Posted by Haplo
Personally I don't think I've heard a HW or SW-synth that I like as much as the virus, of course this is my personal opinion.
I use both HW and SW but often it's to complement the virus rather than the other way around.
Some VSTs are also very CPU heavy and that kind of breaks the whole idea.
E.g. I remember when I tested the Arturia CS80v, complex HW for sure to emulate but with an i7 965 CPU, using a single patch, it could grab 30-40% of the CPU.
Sure it would be cheaper to buy a computer just for that VST rather than bying a real CS80 but somehow I don't think that was the idea  |
Yes, some VSTs (particularly those that have features that try to truly emulate analog) can get CPU heavy. I don't have a lot of experience with Arturia's synths but I've seen others where a thick polyphonic patch can eat a lot of CPU, but keep in mind (1) the same thing is happening on the Virus' DSP for a sound of equal warmth, and (2) the usual solution for handling the polyphony problem on a hw synth is to bounce down, which you can also do with the VST, and (3) most of the good VSTs offer a way to dial down things like aliasing quality and other CPU hogs so that you can make that 30% CPU gobbling sound go down to 5% or so, without hearing a difference in the mix (its harder to do this on most software synths).
But yes, I do understand sometimes we want it all and all at the same time. Sometimes I would just like to have half-dozen hardware synths, but getting it all working simultaneously especially with DAW integration is not always easy.
As far as having a dedicated computer for each VST, think about what if the computer were attached to a dedicated keyboard controller that is optimized for each VST... Well its true then you just have a Virus, but that is the direction of the "hardware VST" solutions like Aturia Origin and OpenLabs Neko. The only problem there is that full integration comes at an enormous cost. Hardware recalls are a lot more expensive than software patching, and by the time they bundle everything into one big hardware package, the markup is huge and bang for the buck goes out the window.