Quote:
Originally Posted by TweakHead
That's a very good answer. Hats off! 
This last part is funny! And that's because it's totally true. I mean, it's not a natural thing to leave a product that has problems to be solved in the shelf. Most specially if this product has such a high price as it does, making people expect better support for it.
And at least for some people, they're doing things wrong. I think the new specs on the Virus ti are very appealing. We've debated this over and over here, all right. But the fact is, seems like most of us are just waiting for them to fix this issues and even a new product that not only solves the problems but makes the Virus a more competitive product in a market growing rich in digital instruments that deliver good sound at reasonable prices. This is the issue, I think.
I thought the UltraNova only had a software editor that worked in stand-alone mode. Didn't know you could select it just like any other plug-in like you do with the Virus and that it could stream the audio through USB. If they do that and it works fine, even though it's a monophonic synthesizer, it puts Access to shame. I mean, it's called the TI = total integration. Not like it's only a detail for them.
Always thought that the TI thing was a big challenge and that people were a bit unfair. But if there's other products doing exactly that and with no issues at all, it's a different story. What I think still holds it for them is that the synthesizer's sound is plain gorgeous. But the specs alone don't really cut it for me, owning the C and all, to spend another big buck for the next Virus - unless 100% sure all bugs are fixed. Still, I'd rather wait to see the new offspring - whenever it comes - because a company can't be relying on the same product for so long without putting another thing on the market.
It's kind of crazy this whole story. I mean, for me it's still the best Virtual Analogue out there when it comes to sound and synthesizer specs. The synthesizer's engine itself is really good and bug free. It's a real charm to program and a very deep machine, otherwise there wouldn't be such a thing like this forum. Why screw up on this integration thing? Beats the hell out of me, and your answer just made things more clear. You and Berni were right all along about this. I'm an atheist now  |
Yeah the UltraNova editor can only run as VST/AU inside a DAW, you cannot launch it separately. Sometimes you hear people say "no standalone mode" and that gets misunderstood as thinking that the synth is not a standalone instrument and requires a computer... its not, its actually designed for live play in the true synth sense, you don't have to ever use the USB cord if you just want to gig with it, same as Virus. But some people don't like the idea of loading up a DAW to edit sounds, they want it to work like Maschine where you can just launch the Maschine editor. To me its not a problem, I've always got a DAW loaded anyway.
Even without the UltraNova/MiniNova as examples, the fact that there are many audio interfaces out there that stream audio from regular audio inputs to the computer via USB goes to show that USB is perfectly capable. Now granted the more instruments you have, the sheer amount of sound data being converted from analog to digital might saturate the bandwidth capability of USB (this is why higher-end audio interfaces tend to use Firewire or in some cases Thunderbolt), but I believe USB should be able to handle audio streams of the typical home musician. The higher bandwidth need is more for multiple instruments recording at one time.
That makes me wonder though... I think the TI2 only offers 3 stereo audio outs to the DAW if I recall correctly? How many multi-timbral parts could you have? It seems like only 3, at least as separate audio streams.
That could be one reason people run into issues with the Virus and not the UltraNova / MiniNova, because the UN is mono-timbral, thus it never needs to send more than 1/3 the max bandwidth stream of the Virus through USB. A lot of people have pointed out that there's nothing really stopping Novation from making the UltraNova multi-timbral, since its purely a software feature with a virtual analog synth like UN or Virus. But maybe they decided to err on the side of reliability rather than feature set? Who knows, maybe they tried to make it multi-timbral and realized the wonky nature of USB is going to put them in a dilemma like Access currently is, so they just made it mono-timbral and kept the cost low.
I wonder if the Ti2 was used with only one audio out would so many people still have so many problems with it? Maybe those that don't are using only one part at a time? I don't know, I seem to remember having problems even with only one audio out with the one I briefly owned. Besides, it would be a damn expensive mono-timbral synth up against the Ultranova as competition.