Playing Live with Virus

[boreg]

Hi rredmusik, and welcome to the forum!

I play Virus TI desktop in a band, using the Novation Remote SL 61 as the controller.
(as you can clearly see on this photo from our yesterday's gig)

Originally Posted by rredmusik

Currently, I use one multi mode bank for each song with the name of the song as the bank name. Within each multi bank I lay out my patches in the 1-16 part slots.

Is there a better way of doing this?

I'm doing the same, think it's the best way.
What do you use for the controller?
My controller has 5 octaves, so I frequently make keyboard splits (several patches on the same MIDI channel, each with its' own keyboard range). 2 or 3 way splits are most common, sometimes up to 4 - in many cases, a single patches' part fits within an octave or two. And if it's an effect, just one key may be enough.

Another fun thing with multis is layering. In one song, I have a monster-arpeggiator setup, triggering 6 arps with a single key. Wicked!

Originally Posted by rredmusik

I find it hard to re-arrange banks when our set list changes.

I never do that. IMHO it's better to keep the multis where they are - after a while, you'll naturally memorize the location of each song. And to be on the safe side on a gig, just write down the multi number on your copy of the set list.

As we're playing a mixture of our old and new songs, it's gotten problematic to quickly switch from Multi #68 to #21 mid-set - so I programmed the pads on the Novation to send the MIDI Program Change messages for switching Multis. SysEx would have been perfect, but doesn't seem to be possible...

Originally Posted by rredmusik

Also, there isn't an easy way to edit patch locations and parameters within Virus Control in the multi section.

True. I prefer the hardware interface anyway, only using the VC for arps (which cannot be edited from the Virus). And my pet peeve about editing Multis on the Virus - why can't I use the keyboard for setting keyboard range? If they made SHIFT+key set the low/high key, it would make life so much easier! (SHIFT to prevent accidental change).

Anyway, I think Virus is a great performance instrument. With all the Total Integration stuff, it seems underrated as a powerful piece of standalone hardware
Nice to see someone else using it live.