Why can’t Virus use “Samples” for oscillators?

[synthman1]

>Wrong end of the USB cable goes into the virus. The virus is the USB slave and not the USB master controller.

Wait a min. If you store the samples on flash ram drive externally and connect it to the Virus, in theory, how would accessibility be any different than if you connected the flash drive to a computer to play mp3's or samples from it? The USB interface is 2 way communication, right? Maybe Access can clarify.

>Ha ha , you would be happy with 16MB ram ? How much ram do you think is actually available inside the Ti ?

That’s why all 3 of my suggested options used other methods than internal storage include 2 option for using the audio inputs.

>It's a lovely idea but I really doubt the virus hardware is made for it. Maybe some lofi user wavetables which take up about 50k each or something but PCM samples is probably going too far.

Not to over simplify this, unless Access can clarify, the virus is really a computer with modifiable software, essentially "a softsynth in a hardware host". Theoretically Access could rewrite the entire OS to make the Virus be something completely different if they choose to only limited to the amount of physical storage size for the OS.

This is how Access was able to add the Phaser effect in the B and the Moog filter in the C, right? It's just software, 1's and 0s.

[IamEvil]

Originally Posted by synthman1

Wait a min. If you store the samples on flash ram drive externally and connect it to the Virus, in theory, how would accessibility be any different than if you connected the flash drive to a computer to play mp3's or samples from it? The USB interface is 2 way communication, right? Maybe Access can clarify.

No, one is a master and one is a slave. The master gives power to the slave. When you plug your USB stick into the PC, the pc powers it.
I'm not saying that the virus cannot power the USB stick. I'm saying that the virus has the "slave" plug and because USB is a global standard for data communication between devices, I can't see access breaking this standard or releasing a new hardware revision with an extra usb port on.

Simply put.. USB memory sticks have the wrong socket and making a cable so it would fit could damage all other usb devices if accidently used on them.

That’s why all 3 of my suggested options used other methods than internal storage include 2 option for using the audio inputs.

The virus would still need enough memory internally to buffer the audio because the USB memory sticks couldn't handle it.
Try copying lots of small files too and from a USB memory stick and watch it grind to a halt while you see a little bar update and copy files. This is what would happen if you hit a chord or played too fast.

Not to over simplify this, unless Access can clarify, the virus is really a computer with modifiable software, essentially "a softsynth in a hardware host". Theoretically Access could rewrite the entire OS to make the Virus be something completely different if they choose to only limited to the amount of physical storage size for the OS.

This is how Access was able to add the Phaser effect in the B and the Moog filter in the C, right? It's just software, 1's and 0s.

Yes. In theory the virus is a hardware dongle for a softsynth. There shouldn't be any reason at all why you can't turn it into a DX7, a Supernova 2 , a Vari-os etc.

It boils down to the available spare memory inside the virus. The atomizer makes me believe that there isn't much left because it doesn't let you use really low BPMs or full bar looping.

[psy604]

PC/MAC -> USB Cable -> Flash RAM -> USB Cable -> Virus TI

... so that the flash just sits on/in the cable.
but it's the question if this would cause sync/timing problems.

[IamEvil]

Originally Posted by psy604

PC/MAC -> USB Cable -> Flash RAM -> USB Cable -> Virus TI

... so that the flash just sits on/in the cable.
but it's the question if this would case sync/timing problems.

Flash ram with USB connection :-


Virus Ti USB connection :-


Difference in ports:-


They won't physically fit together

[synthman1]

What about using a female to female USB adaptor or USB cable that would accommodate the USB plug end on the Virus to Flash drive? Is there such a thing?

I'm not disputing this still couldn't be achieved, but if it’s just a matter cable configuration holding this functionality back, it seems this could easily be overcome.

>Try copying lots of small files too and from a USB memory stick and watch it grind to a halt...

Why would you have to copy the samples to the Virus? A flash drive or flash based MP3 player such as an ipod doesnt copy the files anywhere when you listen to music from it? The QS doesn't copy the samples from its flash card to the synth, yet the sample are still available to create patches with. The QS flash card, USB flash drive or a Flash drive Ipod is RAM that is both used for storage/RAM, right?

What about options 2 and 3 then?

[IamEvil]

ha ha , I didn't know those dual female end adapters existed

ok you win

i give up

[Timo]

Addressing RAM or ROM is much, much faster than pulling data off a removable storage device. Flash ROM essentially allows data to be burnt (in bulk) onto a ROM chip. Furthermore, the flashing process takes time.
It's not a "flash drive", as such. Completely different kettle of fish.

If you were to allow sample uploading via a USB pen-drive or the like, it would have to be burnt to memory (either volatile RAM [meaning that sample data hosted on the Virus will be lost when powered down, and would need to be re-uploaded again next time] or flash ROM) for the Virus to use it. Therefore if you really wanted to use a 1GB of sample data (lol), you'd likely also need 1GB of flash ROM or RAM in there too to copy it to, so it could access the data quickly when needed.

For large-scale sample manipulation, you might as well buy a ROMpler like the Triton/Oasys/M3/Motif/Fantom.

Single-cycle waveforms for wavetables take up a few tens or hundreds of kb.
PCM samples would take up far larger. I think 8mb of flash ROM is a good size for dirty creative sample manipulation, and 8mb wouldn't be too expensive (given that the Virus is now £1700, I'd damn well hope the TI mk2 would do that for that price).

I'm also interested in how Access currently implement their wavetables. I've always thought that, ideally, you'd need to have multisampled waveforms (say, at least one per octave) so they don't chipmonk or alias when pitched up or down, so I imagine the current wavetable implementation may use mathematic vectors or somesuch to possibly create the waveforms?

The standard digital waves in the Virus B have a tendency to sound a little toy-like, so I think they might even be just one single-cycle sample stretched up and down the keyboard.

I hope when they bring out user single-cycle waveforms (for the TI mk2) and you can upload or create your own type of 'saw' wave (say, sampled from a different synth), that it wont sound toy-like, like the other digital waves do.

Longer user-PCMs (say 8mb) would be ace, though.

Here's what the Korg Trinity's 8mb flash ROM playback sampler allowed:-

Multisamples: 100 (max)
Drum samples: 200 (max)
Individual samples: 500 (max) (total includes normal Samples and Drum-samples).

A "sample" merely refers to a single waveform. A "multisample" refers to a collection of samples, key-mapped across the keyboard by the user.

So you could have 500 samples and 100 multisamples and no drum samples. Or you could have 200 drum samples, 300 samples and 100 multisamples. etc.

Samples can be looped or one-shot as desired. (Drum samples are forced one-shot).

Of course you'll never reach using those amounts of numbers unless you're sampling single-cycle waveforms (which you can do on the Trinity) as the 8MB otherwise becomes the limit.