Nothing but trouble..

[MBTC]

Well the Ti2 Desktop arrived today, and I have a feeling it will soon be packaged up and back on it's way back where it belongs.

I don't think there is anything wrong with my unit, I just think I greatly underestimated some things:

1. The latency in FL9. There is like a half-second delay between anything I was previously dependent on and anything Virus related. Meaning half a second from a note played on the midi controller to the time I hear the sound on the virus. WIth latency like this I really doubt I could use the Virus in my very timing-oriented music. Then there is lag just in playing back the sounds from the daw, like the clocks arent in sync almost. I dinked around with adding delay compensation to tracks with plugins and "almost" got the timing right, but I still had problems finding the magic numbers in milliseconds, and the process was so cumbersome that I simply cannot imagine making music this way. I was using the Virus USB ASIO, btw.

2. Virus control.. its cumbersome to find and edit patches -- the user interface feels like it's bringing this Core i7 to it's knees. I did do research on how I need to do multi-timbrality, but even that is primitive and once again another technical distraction from the creative process.

3. Being able to only send all of the Virus output to only 3 separate mixer tracks is extremely limiting. So much so that I'm not sure it justifies a $2k synth.

4. I first went for the OS4 installer before doing anything else. No real problems per se, but I had remembered reading about folks with issues with the OS4 beta, and my confidence in Access Music's "beta" software was now in a pile on the rug. So I embarked on re-installing the last official release (3.4 I think). That was a multi-hour nightmare in itself. Turns out the problems I had in OS4 were still present in OS3 so it was another waste of time and exercise in futility.

The software quality seems incredibly poor, the system as a whole seems as tempermental as a schizoprenic pubescent girl, and this synth is starting to remind me of those expensive German cars like BMW and Mercedes that I regularly see broken down on the side of the road.

I have one of those that sets LFO3 when you turn the knob with LFO1 selected (LOL) and when I download the hotfix, it says it cannot detect the thing (even though my DAW can). The process for rebooting the unit of course does not work. And, they warn me I will be voiding my warranty if I inadvertently install the hotfix when I don't need it.

I've been writing software myself for 30 years, and I am no stranger to software bugs and their cause. This however, is completely out of control. I can understand it's challenging to achieve interoperability with all DAWs, and maybe the latency issue is an FL thing and doesnt apply to other hosts? But overall for such a piece of niche hardware, the quality of this is just plain horrific.

Its a sad day for me because I've wanted one of these for somewhere around 7 years now.

If there's anything anyone can tell me that will salvage my relationship with this synth, guide me toward what I'm doing wrong, or otherwise talk me out of packing it up and shipping it back within my 30 day window (after spending a bit more time on working out the bugs of course), then I will gladly listen. The sounds I've heard while navigating the abundance of (difficult to navigate) sounds are definately great sounding, and have the qualities I wanted in this synth. I just can't get past what the last 8 hours have been like -- as a music making amateur I just cannot fathom putting that much time into just configuration crap, it would completely remove my inspiration for song creation.

Thanks - MBTC

[feedingear]

Email access support kgo. They contact fast and they will try to sort your issues.

To give you an idea - TI integrates instantly into Cubase 5 32bit on XP with a 10-15 second start up. No latency issues with a buffer size of 512 set. TI may overload if running 8+ patches or working for several hours and alt tabbing in and out of projects. Other then that, it works perfectly.

[MBTC]

Originally Posted by feedingear

Email access support kgo. They contact fast and they will try to sort your issues.

To give you an idea - TI integrates instantly into Cubase 5 32bit on XP with a 10-15 second start up. No latency issues with a buffer size of 512 set. TI may overload if running 8+ patches or working for several hours and alt tabbing in and out of projects. Other then that, it works perfectly.

From what I can tell this is a known issue with using USB outs. Are you using USB or regular outs? I think if I were using MIDI from controller to Virus, then just using audio outs it wouldn't be an issue for me. Problem is if I switch from USB to outs (for example, using the D button on each part in Virus Control) the latency issue is mostly resolved (or at least well enough).

I am also on Win 7 64bit (since FL9 is 32 bit that means I'm running the 64bit driver but the 32-bit plugin).

What I really need to do is figure out how much of a PITA its going to be, long-term to integrate this into my creation workflow. I can already tell I was very spoiled with regard to workflow using VSTs.

Right now I am inclined to chalk a lot of this up to teething pains. I remember first buying Zebra2 and feeling a bit helpless with it not having worked with modular architectures before, then I picked it up a year or so later and invested the time to actually learn it soup to nuts and found it to be a "go to" synth.

Maybe the TI will be the same way for me. I have noticed a couple of positives: #1 - I can get very lush, reverbed unison hypersaw pads (sort of a staple of trance) without using any CPU, things that would probably cost me 20% CPU if I even could get the same sound with a VST plus a reverb plugin. That's pretty valuable right there, and the slow attack of pad type sounds means timing doesnt have to be that tight #2 - I've noticed most sounds tend to cut through the mix a little better than a soft synth, at least all things equal (given the same amount of attention to tweaking).

So all-in-all a little disappointed in the sense that I'm not sure the TI can truly be the centerpiece of my music with the latency issues and only 3 USB outs, but maybe with some work it can become a key piece of it.

Anyone have any Virus experience in FL9? Is there any way to route the non-USB outputs to mixer tracks in FL? Will my latency woes go away if I switch DAWS?

Thanks for all feedback.

[feedingear]

It has 3 usb outs, as well as the audio input and 3 audio output channels - not sure why you really need to use all of them to be honest but I suppose each to their own.

You can assign the outputs in use in VC to each of the 16 parts.

I tend to use the USB outs, until I want to record a pass and then I will record the audio outputs if I can be bothered, or I will solo and bounce the USB audio.

I run a dedicated soundcard in a MOTU ultralite mk3 so perhaps running the TI as a soundcard is part of your issue.

I also have a 64bit Win 7 recent install that I am yet to try VC with - will let you know how it goes once I can be bothered with the headache of setting it up and seeing how it runs. The changelog also shows that 'Graphic Performance under Windows 7 needs fine tuning.' as 64 bit is a relatively new introduction to TI support.

The sounds on the Virus will blow any VST out of the water - I suggest turning off your DAW, and having a nice play with the synth in standalone mode.

And contact virus support.

[Berni]

Hi MBTC,

I know what you're going through as I had the same experience when I first got my TI a year & a half ago using the RTAS version in pro tools. Unfortunately absolutely nothing has improved even after countless revisions of this crappy software, the same problems persist & its bloody annoying given the price tag on this synth. There are a lot of people complaining about the latency in FL on the official Virus forum also, so I dont think you are doing anything wrong.
Cubase & Live users seem to have a better experience with VC so you might try one of those DAW's. The only reason I've kept hold of mine is that it sounds sooooo good & I've just got used to not using VC at all, just good old fashioned midi/audio. Killer synth but crap software unfortunately.

[marc]

Originally Posted by Berni

Unfortunately absolutely nothing has improved even after countless revisions of this crappy software

did 4.0.2.01 make a change for you?

marc

[MBTC]

Thanks for the ideas and replies guys. After much more tinkering I decided that (A) total integration was a must-have for a hardware synth to me and (B) it just aint there yet.

I think with enough compromises, practice, change in workflow etc I could probably add a lot to my music with this box, but not enough to justify the current price.

I saw one response from an Access employee addressing the issue of why full USB 2.0 speeds are not supported, why was Firewire not chosen, etc, and the basic matter at hand was the cost proposition involved. Well I do understand design compromises but maybe I just need to take another look at the Virus in its next generation form.

I do understand it sounds great and would sound even better if I just ran audio outs to another interface instead of USB at all, etc. If I were a pro or semi-pro musician I would probably keep it, but I have very few hours per week (on a good week) to make music, and I need to be able to get ideas from my head onto MP3 very quickly in order for the hobby to be worthwhile. I sometimes go weeks without touching a music keyboard, and I cannot be dependent on lots of persnickety setup details in order to transfer musical inspiration to a shareable format.

So I guess that concludes my short stint with the current Virus TI. I will keep up with the news on this board and see where things go in the future. And for those of you successfully working with the Virus today, I admire and envy your tenacity, your schedule, your persistence and your luck of the draw

For now my Ti2 desktop is boxed up and soon to be RMA'd.

Cheers,

MBTC

[Berni]

I hear you bro, & you're probably doing the right thing. Save yourself a LOT of frustration. I wish I could bill access for all the hours I have spent loading on updates that dont work properly & trying to get the software side of this synth to work with my DAW.

[boborulz]

All fair points, but if you work at it...you WILL reach a happy equilibrium. After a while of toil, my Ableton 8.1.1 and Virus 3.1 work quite nicely together...I def recommend downgrading to 3.1....4 ain't quite there yet.

[MBTC]

The first thing I did after unwrapping the Ti2 was download OS4 and load it up, then after remembering hearing some horror stories I backed off the beta and installed the last public release version (actually 3.3x.. dont recall version exactly). That experience in itself was troubling, because of course the back-level version (OS3) was not smart enough to clean up all pieces of the beta version (OS4). This sort of installer-snafu is very common in software shops -- beta these days means "try at your own risk" so some of the testing is short circuited in favor of getting it in the hands of the risk-taker user base. The difference these days is that there has been a trend of off-loading the quality assurance process to the customer under the premise of a "beta" release. I went to Access's site, and it seems this OS4 "beta" was the first release I was encouraged to download. Back in the good old days of higher quality software, beta software used to only go out to designated customers who were willing to test software in exchange for something in return; it would have been arrogant to release software into the mainstream without investing properly in alpha (inhouse) testing. Today there is a trend of "customer is our test bitch, why pay?".

For example, back then, if I tested Access' software and provide them useful feedback, I should then get a free Virus Ti2 in exchange for my time and experience with the product. If I examined at how many hours I spent dinking around with this synth to get the beta working right, then multiplied that number by the hourly rate I charge my clients, Access owes me a free Virus and about seven grand. So at that point I cannot justify giving them two grand for the priviledge of being their beta tester

All of that said, I want to make clear that I loved the sound of the Virus, and being a fan of subtractive synthesis above any other type (actual sound design and creation is important to me), I definately appreciated the knob interface on this desktop module. The polyphony was a bit weak, I loaded up some sort of D50 Digital Piano sound (I know, I know.... why the faerk would I want to emulate a 1980s digital synth with this thing??? Just out of curiosity)... But this sound was showing as a 5-bar patch! This means with only a slight amount of handi-work on the keyboard, I was able to rob it of polyphony fairly quickly. So for purposes of that sound, the Virus felt like a monophonic D50! This is absolutely laughable compared to what my PC (currently a Core-i7 965 running Windows 7 64-bit) can do with a mediocre soft-synth and achieve the same quality sound.

Now when you read the last few sentences there, please don't think that I am saying a Virus sounds no better than the Roland D50 did. I'm also not saying that softsynths sound better than the Virus. The Virus, by itself, sounds better than any softsynth out there. But the advantages it brought to my particular table did not justify the $2,200 US pricetag once I factored in the latency issue. And by adding high quality FX plugins to soft-synths, with certain sounds, I can match or exceed the virus sound (at the expense of CPU, but my PC's CPU resources 'runneth over' whereas Virus polyphony does not!... obviously they see the softsynth movement as a threat or they wouldn't bother with total integration to begin with, right? Let's face it, softsynths threaten hardware and the difference diminishes month over month). More importantly, in a complicated mix I am unlikely to be able to tell the difference between a virus and a good quality softsynth+fx.

I did realize that for pads and sounds with slow attack, I could probably find a way to work enough beautiful sounds into my mix that I could get some use from it even with latency problems, but the latency issue, lack of quality control in the software, and other issues simply made the pricetag not worth the returns for me.

One other bit of food for thought -- it seems that despite the "USB 2.0" marketing, the TI (and repackaged same TI2) actually run at the USB 1.1 max speed. So maybe the next generation of products will have a data bus that reduces the latency enough to be usable? It's just hard for me to believe it is purely a host issue -- latency should be a matter of the driver, the hardware capabilities (USB 2.0 in this case), and in my research the latency is not DAW specific (if it is, I'd suggest to the Access QA team that testing and certifcation with more DAWs translates to more sales). I've seen users complaining across many hosts, at the end of the day VST is VST, USB is USB, and if they aren't getting proper coverage on the platform (Windows) that holds more than 90% of marketshare, something might need looking into. Also some might consider my Windows 7 64-bit setup dicey, but that argument is no longer acceptable since Windows 7 has been the fastest selling OS in history, Microsoft is the second most profitable company in America this year kicking sand in Apple's face, and 64-bit adoption has been amazing over the last couple of years, even starting with the seemingly jinxed Vista.

I do hope they find a way to address the problems I had, and be careful to fund their own testing process rather than using the customer as a free tester. I will keep an eye on progress and perhaps be a future customer?