A bug that prevents pro music making on PC's. (on practically all TI OS)

[Jussi]

Now this has come to the stage, where I feel that other PC users need to know this aswell.

When the VIRUS TI is connected to a PC, it does not, and has not ever been able to remain its pitch - so the pitch will not remain constant, during a songmaking session.

Everyone here can test this for themselves.

1. Open Cubase
2. Set Oscillator balance so, that there is only osc 1 playing.
3. Set Oscillator to Sine wave, and play that from as high a key as possible.
4. (while pressing that high not) Open Devices (Go to Devices Setup) -> VST Audio System - menu, press "Reset ASIO Driver" some times, [..1-15 times will tick the Virus TI off its tuning, and it will start to wander all over..].

Now this is the reason you neither might not have been able to finish your songs with PC - or are not satisfied with the results.

I noticed this only due to having to constantly finetune and retune the instruments in my songs..

This does not ever happen on a MAC and it does not happen ever when the USB cord is not used (..standard MIDI..) - so we are talking about something serious.

I have emailed about this to ACCESS for about a year now, and am only met with ignorance and the unwillingness to sort this thing out. They also have stated that they are not either able or willing to fix this, so that PC users could make music with constant tuning of their synth.

I have tried to help ACCESS fix this behind closed doors, because the way I see it this is mostly embarassing for a synth developer - and I have had the most respect for this company.

Their official explanation has held 2 variations.

1. This is "phase drifting". (Only phase drifting for a single sine wave is virtually impossible)

2. This is analogue emulation algorithm (which for some reason does not happen on a MAC or in Stand Alone mode)

This resembles the companys overall attitude, and ignorance concerning this thing.

..A synth needs to hold its tune - this is the most basic functionality..

[HUEY]

[quote=Jussi;295773]
4. (while pressing that high not) Open Devices (Go to Devices Setup) -> VST Audio System - menu, press "Reset ASIO Driver" some times, [..1-15 times will tick the Virus TI off its tuning, and it will start to wander all over..].
quote]

Must the Virus driver be selected or the soundcard driver selected?
In both cases nothing happens here on WinXPsp3 & Cubase 5

[HUEY]

You are right, When I transpose my keyboard 3 times and play the highest note as possible, after hitting the reset button several times and hit and release the key several times, the pitch changes and is not constant

[boborulz]

This is interesting, but i've haven't found it with my setup. XP SP3, Ableton, Mbox 2.

[Jussi]

Originally Posted by HUEY

You are right, When I transpose my keyboard 3 times and play the highest note as possible, after hitting the reset button several times and hit and release the key several times, the pitch changes and is not constant

Yeah,

Thank you for testing this.

Originally Posted by HUEY

I never noticed it and I never reseted the driver before.

Originally Posted by feedingear

I too am also curious why you would hold down a note on a synth then keep resetting a driver - would you really expect it to keep working? Shouldnt you be stopping any audio information so the driver can reset correctly?

Resetting the Asio driver is only a fast way to check this - you can also reproduce this by opening a VSTi for another slot..

etc. (many things inside Cubase "reset" the ASIO - this is why pressing reset is only an easy way to demonstrate this.. Opening folders in windows will also cause this and so on. Anything you basically do in Cubase will at some point make this detuning happen)

[marc]

just out of curiosity, in which case would one reset the driver without a good reason anyway? i mean a good reason as in "something is entirely wrong".

marc

[maelstrom808]

Originally Posted by marc

just out of curiosity, in which case would one reset the driver without a good reason anyway? i mean a good reason as in "something is entirely wrong".

marc

Kinda what I was thinking.

Only problems I've had in the last couple years with Cubase and the TI in regards to tuning was when Cubase hiccups and drops the sampling rate down...of course that's not really a tuning issue, and has nothing to do with the Virus, but it's the only issue I've had that comes close to what the OP is describing. You'd think if this was as big of an issue as the OP is trying to make it out to be, that you'd hear a lot more fuss about it by now.

[Jussi]

Originally Posted by maelstrom808

Kinda what I was thinking.

You'd think if this was as big of an issue as the OP is trying to make it out to be, that you'd hear a lot more fuss about it by now.

Sorry mate, but this is just the moment when we can hear about this - since Virus TI has been full of timing bugs etc. that have taken the attention of the user. (..untill around OS 3.0..)

I am sure that you will find this also, if you just follow the steps given in the first post.

The thing about this is that it is totally random when it starts - and you might need to make music about 45 minutes before it will happen.

[maelstrom808]

Originally Posted by Jussi

Sorry mate, but this is just the moment when we can hear about this - since Virus TI has been full of timing bugs etc. that have taken the attention of the user. (..untill around OS 3.0..)

I am sure that you will find this also, if you just follow the steps given in the first post.

The thing about this is that it is totally random when it starts - and you might need to make music about 45 minutes before it will happen.

I get what you are saying, and I believe you that following the steps that you gave will result in the problem you are describing. I'm just saying that after a few years of using Cubase and the TI (and my sessions usually last a few hours at a time) I've never run into the problem during normal operation. I've had timing issues and have lost sync, but I've had that with several VSTs and it happens once in a blue moon...usually solved by a simple stop/start.

This may be be completely different for you. This may be a serious problem for your setup that makes it impossible for you to be productive, but my point is I think you are overestimating the problem's scale as there are many of us (I would go so far as to say most of us) that don't have any issues with normal operation. If it was a glitch that "prevents pro music making on PC's" for most users in normal operation, then you would see a heck of a lot more people complaining about it. I do hope that you find a resolution to the problem, but please don't misrepresent the impact of this particular problem outside of your own experiance.

[///OSS]

Sorry dude but Ive been using my virus in stand alone mode and VC for 5 years and released hundreds of TV and radio ads with the virus splattered all over them and I haven't encountered a single time ever that had to retune my virus.

To do the test and find out that after 15 time of resetting my ASIO driver and playing a sine wave at a million khz and it actually drifts, doesn't seem like a moment that I would ever encounter while making music so its pointless.

I think the title is absurd and uncalled for but that's just me. The TI is a great machine and although not perfect, it gets the job done.

Maybe you should set your VC outs to be analog and get a real interface for you system. dont rely on a external synth's audio I/O for your main DAW. Maybe that's why I dont run into the issue. I remember a while back I had some sample rate convert issues.. maybe you need to play around with who's master and slave.

GL