Modelled Analogue Synth
Reviews : Keyboard
The new Virus TI promises to bridge the
divide between hardware and software instruments, and create a world of
Total Integration, while still offering the classic Virus sound. Is it a
hard reality, or have Access gone totally soft?
Photos: Mark Ewing
The Virus TI Polar, with the Virus Control plug-in running under Cubase SX.
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It's fair to say that there are very few electronic
musicians who haven't heard of Access Music's Virus synth, and still
fewer who wouldn't like to own one. When you think about it, that's a
pretty amazing achievement for a hardware synth that grew up during the
software revolution.
The Virus reminds me of The Doctor from Doctor Who;
firstly, it seems to be regenerated every couple of years, and
secondly, if you got into synths at any point over the last eight years,
you might fondly remember 'your Virus', which would be whichever one
was available at the time of your interest. The latest incarnation was
announced last year, previewed in SOS December 2004 (see www.soundonsound.com/sos/dec04/articles/virus.htm),
and first shown at Winter NAMM at the beginning of this year. Its
release was promised less than 50 days later, but it finally showed up
on October 3rd. The phrase 'hotly anticipated' is over-used by almost
everybody, but in the case of the Virus TI, as the new model is called,
it's appropriate. The reason can be summed up by two words: Total
Integration (hence Virus TI).
The TI brings together Access' experience with both
hardware and software versions of their synth for the first time in one
package. The concept is brilliant; the Virus TI combines the best of
both worlds from previous Virus products and is able to run as both a
stand-alone synth, and as a sample-accurate instrument plug-in within
your computer-based sequencer. If Access had stopped there, I'm sure we
we would have been happy, but when they say total integration, they
really mean it. The Virus TI can also act as an audio recording device
for your computer (making use of the onboard audio input and output), or
as a MIDI interface (using the built-in MIDI ports and the keyboard, if
your TI model has one). And lastly, the Virus's hardware control
surface can control the Virus software running in plug-in mode (and the
plan is to make it usable as a generic control surface for other
plug-ins and applications). Best of all, though, the Virus TI can do
almost all of these operations at the same time.
Access have always offered Viruses in multiple
versions, and the TI is no different. Three TI models are available:
Desktop, Keyboard, and Polar. Desktop is the Virus's original
tabletop-style design, but the TI incarnation has a slightly darker,
sleeker appearance than that of the previous Virus C. The dark, wooden
panels on either side can be replaced with the supplied kit, so you can
install the synth in a standard 19-inch rack.
One annoying thing about racking previous Virus
models is that once in the rack, the ports that are normally on the back
of the unit are now on top, making them hard to access and meaning that
you have to leave two or three units of space above the Virus. To solve
this problem on the TI, Access have made it possible for you to rotate
the physical position of the ports so that they will be on the back when
rackmounted. Very neat!
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The Virus TI Keyboard, which is the only model of
the Virus TI I've yet to see in person, has a 61-note keyboard with mod
and pitch wheels, and replaces the previous Virus kc model. However,
arguably the most desirable member of the family is the mostly white
Polar, which replaces the previous 'lust-have' Virus Indigo and Indigo 2
models, and was used for most of the photos in this review. As you can
see, the Polar looks totally, well, cool! Like the Indigo, the Polar's
compact design offers a three-octave, 37-note keyboard (which felt of
better quality to me than that of the Indigo, with a lighter action),
and there's now a elegant wooden edge to the casing underneath the
keyboard that adds a touch of class to the instrument. This is basically
the Virus you'll want to sell your granny for.
All Virus TI models feature identical controls and
features, and the actual control surface has been redesigned slightly
(see close-ups overleaf); eight buttons have been added, including a
Shift key. The most obvious change is the new 128x32-pixel LCD display,
which is a huge improvement over previous Virus screens: it's easier to
read, and offers more information. On the other hand, when you switch on
the Polar, it's apparent that its white LEDs are rather bright. While
this would be great on a darkened stage, it can be a little distracting
in the studio. Fortunately, you can adjust the LED brightness in one of
the menus! The relative brightness of the BPM LED can be adjusted
separately.
Underneath the new display are three soft knobs (up
from two on the Virus C), which are now much more useful, as they have
become an integral part of configuring parameters in the new operating
system. On the main page, the sound-altering function of each soft knob
is labelled above on the lower part of the screen, and by pressing Shift
the three soft knobs enable you to quickly dial up different patches,
adjusting Category, Bank and Program settings respectively. This speeds
up patch navigation and is better than the Value knob on previous Virus
models. Each editing and configuration page now has up to three
parameters that can be adjusted by each of the soft knobs, which makes
them much easier (and quicker) to work with.
If you have a synth with many rotary controls and
memories, there's always the issue of how to reconcile the physical
positions of the knobs with the stored parameters. Access's solutions
have always been pretty good, and the three knob responses implemented
in the very first Virus are still present in the TI: Jump, Snap and
Relative. Jump means that the value is set to the exact position of the
knob when you make an alteration, Snap means that the value won't change
until the knob passes the point of the original value, and Relative
means that the knob adjusts a value relative to the original value. On
the TI, this is displayed more clearly than before, thanks to the new
screen; when you adjust a knob, a window pops up to tell you what the
current value is, what the former value was, and, if you're in Snap
mode, which way to turn the knob to set it to the original value. The
window disappears if there's no further adjustment after a few seconds.
Total Initialisation
The architecture of the Virus TI has been completely
overhauled from previous Virus engines, and now features a dual-DSP
configuration of faster processors to offer more power than ever before.
At its most basic level, this means more voices, and Access quote a
polyphony of 80 voices 'under average conditions', which you may
remember was the number of voices quoted for running the original Virus
plug-in on Pro Tools Mix systems five years ago. I didn't get near this
number of voices when using Multi mode (up to 16 parts simultaneously),
and despite the increased DSP power, the polyphony is dependant on how
many oscillators you set and what effects you're using. It's therefore
hard to be precise about the polyphony you can expect from the TI. If
you use seriously DSP-intensive patches, you might run out after three
or four parts with only slightly more polyphony than the Virus C (maybe
about 40 voices). Leaner patches (fewer Unison voices, for example, and
fewer effects) will give you greater polyphony. But in the studio
context, it was enough that I didn't run into problems.
The Virus C's physical power button has been
replaced with a soft power button on the TI, so the synth is in Standby
mode when you plug it in, and one of the Transpose LED blinks to
indicate this. To power it up, you press the two Transpose buttons
together, and you do almost the same to put the synth back into Standby
mode, except you have to hold the buttons down for two seconds while a
countdown appears on the Virus' display.
Once the Virus is powered up, it behaves just like a
stand-alone synth, and if you don't want to use your Virus TI as a
plug-in, you don't have to. The new TI sound engine is worth the price
of admission, even if you forget the computer integration aspect.
Comparing the TI to several previous Viruses, I felt the TI sounded
better, partly due to improvements in its effects algorithms and also to
having access to greater polyphony for more Unison voices. This
impression may also be due to the TI's new 192kHz D-A converters (with
optional soft limiting), and also to the improvements in the DSP engine.
Although the Virus' D-A converters are now specified
as being 192kHz, the Virus' internal clock offers either a 44.1 or
48kHz sampling rate. So my assumption is that the engine itself still
functions at either of these sampling rates, rather than at 192kHz, and
that this high value is more indicative of the quality of the converters
used (it's not clearly stated anywhere, but my guess is that incoming
88.2 or 96kHz audio is currently sample-rate converted at the input, so
that the voice count isn't halved). The A-D converters have also been
improved, and now operate at 24-bit resolution, as opposed to 18-bit.
One really nice improvement on the TI is that you
now have independent delay and reverb effects for each of the 16 parts,
and this is great when working in Multi mode, which embeds all the data
for every part in one patch, rather than simply referencing Single mode
patches as in previous Viruses. But perhaps the highlight of the new
Virus TI engine is the addition of two new oscillators: Hypersaw and a
true Wavetable oscillator. There are 72 Wavetables to choose from, plus a
sine wave, and these cover the foundations for creating interesting pad
sounds, gritty, noisy stabs, or those FM/bell-like cascading sounds
that you remember from Waldorf synths. One nice touch is the ability to
adjust which wave in the table you're using via the Wavetable Index
parameter, and the waves are crossfaded to allow for smooth transitions,
which works really well. If you assign Osc 2 as a Wavetable oscillator,
you can also use the FM features of the second oscillator to sonically
destroy anything!
Hypersaw is basically a sawtooth oscillator, except
that it's able to generate up to nine sawtooth waves in parallel, and
you can add more and take away these additional oscillators in real time
with no glitching, which is really neat. Needless to say, this is great
for huge-sounding patches, and there's a detune option on the Hypersaw
oscillator to really thicken the sound, along with a sync toggle.
However, because Hypersaw is effectively 'nine oscillators in one', you
can also use the Virus' Unison mode to have up to eight Hypersaw
oscillators per note, which means you could have 72 oscillators per
note! Or, do the same with the second oscillator and get 144 oscillators
per note, and add a bit of the sub-oscillator for bass! This is just
plain wrong, but so addictive!
Other features of the new TI engine include six
modulation matrix slots with one source and three destinations, giving
six sources and 18 destinations in total. There are, however, a few
problems that were present in the engine that Access are gradually
fixing through updates. There are some issues with the arpeggiator when
trying to slave the Virus to an incoming MIDI Clock signal (which older
Virus users may remember from previous 'first' versions), although I
didn't find this a problem when using the Virus in TI mode as a plug-in,
presumably since the sequencer coordinates the sample-accurate sync.
And there seems to be a problem with the tuning in the arpeggiator
occasionally, which completely foxed me for a while, but I later found
other users having the same problem, which has been described on forums
as the 'drunken' arpeggiator.
In short, aside from a few teething troubles, the
new sound engine is amazing. However, it's now time to look at the
seriously impressive aspect of the new Virus — the computer integration.
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Virus TI — A Second Opinion
The cold realities of having to move house several
times in quick succession, plus the difficulties and costs of keeping
vintage synths well serviced, have conspired to whittle my studio
mercilessly. Recording and sound design is now a 99-percent
computer-based experience for me. I have no regrets; I like contact with
the hardware that's producing the sound I want, but I'm able to run
more synths, samplers and effects in software than I've ever owned at
one time. And I like a life which isn't drowning in leads and means that
I have desk space to spare.
But working solely in software presents its own
problems. New software demands more RAM and the latest CPU speeds, while
your own computer stands still. Thus, the idea behind the latest breed
of hardware synth — the type that adds DSP resources to your system rather than demanding more of their host — is one I like.
Access's Virus TI is a particularly attractive
implementation of this idea. The Virus family has become a classic in a
relatively short time, and software implementations have been quite
demanding, running on higher-end DSP-based audio systems. Host-based
options would suffer and, being frank, no doubt Access would suffer from
piracy. The hardware-plus-software approach provides manufacturers with
security, and users with power.
I haven't had the TI long, but even in that short
time, digging deeper has been rewarding. The only thing I didn't like on
the desktop version I examined was the external PSU. Everything else —
its solidity, weight, layout, and sound — I loved.
And then there was Total Integration. It's rather
uncanny being able to tweak and organise a synth of this power from
within your favourite audio environment (Ableton Live, Steinberg Cubase SX and Cakewalk Sonar
for me), just like a normal plug-in, and without maxing out the CPU.
That the synth can reliably offer basic audio I/O is the icing on the
cake. The MIDI interfacing makes up the little piped bits around the
edges, and when the control surface software comes on stream, the Virus
TI will be covered in hundreds and thousands!
Like Mark Wherry in the main part of this review, I
found it best to not demand too much of this side of things: audio in
and out running simultaneously with busy multi-part synth playback is
best avoided. What's more, my ageing 450MHz Mac has only USB 1.1 ports,
so although the plug-in wasn't too demanding, there was a little too much data moving up and down the pipe for it to be totally happy.
Despite this, the sonics are great. The Virus TI's
modelling gives you access to a wide palette of sound; whether you like
your analogue acid-fat or modular-clinical, and want to mix in modern
digital textures that jump to the top of the mix or blend wistfully,
it's here. The presets even include drum sounds!
With no less than 17 128-strong ROM patch banks,
the Virus TI is impossible to summarise. In the 'leads' category, A095:
'Syncer' is classic with a modern edge, and C075: Click here to email
just sings! Pads also abound, from textured backgrounds to upfront
movers. The outright simulations of instruments are variable, but this
was always the way with real analogue or FM. Here, the fake pianos,
erzatz contrabasses and so on have the playability and 'feel' of the
original without being fully imitative.
The Virus's forté has always been serious
bass. Practically anything in this department that comes up on the
category search will impress, but try shaking your woofer with A008:
'Bombasdr'. B126: 'YamahaFB1' also does what it says — it's classic
four-op FM 'thud bass'. But by way of contrast, there are also
incredibly delicate sounds, such as D009: 'AprilPad'.
The Virus TI arpeggiator is particularly good, many
factory patches showing this off. Add a drum loop and it's instant
dancefloor-filling material. Try the solid, traditional K031: 'Donkey',
the jangly A002: 'AoilioA' or the Kraftwerk tributes of patches G042 to
G047. And the Virus TI's three LFOs are also capable of some pretty
funky arpeggiator-like tricks, as evidenced by A124: 'Zimoux' and A101:
'Thr3sum', for example.
I could use up another few boxes to summarise favourites, but I have some programming to do! This is one inspirational synth. Derek Johnson
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Total Installation
Installing the Virus TI for use with your computer
sequencer is easy, and although a CD-ROM is supplied containing the
installation software, Access recommend checking their web site to make
sure you have the current version. Once you've launched the installer,
the appropriate software will be installed, and during this process
Windows users will be asked to connect the Virus to a USB port on their
computer (Mac users can simply connect the Virus after the
installation). The Windows installer advises you to 'choose the USB port
wisely' since, as with all USB devices, Windows will try and install
the drivers again if you plug the Virus TI into a different USB port
later. The Windows installer also informs you (and this advice concerns
both Mac and Windows users, as described in the manual) that you cannot
connect the TI to your computer via a USB hub — see the box over the
page for more info.
Once the drivers are installed, the Windows
installer will ask you to disconnect and reconnect your Virus TI, and
after this the installation will be complete. If the installer is
supplied with a firmware update for the Virus TI OS, the cross-platform
Virus TI Firmware Update application will run for about 10
minutes, during which you can't do anything to the synth. Following
this, the TI will reboot and you'll need to restart your PC or Mac.
It's now time for the real fun to begin. I mentioned
earlier in this article that the Virus TI can operate as an audio and
MIDI interface, and during installation Direct X, MME and ASIO drivers
will be installed for Windows users, and Core Audio and MIDI drivers for
Mac users. This means that you can use the TI as a front end for your
computer music system with no extra MIDI or audio hardware required,
which is useful. And the stand-alone Virus synth remains operational,
even when the TI is being used as an audio and MIDI interface.
In your sequencer, two additional MIDI ports show up
as TI MIDI and TI Synth. Sending MIDI to the first port will cause the
data to be output from the Virus' MIDI Out port, while choosing TI Synth
will trigger the actual Virus synth. And what's really nice is that the
audio driver output will be mixed with the output of the Virus synth
engine, which already gives you a much more integrated approach than
ever before with a hardware synth. The only things I found annoying were
the rough nature of the user interface for the ASIO Control Panel for
Windows users (see right), and the lack of documentation describing how
to use it. It's not obvious how the options should be configured, and
the layout looks like a throwback from Windows 3.1! Performance-wise,
though, I didn't have any issues with the USB audio, and using the
smallest buffer size possible, Cubase SX 3.1 reported an input
and output latency of 3.968 and 4.898ms respectively. On the Mac side, I
set the buffer size in Logic to 256 samples (approximately 3ms at
44.1kHz) and this seemed workable.
Total Integration
Of course, the feature we've all been waiting for is
to run the actual Virus synth engine as a plug-in. And if you're
wondering whether the Virus TI can still operate as an audio and MIDI
interface when running the Virus engine as a plug-in, the answer is yes,
which is really, really useful! The Virus TI's plug-in application is
referred to as Virus Control, and when you start the plug-in on
your host, the Virus TI will switch into Sequencer mode and no longer
work as a stand-alone synth. The Virus control surface itself
effectively becomes a control surface for the Virus Control plug-in, and this control is achieved by internal communication between the TI and Virus Control,
so there's no additional work required by the user. And despite the
internal nature of this communication, you can still automate Virus Control
with your host's own automation system. Again, this requires no setting
up: just enable automation in your host, adjust parameters on the
control surface, and the host will record the movements as if you were
adjusting on-screen controls directly. The beauty of this system is that
you can control the plug-in at any time from the TI, regardless of
which Track is selected in your host.
The somewhat unfinished-looking Control Panel for the Virus TI ASIO driver.
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A further mode Access have created for the Virus TI
is Remote mode, and this enables the Virus' front panel to control other
software instruments and effects in addition to the TI — or rather it
will. Unfortunately, at the time of writing, Remote mode isn't
implemented in the current version of either the TI OS or Virus Control.
Virus Control (shown overleaf) appears to
the user as if it were any other instrument plug-in. Behind the scenes,
MIDI data from the instrument plug-in is sent to the synth engine via
USB, and audio from the synth engine is sent back to Virus Control
so that the plug-in outputs audio to the host application, allowing you
to use other plug-in effects to further process the Virus' audio
output.
Like many products running over USB, the TI seems to
work variably from computer to computer, depending on configuration and
host. Check out the unofficial Virus user forum at www.sunesha.nu/virusforum/
and you'll read all manner of horror stories, while other users claim
their TI is working OK. I fell into the latter category, aside from the
non-USB related sound engine problems I've already mentioned, and a
slight problem with latency. If you're using the TI as your main audio
interface as well, the audio has to travel back down the USB cable
again, and although the audio would be have to be sent out by the host
at this point no matter what interface you were using, I noticed the
latency when using the Virus as both a plug-in and an audio interface
was greater than when using another main audio device. Even with an
additional audio interface, though, you have to be careful to keep your
buffer sizes small (no greater than 256 samples) to keep the TI plug-in
playable.
However, the upside to Virus Control is
that latency is only an issue when performing in real time: on playback,
the TI, like any other instrument plug-in, is capable of
sample-accurate operation. And another bonus is that the audio doesn't
have to be routed back to your host sequencer when using the TI in
Sequencer mode. Like the Virus hardware, the Virus Control plug-in also has multiple outputs: there are two stereo outputs available to your host, and in Virus Control's
Common page, you can set whether the main and secondary audio outputs
are routed to an output on the plug-in, or directly to an output on the
Virus TI itself.
Here you can see Virus Control running as an Audio Units plug-in within Logic Pro
and showing the Easy page, which offers quick access to some of the
most common parameters for real-time performance. Notice also that
Access Virus TI is selected as the Core Audio driver in Logic's Audio Preferences.
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This latter option has a few pros and cons; firstly,
it's more useful if you're using the Virus TI as your main audio
device, so you don't need an additional mixer, and also, it prevents you
from further processing the audio output of the Virus in your host. On
the plus side, though, you could use the direct routing for real-time
performance, and then switch to the plug-in's output for playback and
mixing. It's a nice touch that addresses a potential problem.
The Virus Control interface is pretty well
laid out, and, as the manual points out, if you're familiar with using a
hardware Virus (or a plug-in version), the TI plug-in is pretty
self-explanatory — which is just as well, since there is little
documentation available for Virus Control at the time of
writing, although more is planned. I particularly liked the Arp page,
which makes programming the arpeggiator so much easier than on the
Virus' control surface, and the new Easy page looks pretty cool, with
the ability to adjust both the cutoff frequency and resonance of the
filter with the mouse at the same time.
All 16 parts of the Virus are displayed in a column to the left of Virus Control,
and here you can load and save individual patches, adjust the volume
and pan of a part, and select a part for editing in the main display.
Sequencer mode, which is the mode the TI uses when you're working with Virus Control,
is similar to Multi mode, in that you have 16 simultaneous parts, but
it actually works like having 16 simultaneous Single modes rather than
one Multi mode.
Virus Control also allows you to access any of the ROM and RAM banks on your Virus TI. In addition to storing patches directly on the Virus, Virus Control can also save patches to your local disk if you run out of space on your Virus, and as on the Virus Powercore plug-in, these are stored as banks of patches in MIDI file format. Actually, the Browser page of Virus Control
is the only aspect that slightly lets the side down. Access chose to
display the patch list as if the patches were on an LCD screen (a bit
like NI's FM7), and style aside, this just makes it hard to
read the patch list. Some better (faster) search facilities would also
have been good, although I hear this is another area Access are working
on.
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The Hub Of The Matter
While it's true that using audio devices with USB
hubs can often be problematic, I decided to ignore this warning
initially and see if the Virus TI would still be functional connected in
this way. However, I wasn't being awkward: the Windows computer on
which I was installing the Virus TI was in a machine room some 20-30
feet away from the main workstation where the monitors, keyboards and
Virus TI were located. Since the maximum length for a USB cable (to
allow for reliable transmission) is about 16.5 feet (five metres), not
being able to use a hub was potentially a problem, and using a powered
USB extender wouldn't help, unfortunately, as these are effectively
implemented to behave as if they are USB hubs.
So I ignored the initial warning during
installation, and at first, all was well. The installer detected that I
had connected a TI (even though it was via a hub), and the drivers were
still installed correctly. At this point I was thinking 'hub, shmub!' —
until I tried to use the Virus Control plug-in in Cubase SX3, that is.
Virus Control opened displaying the Total
Integration Status Page, and while the Audio and MIDI Communication
sections contained green ticks, the USB Communication test had failed,
and been awarded a large red cross, with the words 'You are using a
hub...'! While this is annoying, it's understandable. Given the number
of incompatibilities that users could encounter using the many possible
types of USB hub, it does make a degree of sense for Access to ensure
that the TI is used in a way that always gives the best possible
results. On the other hand, if you're using a computer with a limited
number of USB ports (such as an Apple Powerbook), it would be handy if
an Expert mode could be added for those users who want to take their
chances!
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Total Impression
I really love the Virus TI. It's not perfect; there
are some issues to be resolved, and features to be implemented. But, for
me at least, there's nothing about the TI in its current state that
would prevent me from having a good time or making a purchase, despite
the fact it's not uncommon to see the odd bug. For example, I noticed
that when I was selecting patches from the TI in Sequencer mode, Virus Control
didn't always display the correct patch name. Still, it's reassuring to
see Access releasing regular updates on the Internet for users who have
already bought the new Virus, continuing their good practice of
offering regular updates for previous Virus models.
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The Virus has always been a fine-sounding synth, and
it's always been fun and intuitive to program. The TI takes this to the
next level; the new engine, with its additional DSP resources, is
fantastic, and the improvements to both the Virus' hardware user
interface and the new software interface, in the form of Virus Control,
make the TI a dream to program. The 'total integration' features have
been well thought out, and, for the most part, well implemented —
everything you could conceivably want to do with a Virus attached to
your computer seems to be possible.
The only missing piece is the 'still
to come' Remote mode, but I don't think this is a serious omission.
I think I'm going to buy a TI Polar because, for me,
it's the perfect desktop instrument. I can have it right next to my
computer keyboard and mouse, it's the perfect master keyboard for
generating MIDI data when an 88-note keyboard isn't required, and, of
course, it has the best-sounding Virus synth engine to date. It's not
particularly cheap, and the Polar costs the same as the 61-note Keyboard
version, but it's such a great instrument that I can't really criticise
the price, because you really do get what you pay for.
Access' latest Virus incarnation was worth the wait:
users for whom the TI will be 'their Virus' and seasoned Access
veterans alike are in for a treat. A bit like fans of Doctor Who and the BBC's new series, really.
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