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Virus TI myth?
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PsiloCybian
Mammal Footwork
Started Topics :
92
Posts :
557
Posted : Jul 30, 2010 15:58
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Elad
Tsabeat/Sattel Battle
Started Topics :
158
Posts :
5306
Posted : Jul 31, 2010 12:21
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PoM
IsraTrance Full Member
Started Topics :
162
Posts :
8087
Posted : Jul 31, 2010 13:24
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On 2010-07-28 11:51:36, orgytime wrote:
hey guys 
i read alot of this (also snow etc...), and only from that i can say there is no doubt its really a beast.
personally i dont understand it, what can make this hardware so good? why so much artists would die for the virus?
its like a magical thing (myth) for me.
do i need one? ... it cant be just the filters... i mean lol
why i cant just route my controller to a good vst for the virus feeling haha?
why is this so epic, and why it is so fkn expensive? a controller is much cheaper.
anyone enlightens me please.
cheers
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i think its expensive cause you pay for all the drivers update ,all the work to fix bugs and add new features.
you may love it at first and tell everyone how good it is, that it sound way better than softwares and 1 year later juste use it as midi controller, seems like it happen with many producers cause in the end it s just a other va synth and your synthesis skill is just what matter to make great sound.
i think it s a very good synth ,very versatile (it s a strenght and a weakness at same time) but i can live wihtout with no problem...i would rather send sylent to a nevish pre sound way better to me but all that is taste and personal...
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Shiranui
IsraTrance Full Member
Started Topics :
116
Posts :
1219
Posted : Aug 1, 2010 07:56
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The signal that comes out of a computer also contains no steps because the antialiasing filter removes them. |
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Shiranui
IsraTrance Full Member
Started Topics :
116
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Posted : Aug 1, 2010 07:58
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Neither an analog oscillator NOR a DAC can ever possibly produce a "true" sine wave or square wave or sawtooth wave...
they are both slightly different from a true one but they are off in different ways (the analog one will be distorted, the digital one will be aliased and distorted as well but to a lesser degree)
The sine wave that comes out of an analog oscillator will be slightly "squashed" because no transistor or diode is perfectly linear.
The "steps" in a digital signal are smoothed out by the antialiasing filter but can never be completely removed (because the antialiasing filter is analog and there are no perfect analog lowpass filters)
Digital and analog are possibly about equal in producing a close to true sine wave
but when it comes to producing a true square wave, it's very likely that digital is better
In any case I doubt that you would be able to see on an oscilloscope or hear through speakers the difference between a sine or square wave produced by a computer and one produced by an analog oscillator
That's talking about a lab-grade oscillator of course. The oscillators in analog synths are significantly lower quality so they produce significantly less clean waves. It's actually the cheapness of the components that gives them their "warmth" |
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Shiranui
IsraTrance Full Member
Started Topics :
116
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1219
Posted : Aug 1, 2010 08:08
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So mandari posted this image
http://img825.imageshack.us/img825/5844/analogdigital.gif
This is leaving something out, which is that in the DAC there is an antialiasing filter (a lowpass filter whose cutoff frequency is half the sampling rate). This filter smooths out those "steps" and leaves something looking very similar to the first picture.
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Elad
Tsabeat/Sattel Battle
Started Topics :
158
Posts :
5306
Posted : Aug 1, 2010 09:17
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perhaps people that buy synths only put more into the music , not only money.
maybe just that they care more.. and usually will have great monitors as well.. and .. more passion
i can say so for myself , i dont think only vst would keep my 'drive' that strong for so long.
maybe its the hardware , maybe its just an illusion , but anywayz its working www.sattelbattle.com
http://yoavweinberg.weebly.com/ |
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freechameleon
Started Topics :
0
Posts :
91
Posted : Aug 1, 2010 11:43
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in the world of hardware the virus is a powerful synth with great possibilities, good routing options and a nice sound. it's an instant trance lead machine ;-)
it has more possibilities as most other hardware synths!
for a DAW user, who is used to open 20 instances of any vsti and routes each one through a different fx chain, the possibilities of a virus as hardware might not be so evident.
but one should not compare a card-box to a harddrive, or the amount of letters in a book to the amount of letters on a computer.
though DAW users tend to compare such funny things, to give some pep to their digital life. :-P
making/playing music is not about perfect waves, perfect tune, perfect quantisation.
it's the mutations/errors that make the wonderful variety in life. (old biologist credo!)
triggering a digital poly-synth in multi-mode is not compareable to touching and playing an analogue mono synth, where everything! has it's own slider, fader, knob.
you get to know your instrument by heart, and play it like an instrument.
and lastly..
there is no software/digital filter that can reproduce the sound and fun of an analogue filter - for example an old roland filter with high resonance - no matter how many prey to their DAWs! :-D |
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Integer
Started Topics :
1
Posts :
14
Posted : Aug 1, 2010 18:06
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"Access Virus Ti" - nice marketing technique.. Nothing more. just the same computer, with dsp, dac and adc.
Anyone loves analog - loves shit.
It's time to kick ass and chew bubble-gum, and I'm all out of gum... |
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Maine Coon
IsraTrance Junior Member
Started Topics :
12
Posts :
1659
Posted : Aug 1, 2010 21:16
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Yeah, I know plenty of people who swear by their record players because they “sound better than CDs”. Because of the steps Mandari demonstrated, they explain. This argument is as old as capitalism and has absolutely nothing to do with the theory of signal processing. It’s the battle between the hand-crafted and the mass produced. Personal touch, a piece of some master’s soul (which ultimately comes from little imperfections), that elusive “warmth” – vs. “lifeless” machine-made precision and manufacturing quality.
A side note about the steps. Shiranui explained everything nicely. I have only one thing to add: Mandari’s digital wave is pretty crude. 3-4-bit at best. A 16-bit illustration would not look as impressive. Try having 65 K gradations in that picture instead of a dozen – will you still see the difference with the “perfect” sine? Which means it would not sound that different from its analogue counterpart either.
So, why don’t we stop pretending that this analogue vs. digital argument has anything to do with sound and start seeing it for what it is: it’s old country hand made maple Matrioshkas vs. precision made plastic electronic robotic puppies. Both are toys. Both represent completely different values. Some prefer maple warmth and folksy colors, others prefer electronic barking and digitally controlled tail wagging.
When I buy a Berber rug, I buy it from Berbers, hand made. I want it to have the authenticity and soul. When I buy a car, it better come off an assembly line, preferably a robotic one. I want it to be precision-made and reliable. You can argue that it has to be made by as many union workers as possible (to have that special proletarian “warmth”). I don’t care what’s going on inside the factory. In fact, I don’t even care what’s going on under the hood. I just want my car to drive and to not blow up in the middle of some fly-over state. Others may get a fuzzy warm feeling from driving a union-made car. I can understand that too. But let’s not pretend that it has anything to do with mechanics, OK?
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PoM
IsraTrance Full Member
Started Topics :
162
Posts :
8087
Posted : Aug 1, 2010 22:18
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years ago i met a producer i was sure he was using a virus ,we started to talk about production and he told me he was only software for synthesis,that was a big suprise to me cause i could hear some virus kind of leads in all his tracks ! (i was using moslty a virus c at that time and no plugs)
in fact the virus is so versatil that it don t have any own identity if you understand what i mean ,it don t have his "own sound" cause many synths can sound like that too. the thing that was hard to replace was just the filters section when i sold it to use only softwares synths.(but i m sure they added lot of great features since that time) |
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Shiranui
IsraTrance Full Member
Started Topics :
116
Posts :
1219
Posted : Aug 2, 2010 02:00
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Hey guess what, that "perfect" sine wave is not perfect either. The picture you are looking at is digital and if you zoom in you will see steps 
Analog synths definitely sound different from digital synths--key word being DIFFERENT not better.
But to say that you lose the power of an analog synth when you record it digitally is not true (as long as you record it at a high enough sampling rate and quantization)
Also the main reason vinyl has a reputation of sounding better than CD is twofold:
firstly, when CDs first came out there were not many people who knew how to properly master for them, and a lot of people who knew how to properly master vinyl. The situation is now reversed
second, the extreme overcompression common in mainstream music is impossible with vinyl because of the nature of the medium. |
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Maine Coon
IsraTrance Junior Member
Started Topics :
12
Posts :
1659
Posted : Aug 2, 2010 05:55
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^
Third, I suspect people were comparing quality models of record players with CD boomboxes. 
Anyway, I am totally with Shiranui on this one: these two kinds of instruments are different. They are both imperfect – just in their own different ways. Some people find a mole on a cheek sexy. Others like the sound of squashed sine waves. Yet somebody else may be crazy about bony knees. ...Or a hint of digital aliasing in their synth.
I lied a bit in my previous car example. I do care about things other than the immediate consumer value. I don’t shop in Wal-Mart, for example, because of the way they destroy communities and abuse their employees. But I don’t pretend it has anything to do with the quality of their merchandise. If you have a sentimental reason to like your analogue synth better than the new breed, it’s fine. Let’s just not pretend it has something to do with sound quality.
In the end it’s still a mass produced piece of electronic equipment. It’s not a hand-crafted cello. It’s not even a factory made (yet still unique) concert grand piano. It’s a box full of transistors. An argument about that special analogue “soul” seems a bit strange to me.
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piXan
IsraTrance Full Member
Started Topics :
107
Posts :
807
Posted : Aug 2, 2010 08:08
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PoM
IsraTrance Full Member
Started Topics :
162
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8087
Posted : Aug 2, 2010 16:53
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Quote:
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On 2010-08-01 07:58, Shiranui wrote:
That's talking about a lab-grade oscillator of course. The oscillators in analog synths are significantly lower quality so they produce significantly less clean waves. It's actually the cheapness of the components that gives them their "warmth"
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they were trying to get good sounding oscillators i guess ,it s not about having a perfect waveform (who care about that?) analog oscillators are cleaner usually ,maybe not with how it look but with how it sound |
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