Hello
I have the Virus TI Polar, and obviously I have many problems to make its official VST app to work, anyway I feel lucky it is more or less usable on Win 10 and Cubase

seen that black friday is coming, maybe I could buy an alternative
like this one from auraplugins.com
unfortunately I didnt test it, even if reading around it seems to be pretty good

does anyone know it? any experience?

or does anyone know another app thats worth to buy?

thanks!

 

VirusHC from Mystery Island. Worth trying. buying? that's maybe a stretch. It may work better for you if you connect the synth with normal midi cables.

This thing on Aura plugins IS VirusHC. It looks like an updated version maybe. But this company certainly appears that it just has a new name or domain name. Probably because people had such poor luck with this software. There is no way I would buy this until someone I actually know gives it a good review.

 

Last edited: Nov 14, 2023

i agree about the "normal midi cables" and hardware audio outputs (which sounds WAY better than the USB VSTi rendering), but if you dont have a serious librarian/app you cant properly use the BILLIONS of patches available for the Virus and you cant use the Multitimbre funcionality

Multitimbre for Virus is very very good, thanks to its HUGE polyphony you can use 3-4 complex patches simoultaneously then bounce

 

it works fine on Mac with MacOS Mojave or earlier using the .component Audio Unit format plugin in Logic.

the DSP56300 virus emulator users have certainly hooked us up in the past few months! The amount of shared sound sets has probably doubled.

 

I use the virus editor from auraplugins (mystery island music) regularly with my Virus C. Haven't had much trouble, I recommend it!

 

i use use Virus TI on Windows i dont have any problem

 

I use the virus editor by aura plugins formally mystery islands with my virus xl rack on m1 Mac . It works solid , move a parameter on the hardware and it moves on the plugin , great for loading external banks via the editor so there’s no need to overwrite the factory banks which are all included in the editor along with a few mystery islands expansions . There’s constant improvements all the time I’ve used the editor since version 1 and all the updates have been free . It’s now on version 3 of the editor . There’s also a discord group set up by jani for help with all editors he makes and to get help if you have issues or would like to make requests for future additions to the editors. Had a big update this week but it was more so on the ti based virus . Anyways I highly recommend it .
it brought life back to my old virus xl

 

it seems that the auraplugins editor is very appreciated, I will give it a spin then, thanks everyone!

 

You might not feel that way after trying to use it expecting it to function correctly via USB for 70$ (not just for audio rendering). It was working correctly with midi connections and audio cables at v1.5 when it was called Virus HC. Maybe the usb functionality has been fixed. The last time I looked on the forum, people were asking about those functions and still waiting for an update. At that time, it seemed abandoned. If it is fixed, i'm not sure why there would be an update mostly related to the TI. The above reports of it working correctly are in reference to non-TI models. Midi control has worked correctly for years.

 

Me too, i picked up a Virus TI2 desktop last month and its software runs fine on my Windows 10 pc. When i was going through giant preset libraries refining them into my own smaller directories it would crash a bit or jam on one sound. But for general sound editing and normal preset loading it runs great and I actually prefer it to Auras interface layout.

Also I field tested the hardware against Viper (which i love as well) and Osirus emulator. Both sounded pretty different using same presets. Viper has different distortion and sounds thinner and obviously the Emulator version is missing various TI functionality. I actually still use Viper together with the Virus now in projects because they sound different enough.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Nov 15, 2023

What is the USB related functionality of the Aura application? Does it also load as a plugin inside your DAW? Transferring sound sets, parameter audiomation via usb is what matters. The rest can be done with normal midi connections like any modern synth, including non-TI versions of the Virus. (and worked with VirusHC).

There's a reason to go this route for $70 or there is not. As of Virus HC v1.5 there was not. It didn't work to replace the Access plugin in that regard. In the audio software world, rebranding your company and a new website doesn't really inspire a lot of confidence. If there was a Chicken Systems Translator playbook for developers written, it certainly looked like this one has a copy.

 

Last edited: Nov 15, 2023

Thanks for the clue, I would obviously use the Virus TI with midi cables and analog audio outputs if I will switch to aura app, but I am not convinced 100%

I also saw the Midi Quest app, which also would give me other synth I have, but it seems to be more complex as learning curve and also with a price MUCH MUCH higher...hmm...

 

In MidiQuest you basically build a virtual studio out of all your gear and then it's a patch librarian for everything. it will do like sysex transfers, program changes, and that CC sort of stuff; but usually they are a big front end investment of time. There is a Mac version on sister site.

there was also a sister site mac version of 1.5, called VirusHC. idk about pc, but if you are ok with just using midi not usb, it was fairly functional for that. if it's on v3 by now, it's probably ironed out even more. I stopped paying attention when it seemed like usb was still a problem, people were complaining on their forum about it not working, promises of "magic updates", updates that broke new stuff that was already working in prior versions. The entire Chicken Systems repertoire.

I never bought it. It looked abandoned. The same way Access handled their Mac Catalina problem. They just stopped answering people on their own forum. lol

it's only 70$ but i had seen enough to not want to deal with it. maybe it is great now that it has a new company name and website to go with it.

another one is CTRLR, https://ctrlr.org/tag/virus/.

 

Its doesn't matter if the virus ti were released 20 years ago.
Selling 2 or 3 virus ti2 keyboard or rack version, should be enough to pay for a developer at access, during 1 ot + months
Well, access have sold tens of thousands... probably even hundreds of thousands of these virus ti/ti2/ti2 snow/ etc etc etc.
They made more than enough money to pay for a dev, for a few months, to update their fukin software.
Ti... total integration....in 2023 total integration with what ? My ass ?

There isn't a band (small or big), in this planet, who doesn't own a TI.
Most standalone musicians, hobbyists, etc, very often, the first hardware synth they bought, was a virus c.. then, a TI ot TI2.
To say, access truly sold a TON of these TIs...
With all the cash they made, it wouldn't have been a major favor, for them to update the software, and the drivers, for it to work with the latest windows versions.
Shit, no need to add new features, or even fixing some bugs. No. Just make it compatible with the actual OS versions !

 

To me, the way they have handled the Mac side of it is even worse. The changes made to MacOS when they broke USB audio was not Access' fault. Apple pull stuff like that all the time. But what Access did after that is shady too. They put up a notice on their website saying Not to update MacOS to Catalina, which is ok for a few weeks or a month. Whatever, like the time span you mention most people would find acceptable. But after that, they literally started dodging their customers on their own forum. Then they give some story about the "magic programmer" who is the only person who can blah blah. No-one who has ever coded anything remotely complex knows that is BS. They make it out to be they need Linus Torvalds to do the job personally.

But it gave this guy at Mystery Islands difficulty too, because he was doing the same thing on his own forums. Or I would have bought "Aura" Virus HC. I was reading his customers complaints with my credit card out and sitting on my desk, literally. What really surprises me is that no-one has developed a workaround for MacOS. Mine was to just roll back to High Sierra, and I am glad I did. The amount of Mac plugins that become available for use using the OpenSSH 6.0.9. dylib method is a way better tradeoff than anything in or for newest MacOS versions.

 

ha, very interesting topic as I got a Virus TI collecting dust in my rack as well. I had a Virus C which I sold at some point because having two made no sense to me. For me the main problem with the TI was a) as mentioned it sounds much thinner through USB and b) that it is always out of sync, so using precise LFO modulations and the Arpeggiator was a nightmare. It‘s really a shame because it is a great sounding synth using the analog output. As the workflow translates to Serum very well I am using that instead and there is nothing I miss really apart from the fact that Serum has some weird issues with hanging notes since Ableton Live introduced MPE but I guess that‘s another topic. I am not really a preset user anymore but Serum also has the benefit that it has so many preset packs & tutorials floating around and the Virus soundsets were all pretty shitty Euro Dance kind of stuff that sounded awful. Sometimes I am thinking about using it as a dedicated synth controller because it has more dials than the Ableton Push and you can use it as an Omnisphere controller for example but of course the integration of Push is just unbeatable in Ableton Live.

 

Last edited: Nov 18, 2023

i have the TI Polar, and as a controller is AMAZING.I highly reccomend to use it as controller, just switch it from "synth to controller" with a combination of keys and you can control any parameter in your DAW (omnisphere, the mixer or whatever...). I extensively use it for Kontakt, for example

I also have to say that I mainly use Virus for pads, atmospheric sounds or plucks and "light leads", and in these situations the difference beetwen USB and analog outputs is not that much

If you work with heavy basses, HUGE synths sounds that need weight then the analog outputs sounds very VERY different, I admit it

It also happened to me to leave my Virus collecting dust from time to time, just because I was trying something else, but when I come back to it I realize how GOOD IT IS, then I come back to have it ready in my template as soon as I start something eheheh : ) do the same belive me

 

There is a hardware profile for the Virus Ti in Omnisphere 2. It is awesome. Another thing about that is, you can actually use the HW Profiles in Omnisphere even if you do not own that model synth. They have presets built around the profiles that anyone can use. Mine is ti2-kb, so it is 5 octaves of Omnisphere2.




The HW button to the left of the preset/folder icon opens the menu for the profiles.




You can use any of them for the different presets, but obviously the Virus TI linked via usb is the one we are interested in. It should work with just Midi cables too, but I have not tried that.

 

Last edited: Nov 18, 2023

Thanks for the

Yeah, I was aware of that but never tried it out. How does it translate regarding stuff that has a selector combined with a dial, like Filter 1, Filter 2 Osc1 Osc 2 Oc 3 etc...?

 

You mean parameters with a Slide bar? If they are mapped to a rotary encoder, it's not a problem. The patches are all different mapping. Some use pretty much every knob on the ti front panel; but some do not. It loads some patches with the effects loaded to the GUI in a "rack" style. There is a pretty wide variety in the patches. I normally use it when I already have the Virus turned on, but I won't boot the synth just to use this. My regular kb controller works fine for Omnisphere so I just use that. Having every parameter of a patch being modulated and automated is overkill, to me. hope that answers your question.