When you need to resort to selective reading, it says a lot.

 

You’re right missed the whole part I should have been in bed a long time ago

 

Leave the 76 out of this!! One of my favorite synths, and im not even kidding. Ive circuit bent at least ten of these or other siblings in the casio SA series. Insane sounds come out of that thing.

 

People who can afford anything they want stop concerning themselves with usefulness or quality. They buy for pomp, excess or raw hedonism, or, as you say: buy junk on purpose. Artists in particular are infamous for their self-destructive, highly irrational spending habits on junk.

"Poor" people rationalise buying specific gear because they want to ape their heroes. It's my gear, not my lack of learning or putting in effort.

Jimi Hendrix needs a guitar fitting his style and needs, but is limited by affordability and geographic availability. Ends up with cheap/free Fender Strats as a compromise.

Stevie Ray Vaughan's guitar hero is Jimi Hendrix. SRV buys Strat to ape JH.

John Mayer wants to ape SRV. Works a year to finally be able to afford his hero's Strat.

The many many guitarists who now want to ape JM go in with an almost unbreakable Strat-bias.

(Or whatever brand & model he's currently endorsing - PRS I think.)

Quality wasn't the main metric for Hendrix and quality isn't the main metric for people when they buy Fender now.

Brands buy artists and they've gotten much better at it the past ~25 or so years. So the next time someone buys a Kiesel because Stephen Carpenter plays or played one, they need to keep in mind that Stephen, like most modern guitar heroes, will bend with the wind and endorse whatever brand writes the biggest cheques.

---

Back to the Virus and Surge XT.

Looking at the list of artists using the Virus TI, one could rationalise that since almost all of these are 20th century artists who haven't made much of a splash in the 21st century, that it's really just an outdated synth "of its time" that has long been superseded by much more powerful solutions.

One could.

In reality, SXT and V are both capable synths for very different audiences.

I don't think SXT is a good match for OP. IMO (and I'm not blaming them, it's only natural), they went in with a strong bias for the V and were looking to have other people rationalise their decision - whether they themselves realise it or not.

 

Last edited: Nov 17, 2025 at 3:59 PM

Once could also argue that Vember Surge ended up as an equally dead product until those with feelings of nostalgia about it revived it. Quite obviously, with the number of users of OsTIrus, it's very hard to support that it is any of the things which certain user above had to say.

Obviously the market did not feel it was worth what they were charging for it as paid software. Most Windows users starting using it cracked.

If you cannot understand why so many synthesizer enthusiasts who have been such for decades and have dozens of synthesizers available to them for use, there is a very simple reason why. You've never used one. It's pretty amazing all the negative things people can have to say about things like this, when the only real basis for such claims is "I don't have one, never used one, never even seen one".

It permeates every uninformed snark little comment from the "i've used the emulation" wave of users who love all these free things and imagine themselves playing a physical device. Only to see them complain about users cranking out junk via Suno.

 

Surge is back, XTended and open source!

Thanks to the generosity of @Kurasu (owner of Vember Audio), Surge has been open sourced and lives on GitHub.
This page you're reading right now. Yup! This one right here. It's a part of the surge-synthesizer GitHub project.

 

Or devil's advocate it with Surge XT...

Who's it a good match for? Biden? Even its inheritors have broken it up or back up for VCVR and Cardinal, rather than focusing on SXT proper. What's up with that?

That the successful circuitry, the modular paths, depend more on the end-user than the software's programmer? Could be.

Ok, so maybe take those modules then and rearrange them in a new SXT UI/circuitry-path design?

I sort of forget the precise process, but I found myself wanting some kind of synth with some fizz and ended up downloading and installing Vacuum Pro, of all synths. The GUI, like Air's Loom 2 was too small and there seemed no way to scale it up-- what the hell is with Air anyway?-- but then I realized that I already have OsTIrus. Both it and SXT were just sitting there, lying around. It didn't hurt that both were FLOSS.

So I listened to some videos and looked up TI's specs and noticed that it was billed in part as virtual analogue. The videos also sounded great. Surge XT, on the other hand, seemed to offer videos that largely boiled down to tutorials and bread-and-butter sounds. Even Roger Linn's video I linked to in one of my comments in this thread seems to be using SXT for just that; bread-and-butter sounds, like watered-down emulations of real instruments. I already have Chromaphone, Swam and this resynthesized orchestral free synth lying around, but if I was going to classify myself of any kind of 'fanboy', it would probably be for additive, both synths, Harmor and Alchemy, in high regard, 'stolen' and locked into DAWs, which still angers me when I think about it. Possibly even the one who did the protoype for Reaktor was bought out by NI.

But additive seems to need a fizzy companion like virtual analogue and/or granular or whatever (Mok Waverazor, even, but the process/GUI again looks daunting)

As an aside, wavetable synths don't do much for me. There's something kind of plasticky or static about them or something. I even argued about it on Vital's website. If you've visited, you may already know who.

Ever heard of Steampipe, BTW? It's a Reaktor synth perhaps, but I hear it's pretty good/unique in its own way too. Reaktor has a fantastic free collection of synths in its library of course, but the setup seems kind of problematic in a closed-source as well as in a matryoshka kind of way, like the Parsec and Reason Rack matryoshka, within my DAW within my OS within my laptop. It's also not FLOSS, unlike the relatively-new Pure:data-wrapper, Plugdata, which is already looking/sounding great.

I think Szabo's Viper was alluded to in this thread, but it's $89. At the same time, however, if OsTIrus isn't going to evolve with its binary, then that might open an opportunity for Szabo to evolve it through Viper. Maybe he already has. But at $90 and proprietary, I'm fine with OsTIrus.

 

Last edited: Nov 18, 2025 at 12:35 AM

yeah I remember it. It was cool used physical modelling synthesis (Karpus Strong) and Surge has a String oscillator based on the same principle

 

Synth Parodies & De-Kludging SeXT?

Yes, SeXT has all kinds of stuff like that, so why are all the presets so Mickey Mouse? And then you have whoever dicking around and breaking it up to put it elsewhere-- VCV Rack/Cardinal-- (which might say something) rather than focusing on redesigning the UI 'at home', dare I say maybe even also the paths that draw in all those features more together in a holistic whole. Or something.

Has anyone in this thread since it started offered any places for ear-grabbing presets/sounds coming from SeXT? This is just plain cringe, if I use the term correctly.

Biden's 'out of it' in any context, yes? So why wouldn't he be anything other than a cardboard-cutout in your meme context here, like SeXT sounds heard so far?

Like Rebecca Black's tune as its own parody that then gets parodied and that I use to parody PulseWave's selection of Geldof's I Don't Like Mondays.

Surge went FLOSS maybe in part because of that, because they couldn't sell it. The sounds, despite the apparent complexity of the synth (more of a kludge than anything?), sucked, and not in a good way. There's good sucking and bad sucking. To suck or be sucked, that is the question.

OsTIrus is like a good soup with a binary-file fly in it. One could keep taking it out, but another would fly into it to take its place.

Meanwhile, excellent software-writers sell out to the culturally-pirating (appropriating) corporates.

The scientist or investigator-- often one-and-the-same-- goes into something with a 'bias'. That's how it works. It can be called a hunch, suspicion, hypothesis or theory. So maybe they then do observations and run experiments and so forth to test them, right?

So what can we learn from this experiment/test/observation?...

"KLudges are temporary, often inefficient solutions used to address problems arising from limitations in an existing IT architecture, typically implemented due to time constraints, budget pressures, or expedient decision-making. They are characterized by their ad-hoc nature and can manifest as scripts, workarounds, or physical fixes like improperly secured servers or tangled cabling. While kludges may provide immediate relief, they introduce long-term technical debt, increasing maintenance costs, system fragility, and complexity. Over time, these solutions can accumulate, leading to an unmaintainable system where changes become expensive and risky.

In contrast, a well-designed architecture aims to be adaptable, flexible, and capable of accommodating future changes without relying on such temporary fixes.

When kludges are used sparingly and replaced with proper solutions, they can serve as stopgap measures. However, if they persist beyond their intended lifespan, they become entrenched in the system, making it harder to scale, integrate with new technologies, or respond to business needs. The key distinction lies in intent and longevity: kludges are reactive and short-term, while robust architecture is proactive and sustainable."

~ Brave search consolidated results quote

 

Last edited by a moderator: Nov 18, 2025 at 3:34 AM

From the sound of it, you really have no clue what you are even dealing with here. OsTirus will NEVER 'evolve with its binary'. Get over anything ever advancing beyond what you already have. It's a finished product and was years ago at this point. Its an emulator of a hardware synthesizer. It's done, over with. Use what you have and enjoy it, or don't and keep chasing something else that you think will make your 'magic happen' (and it wont, that part comes from YOUR creativity). Next thing you know people are going to be yelling at the MAME team 'When are you going to fix Pac-Man crashing after level 255??'

Play with your ROM dump all you want. No one but Christoph Kemper will ever be able to add anything to it, if he wants, and he's long over the Virus lineup and has moved on to modeling guitar amps. Not to mention he still owns the firmware and is the only one with the source code (if it even still exists at this point).

 

While it's academic at this point, since you went with it, here's my comment earlier in this thread: (Especially note the last bit in bold if nothing else.)
____
Me:
Why is reverse-engineering the emulator legal but not reverse engineering the bin file? Could another bin file be used/programmed to get around the original bin file's copyright?

AI:
Reverse-engineering the emulator is legal because it involves creating new software that mimics hardware behavior without copying copyrighted code— typically done via clean- room design, where one team analyzes the system and another, isolated team implements it from functional specifications.

Reverse- engineering the bin file (firmware) is legally risky because the resulting code may still be considered a derivative work of the original copyrighted firmware. Even if recreated independently, if it performs identically and contains protected expression (not just functional elements), it can infringe copyright.

However, creating a new, clean-room firmware binary from scratch— based only on functional specifications, without copying or decompiling the original— can be legal. This new bin file would avoid copyright infringement by ensuring no protected code or structure is copied, relying solely on interoperability needs.
____

But maybe it was hallucinating.
In any case, to continue the academics/hypothetics, if OsTIrus is FLOSS and the binary is the only fly in a perfectly-good ointment, then it would seem to stand to reason that OsTIrus could 'evolve with a new open source binary', thus ditching the fly, and 'Kemper' for that matter. Computer tech-- hell, reality, itself-- is like that insofar as there are many ways to skin a cat.

Purely hypothetical at this point of course and I am under no illusions/hallucinations that it won't stay that way... in the same way that Surge XT won't likely offer 'better' in the time and/or with the patience that some of us have or don't have, respectively.

As for your "you really have no clue what you are even dealing with here" sample, methinks thou doth project too much, yes?

 

Last edited: Nov 18, 2025 at 4:12 AM

Sometimes you will get comments back like "you don't know what you are dealing with", when things you post contain obvious and glaring failures of logic in them. Sometimes simple writing style can give that impression. Do you see the error you have included, if someone wants to make such a comment?

 

Or reading-style or medium noise, etc..
(And some of my questions quoted were to an AI, rather than posed to a human. I interact with it differently than with a human.)

Life and language is full of 'errors', clone. If you see them, spell them out and in good faith. That helps cut through the crap... and even can help make the mods' work easier.

I recall once in a college chemistry class a prof asking me-- and other equally-annoyed-- questions-as-answers to my questions, rather than just answering the question directly and we got into a bit of a heated exchange because of it, and it derailed the original purpose and any answer or memory of the initial question... Until after the snack break and we fellow students had a chance to bitch about it. :D

If you think there is or are errors, then just spell them out without the 20-questions to further muddy the waters. Make your point. Don't use it to puff out and pound your chest that you're clued-in and we lowly laypeople noobz aren't-- that kind of thing.

BTW, we're all clueless in a sense since we depend on others in a complex society, right? So we cannot possibly know everything or even what kind of questions to ask or how to form them sometimes. And so I resent people in other specializations attempting to belittle those who are specialists elsewhere.

If the binary can be recreated within the legal framework, then what's the problem?

 

Last edited: Nov 18, 2025 at 7:50 AM

What you wrote "reverse engineering the emulator," literally means taking apart an existing emulator someone else made. But I know you meant reverse engineering the original synth to create a new emulator. The distinction matters, because the first is analyzing someone else’s code, while the second is a legitimate re-implementation based on the original hardware.

This is why above, you are telling someone they are making a specific comment because of projection.

In technical discussions, accuracy in wording is crucial, because sloppy phrasing lets others frame you as “wrong” even if your core idea is fine. It’s not about semantics for fun. it’s about preventing someone from projecting misunderstanding or dismissing you unnecessarily.

 

There are multiple problems with what you wrote here.
For example Surge died, because developer went to work on Bitwig. In general, something being abandoned, doesn't mean it was bad or wasn't selling - look at what happened to NI (who were the market leaders) when they got bought or to Fxpansion (similar story, its founder now works for Image Line).

And tons of users, including synth/EDM "legends", start by using warez.

 

Hi @Sackbut, below is the original dialogue from Vember Audio:

This is a 2018 post on the KVR Audio Forum (a large music production forum) where Claes announces the release.
Here's the gist of the original text (translated and shortened for clarity; the full thread is in English):

Subject: Surge Synthesizer Goes Open Source!

From: Claes Johanson (kurasu) – September 18, 2018 Hello everyone, I've decided to release the Surge source code as open source. The code is incomplete (Surge 1.6 was still under development), but it contains the core of the synth. I've invested a lot of time, and it feels right to leave it to the community—perhaps others can develop it further. Reasons:

- I no longer have the time to maintain it commercially (new features, bug fixes, etc.).
- It's a great synth, and I want it to live and grow, rather than gather dust.
- The community has always contributed great ideas and patches – now they can customize the code themselves.

The code is available under GPL3 on GitHub: github.com/kurasu/surge.
If you build or improve it, let me know! Thanks to all Surge users – it's been a great journey.

Claes

 

This is not a scientific website, clone, and I stand by my right to ask an AI/search engine questions in a fast and loose manner, certainly at least at the outset, such as if I'm not versed in the specialization and/or I'm more interested in just getting the questions out and then whittling them down as we go along. I seem to recall that being the case and quote from it.

I'm fine with shooting from the hip or warming up and maybe not hitting the bullseye all the time. If you knew what I meant-- the crux-- namely if the fly-in-the-ointment binary can be recreated within the legal framework, thus perhaps extending the synth's life/features-- then that's the sort of good faith I'm talking about, and if cherrypicking is going to happen, the sort of place I'd prefer it to be.

That said, would I be correct in assuming that there seems to be no argument against the idea of one day rewriting the binary?

 

Last edited: Nov 18, 2025 at 8:12 AM

Thanks and fair enough. I certainly appreciate devs who, if they're going to abandon their warez, they open them up to the community first. Even the free as in price stuff.

 

I don’t understand why these debates always turn into “how bad” the Virus or Surge supposedly is. Both are good, but the Virus is already a part of music-production history — various models of this synthesizer have been used in millions of tracks, from mainstream hits to all kinds of musical exotica. That’s not a coincidence but the natural result of successful engineering design, and a balance of cost, quality, and capabilities. And that is precisely what makes it such a strong answer to the question of which synthesizer to use when learning sound design.

I’m not trying to devalue Surge as an instrument, but the Virus is simply in a different league. What you can achieve on the Virus in a matter of minutes will be far more difficult on most other tools — and the results will likely be worse.

Another big misconception is that a more complex architecture produces a more “correct” or “interesting” sound. No — that has never worked. Even the Nord Lead 2, which is quite simple architecturally, still sounds far more interesting (within its limitations and tonal character) than 99% of plugins today.