Replacement for Virus?

[Shan]

Originally Posted by musicman691

How's the cpu hit versus DIVA? Urs does some neat stuff but the cpu usage tends to be on the high side.

I don't have Diva to compare it with. There's a demo of Discovery Pro you can grab to make some comparisons if needed.

Shane

[Marsdy]

Originally Posted by brianjanthony

I've got a boatload of soft synths- NI Komplete, SampleTank, UVI whatever its called, etc. When I had the TDM system, I had the Access Virus Indigo plugin. It was the perfect blend of simple patches and tweak ability.

When TDM was abandoned, so was the plugin. And I miss it. Dearly. I get lost in front of clients trying to navigate the NI stuff for simple sounds. And Sampletank is ok... But I was looking at stuff like Omnisphere and Alchemy (Now in Logic I gather?). Is that Overkill? I mean, I need arps and drones and simple stuff. I do rock and pop and metal mostly. I do some rb production.

Anyone still remember that plug? And what do you use now?
b

Yeah I loved the Virus Indigo. It was based on the Virus B which i'd previously owned. (It was easy to port to TDM because it used the same Motorola DSP chip.)

I was REALLY missing it when I moved to HDX so I bought a hardware Virus Ti2. It didn't sound as good to me. (It uses a different DSP chip.) The TDM version mapped to the C24 incredibly well. With the Ti2 there was too much time digging through menus. I got rid of it.

I'm now using Air Hybrid 3 as a replacement which I love. The super saw waveform is WAY fatter and than on the Ti2 which I was disappointed with. I've got to know it really well and can almost always get the sound I want out of it. If I need a really fat bass I use a Moog Sub 37 though,

Another bonus is the you can automate ANY parameter with Pro Tools automation rather than MIDI continuos controllers.

[Stereo Missile]

If you want to go u-he and you want a fairly simple, easy to use, great sounding synth go for Hive instead. I have found Diva sounds great for some things, it does analog sounding stuff well but it is very heavy on CPU, and I don't find it to be the easiest or most intuitive synth to edit. It also tends to sound more like the softer analog style synths rather than the aggressive digital kind of sounds that I think of when the Virus is talked about. Hive is light on CPU, simple to program and sounds great. Comes with a heap of patches too.

Hybrid is also fine, although it can sound a bit more digital and doesn't have a lot of analog style warmth to it's sound if you want that.

There are others as well like Synthmaster which are supposed to be good.

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by Stereo Missile

If you want to go u-he and you want a fairly simple, easy to use, great sounding synth go for Hive instead. I have found Diva sounds great for some things, it does analog sounding stuff well but it is very heavy on CPU, and I don't find it to be the easiest or most intuitive synth to edit. It also tends to sound more like the softer analog style synths rather than the aggressive digital kind of sounds that I think of when the Virus is talked about. Hive is light on CPU, simple to program and sounds great. Comes with a heap of patches too.

Hybrid is also fine, although it can sound a bit more digital and doesn't have a lot of analog style warmth to it's sound if you want that.

There are others as well like Synthmaster which are supposed to be good.

I've had Synthmaster for a while now. It's not easy programming sounds from scratch; better off to start with a preprogrammed sound that's close and go from there. Creating fluid sounds that evolve over time has been the hardest part for me. Killer sounds for EDM and vintage synth type stuff. I haven't stress-tested for cpu usage but I've run 8 instances inside PT11.3.1 without my machine even breathing hard.

One that I grudgingly like is the Synclavier 2 that Arturia just came out with. Reason I say grudgingly is there are some issues with it that Arturia hasn't quite nailed yet and things that need to be added (stuff like the sampling/resynthesis mode the real world Synclavier 2 had) and some patch creation tools that would help like copy/paste inside each partial. That being said it's a wonderfully deep synth with sounds that can go on for days (it's an additive/FM synth).

It ain't cheap and Arturia's pricing doesn't cut one a break if you want it separate from the V Collection 5 upgrade. The demo runs for 20 minutes at a time and you can't save or recall presets from within the plugin (but you can save an edited patch from within a PT session).

[Eric Lambert]

Arturia recently updated some of the V5 instruments. I've not yet checked for bugs/missing components but that update came quick. I don't think they offer any alternatives to the Virus, which was a very in-your-face "digital" synth. Many synths these days aim for analog emulation which sounds great but isn't a Virus.

For that kind of thing I look at FabFilter's Twin2. It's not as easy to use but it has "that" sound.

RE: Discovery Pro, isn't that VST and AU only? No AAX?

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by Eric Lambert

Arturia recently updated some of the V5 instruments. I've not yet checked for bugs/missing components but that update came quick. I don't think they offer any alternatives to the Virus, which was a very in-your-face "digital" synth. Many synths these days aim for analog emulation which sounds great but isn't a Virus.

For that kind of thing I look at FabFilter's Twin2. It's not as easy to use but it has "that" sound.

RE: Discovery Pro, isn't that VST and AU only? No AAX?

None of Arturia's stuff can be used as a Virus replacement. That trying to find a replacement is difficult is a shame. This is just one more area where, I've said it before and will say it again, that TC left us Powercore users out in the cold when they stopped development and support for that platform. They have a pretty decent Virus emulation in there because they used the same dsp chips in both units.

[Shan]

Originally Posted by Eric Lambert

RE: Discovery Pro, isn't that VST and AU only? No AAX?

It will have to be hosted if your using PT for MIDI productions. Last I heard, their port to AAX was put on hold due to issues.

Shane

[brianjanthony]

I use VE PRO for everything anyways


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[Sampler Banker]

Unfortunately I did not find a proper replacement for Virus either.
Dune2 and Spire are very close but I still miss the grainy, unpredictable side of Virus occasionally. I still use the Powercore version a lot...

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by Sampler Banker

Unfortunately I did not find a proper replacement for Virus either.
Dune2 and Spire are very close but I still miss the grainy, unpredictable side of Virus occasionally. I still use the Powercore version a lot...

What's your computer setup you can still run the Poco? Mine is a paperweight due to TC not doing proper drivers for Macs, particularly Intel Macs.