| This page contains frequently asked questions (FAQ) about the Virus Synthesizer by Access. If wish to contribute to this collection, please use this direct email link to canine, keeper of the FAQ
At the end of this list you will find some links to FAQs about synths and virtual analog synthesis in general. HINT: use your browser's "find" command to search for specific terms on this page. |
![[Virus logo, stolen from the ACCESS site]](gif/virus_logo.jpg){kind=logo} |
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| Basic/Troubleshooting Errors and misbehaviour Arpeggiator Clock LFO OSC External Inputs Technicals and hardware questions User interface System updates Virus b and Virus kb Theory For prospective buyers Future ACCESS Sounds/Backing up |
![[smoky Virus picture]](gif/smokevirus.jpg) [raucous and posh, advanced and simulated] |
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Basic/Troubleshooting
Q- Whenever something seems to be wrong with your Virus try the following: A-
Q- How do I set up my MIDI chain to use my computer, my Virus and my masterkeyboard which is also a sampler (or synth)? A-Set it up like this: KEYBOARD OUT -- COMPUTER IN Make sure the KEYBOARD is in "MULTI" (not omni) mode and your instruments are saved with MIDI-Status=MIDI (not "Local" or "Both"). Now if you want to record the knob movements from the Virus, just take the cable out of the KEYBOARD OUT and put it into the VIRUS OUT. Alternatively, if you think your MIDI setup will stay like this or similar to this, it could make sense to buy a MIDI merger, a little box that would combine the MIDI streams from the KEYBOARD OUT and the VIRUS OUT. Q- I can't find the "Delay clock" (or another paramter) where it should be. I double, triple, extrachecked and it's still not there. A-Reset your Virus (see above in the Basic Troubleshooting section). Sometimes weird things cause the Virus to get confused. You can usually alleviate this by resetting the Virus. Q- I keep getting obscure "Parapeek" errors A-This seems to be a bug in version 1.53 of the OS. Apparently this bug only appears when the Virus is set to Snap mode, as a workaround set the Knobs to Jump mode for the time being. This bug has been fixed in version 1.54. The easy solution is: Upgrade...! Q- Upon turning on the Virus, the display comes alive but remains empty (there is no text displayed) A- Turn off the Virus and turn it back on while pressing "LFO1 Shape" and "LFO 2 Shape" simultaneously. until the Virus reinitialises the System. If you want you can also reload the factory preset sounds this way. Q- Upon turning on the Virus, the display flashes once then goes black. When I turn the Virus on and off after this, nothing happens. A-Make sure the power supply is connected to the Virus and to the wall socket. Usually the Virus is not plugged in when this happens. The flashing of the display is caused by current still trapped somewhere inside the unit. (The same current that is the cause behind all those warning stickers that say "No user servicable parts inside..."). The Virus' capacitors unload, then there the current is gone. Q- In the Arpeggiator, what exactly is "As played" and what can it be used for? A-The big deal about "As Played" is to use it in connection with a hold pedal on your master keyboard. The hold pedal works on the arpeggiator in a way that it does not hold the notes themselves, but holds the notes in the arpeggiator line (in some ways similar to the Arp Hold Mode). When holding the hold pedal in AsPlayed mode, it is possible to play in an individual phrase line, witch is repeated as long as you hold the pedal. The Phrase cannot be saved or edited. The Arpeggiator holds up to 16 notes in its line, each part individually. The big difference from not using the hold pedal is, that you can use the same note more than once in the line, so there are no limits to the phrase. Without the hold pedal, every note can exist only once in the arpeggiator line, because it is erased from the line when you release the key to hit it again. Q- My Arpeggiators are not syncing to the beat. What gives? A-Make sure your sequencer is actually sending Midi Clock to the Virus. You can verify this by looking at the display. The display should show a little "c" in e upper left hand corner. This indicates that the Virus indeed receives Midi clock. To connect the arpeggiator of a Single sound that was programmed on an V1.12 OS or older to the external Midi Clock, you have to switch the ARPEGGIATOR CLOCK parameter to the desired clock resolution. With this setting, the arpeggiator is connected to the internal Master Clock. The Master Clock locks itself to an incoming Midi Clock automatically. Do it the same way with the delay and the LFO's. The ARPEGGIATOR CLOCK parameter cannot be set back to OFF, the arpeggiator timing stays linked to the master clock. Q- Why can I only set the clock to 63-190 bpm? Isn't Access aware of ambient and Gabba or something? A-The internal clock can be externally synced to tempos from 0 to 240. The internal limitation of 63 to 190 is simply a trade-off between 128 possible tempo settings and a desired tempo resolution. The real tempo resolution for external sync is 23 bit (~ 8 million tempo settings). contributed byChristoph Kemper, Access Q- Why don't LFO 1 and LFO 2 have a sinewave shape? A-They do, but you have to activate it via MIDI. For LFO 1 it's controller number 68, for LFO 2 it's controller number 80. The range of this paramter is 0-5 where 0 means sinewave, 1 means triangle, 2 means saw, 3 means pulse, 4 means S&H and 5 means S&G. When the sinewave is selected, the triangle light will be lit but you will notice you will have to press it twice to get to the saw. Q- How come I can't modulate the volume with the LFO? A-That parameter is there (rtfm...) but it's hiding behind an unclear name: "FILT GAIN" in LFO 1 is exactly that: it modulates the "OSC VOL", thereby also increasing the gain on the filter. This results in a change in volume and -- if saturation is on -- also modulates the intensity of the filter gain. FILT GAIN is a VCA within the voice. It has no effects on the release of highly resonant filters. This means that transients (short OSC signals, punch) can be sent through the filter and resonate, even after there is no more input signal. Q- In the LFO and chorus sections what does S&G stand for? A-It's "sample and glide". Sort of like sample and hold but it "glides" from value to value, slithering like a snake...;) Q- My LFO Rate leds flash funny, out of sync with the LFO A-There is a setting in the CTRL menu, where the LEDs can be set to "LFO", "ExtIn" or "Auto". Auto means that they follow the external signal if there is one present. Otherwise they will follow the LFO rate. Q- Why does the Virus only have 2 OSC and a suboscillator? I want my Minimoog-style 3 real oscillators! A-The reason why Access included a suboscillator was that the suboscillator takes nearly no calculation power doing a sqare wave or a triangle wave. A sine oscillator takes too much power. Q- Voice level when using input mode A-The Oscillator Volume knob works even when the Virus is in Input mode. You can control the voice level by that knob when you are experiencing overloads in the filter or the output stage even though the input gain is adjusted correctly. Distortion actually may occur when you play many notes in Dynamic Input mode. This happens because all voices serve the same input signal and so all voices are correlated to each other (as opposed to many different oscillator signals when not using the eternal inputs, those are not correlated). The result is a fast increase of volume level by the voice amount, thereby causing possible distortions. The noise generator still works in both Input modes. Q- Stereo Inputs A-When you choose both inputs as a stereo source (or one of the aux busses as a stereo source), the single (or part in a multi) invisibly switches into TWIN mode automatically, so the input signal is processed full stereo using two voices. In this case, the TWIN PanoramaSpread and TWIN LfoPhase parameters are active. Q- I am using the "Ext-In" and I programmed a sound that is using the Audio Input as a source. If I put this sound on Output 2 I can still hear the signal on Output 1. A-In Multi-Mode every part can use the Audio-Input. Thus if another part uses the same sound-program (or another program that uses the external input) and that part is routed to Output 1, the Audio-In can be heard there too. Solution: select a different sound for the other part (one that doesn't use Audio-In) Q- My Virus came with OS 1.x. Is there difference in the faceplate of the Viruses that shipped with OS 1.xx vs. 2.xx? Do the new Viruses have a labeled section for the vocoder like the diagram in the 2.0 manual addendum? A-There is no faceplate change. The same knobs are, in vocoder mode, dedicated to a different parameter than is listed on the faceplate. Upgrade immediately to v2.x! contributed by DTM catron3@slip.net Q- Which DSP is used inside the Virus? A-It uses a Motorola DSP 56303. Q- Although I set my Sound X to Output 2, I can still hear it in Output 1. A-In release 1.12 of the OS the FX are always on Output 1. This will be changed in future releases for the chorus, the Delay will always remain on Output 1. The only solution: reroute your sounds or switch off the FX on those sounds you don't want to hear on Output 1. Q- How can the Virus be 16-part multitimbral when it only has 12 voices? Does this make sense? A-oh yes, it does. The twelve voices are distributed dynamically between the 16 parts. A part can be active (usable from your sequencer) even though it is not playing. This allows you to alternate between two (or more sounds) or to change sounds without sending program changes etc. The Virus has one of the most sophisticated anti-note-stealing algorithms. Thus you may be using sounds from more programs than 12 and since the Virus only steals those notes that are inaudible, you will not notice that note stealing is taking place. This is where it truely makes sense to have more partsa than voices. In something like a drumpattern you may be using more than 12 individual parts, but no more than 12 sound at the same time. So there is no reason to limit yourself to 12 possible programs, is there? ;-) Q- How can I rack mount the Virus? A- You need to buy rack mount "ears" that replace the wooden side panels. To do this, you need to open the Virus (ignore the "void warranty" sticker. This will not (Access have confirmed this!) void your warranty) and replace the bottom and sides of the Virus with the rack-mount kit. Keep in mind that you will need quite a bit of space above the Virus for the cables. If space is an issue, get special cables with angled jacks. Q- Why can't I use the value knob to quickly dial-up patches. A-Well, it's there: Just hold down the SINGLE button while turning the VALUE knob ! Q- I bought a Virus with english manuals, don't they have an italian manual? This most likely holds true for many other languages, sadly. So I guess it's time for that english class after all...;) Q- How do I load the Virus with a system update? A-(From the read me that comes with each update):
While receiving the file, the VIRUS displays the current block number that was received. If an error occurs, the display shows the message "RECEPTION FAILED". If this message appears, a problem in the MIDI transmission of either your sequencer or your MIDI interface occured. In this case you should repeat the above procedure first, maybe with a slower tempo (e.g. 60bpm). If it again fails, you should contact your sequencer/MIDI interface dealer for a possible solution. After transmission you have to press the STORE button to start the burn procedure that writes the operating system into the Flash ROM. Make sure that the VIRUS isn't switched off during this procedure. After the burn procedure, you can finally decide if you want to copy the included factory sounds to the RAM or not. You can either copy them to bank A or B.Attention: Sounds that were located on these banks are lost! Q- is the virus presently a finished version? A-Yes. Since version 1.53, the Virus contains everything that is mentioned in the original manual. Since then, Access has augmented the VIRUS' capabilities way beyond that. the current OS version (august 1999) is 2.51 which contains a modulation matrix, a ringmodulator and a vocoder, among other things. All of these upgrades have been free of charge and were all downloadable from the internet. Q- How can I transfer a system to/from my friend's Virus? A-(Again from the read me that comes with the system): Connect the MIDI Out of the VIRUS with the newer update with the MIDI In of the VIRUS that should be updated. Switch both VIRUS' on with the procedure described above. Select "Send" on the VIRUS that should transmit the OS and select "Receive" on the other one. First, press STORE on the receiving VIRUS and then on the transmitting VIRUS to start the OS transmission. If you have never loaded in a 1.5x OS, the receiving Virus will ask for the factory sounds to be transmitted the next time it is switched on. Transmitting the sounds is required and does not overwrite your existing sounds unless you want them to be overwritten. Q- How does the Virus compare to other modelled analogs A-A- I love my nord lead, but i believe it is the best of the lot, it is different from the others, fatter, dirtier, and more movement in the sounds!! the pads are also better-it is a pad-machine!! (-weld) (Canine speaking) Here are a few things only the Virus can do, If you know a bit of the specs of other VA synthesizers, you can compare them for yourself. Not all of these features will be interesting for everybody. So you will have to decide which synth suits your taste and your needs. Most importantly the sound and the feeling of the synth make up a large part of how you are going to like it. So: go out and try it, listen to it and decide. Don't listen to us. We are Biased Beyond Belief...;) The Virus is 16 part multitimbral, 12 voice polyphonic. It has two filters (instead of one on the Nord) with "Saturation" (distortion) after the first. Both filters can be LP, HP, BP or band reject. There are four different filter routings. The Virus has an external input that can be used with a MIDI note (giving you the envelopes and LFO "Key Trigger" function) or without (making the virus an external filter box). The signal passes both the filter and the effects. The Virus has ADSTR envelopes, the T stands for "Sustain Time". The value at the sustain stage can in- or decrease after the specified time. This applies to the filter and the amp envelope. The Virus has two user-definable buttons that can do anything you want. The LFOs are "per-voice" as opposed to "per part" (as on the Nord). The OSCs have 64 waves, so you can modulate the sound at OSC level already. The Virus has a built in chorus and a delay (with modulation, can do very weird things). To read about the Nord Modular, refer to the following website (courtesy of Mark Pulver (http://www.midiwall.com): http://www.midiwall.com/nordmodular/babble2.html Q- What does the virus sound like? A-Very very chameleon like!!! the analog sounds are smooth, fat, and big, it also has a certain nasty edge (with its fm, sync, and spectral waves) if you want it, that even goes beyond the nord fm stuff. the spectral waves are not a ppg in the virus. you can get some ppg/microwave type sounds though. canine says: you can make a new pad-sound every minute, it's so good. the bass is very fat, deep low end but still very growly. Also the envelope structure is wonderful (the LFOs can act as envelopes) and very very fast, so percussive sounds like bassdrums and snaredrums are also possible. The noise generator can sound very digital. The filter saturation, delay and chorus make the Virus a great standalone synth to bring along for a gig with a PowerBook and Virus only... There have been complaints that the Virus lacks some bass response and some punchiness when creating sounds such as bassdrums when compared to the Nord Lead. Generally it's very analog. Q- what makes the virus unique? A-For one thing there are different filter routings very reminesent of the rhodes chroma. also the sub osciallor gives you that extra fatness you may be looking for. also the midi processing is extremly fast. you can have a very complex muti patch being sequenced ans still twiddle those knobs and not get any midi delays. unlike other multi modes the virus is very practical. with 3 sets of stereo outs, you dont have to run all your sounds thru 2 outs. Canine adds: with two independent filters, the filter overdrive and those really wicked fast LFOs (three!) that can oscillate independantly per voice, plus the waveshapes and FM there really is too much variation for boredom anytime soon... Oh, and I didn't even mention the filter input that can be routed internally: if an output is routed to an AUX-out, it can (without having it go analog) be rerouted through the filter, thus passing the filter stage twice. This gives you the power of four filters, two overdrives, two delay and two chorus lines. six LFOs influence the sound and four envelopes. But it's nothing until you hear it. Q- Is there anything you don't like about the Virus? A-Shhhhh. you don't want to get stoned to death for heresy. But actually there are a few things many of us are not all crazy about. The Virus has no Envelope follower for the external signal, no step sequencer, has quite a few pages behind the display, there are two menu buttons (CTRL and EDIT) and it takes a bit of getting used to in order to quickly find the desired function in there. This gets much better and more logical once you use the Virus more often. (Note: the kb uses a slightly different user interface). It only has 12 voices without an option to put more in there. (Note: the keyboard version has 16 voices). There is no phaser in the FX section. It only has 2 OSC and a sub-OSC. All of these aren't major issues, but since this is not a company forum, we can be honest and post these things for everybody who is looking for the truth... (just to prove that it is out here...;) Q- where can i buy one ? A-Right now here in the states try eurosynth or music central and guitar center. lowest price ive heard is acout 1100$$ u.s. Canine speaks for germany: many dealers seem to have them on backorder. shop around, look for adds in magazines and make sure you don't have to wait forever. Prices have recently (May 1998) gone up to about 2800 DM. Q- can you compare it to some vintage gear A-Well i dont like this type of question, because its sounds uniqe, but i have been able to get memorymoogish-prophet sounding stuff from it, and on the other end it sort of reminds me of the jd-800 sound. i am totally overwelmed with the sound, and do not regret selling my jupiter 8 anymore contributed byweld Q- what will they be adding A-Access keeps pretty quiet about that. To let them know wht you think should be included please visit the wishlist to leave your suggestion! Q- What's this about a Virus b and Virus kb? what are the differences to the Virus? A- The Virus b is the successor to the Virus. Over two years after the release of the original Virus, Access decided that it was time to use the DSP power available today and put it into the Virus. The Virus b has a slightly different user interface and a faster DSP thus 16 voices. The buttons look different and so do the knobs. Nothing big and whether you'll like better or worse it will probably depend on your personal taste. Basically the Virus b is the rack-mounted version of the Virus kb (see below). Q- what are the main differences between the Virus and the Virus kb? A-Besides the keyboard (obvious one) the DSP used in the kb version is faster and thus allows for 16 (instead of 12) voices. The user interface on the kb is a bit different, next to the different sections (LFO, OSC, FILT, etc.) there are "EDIT" buttons which send the EDIT menu straight to the corresponding page. Q- where can I find information about analog and virtual analog synthesis? A-Try these weblinks: The Analog Cottage - http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/The_Analog_Cottage/ University at Portland - http://nmc.uoregon.edu/emi/ Electronic Music at Hyperreal - http://www.hyperreal.com Q- The Basics of MIDI A-Just for those on the list with the need to know the basics of MIDI and synthesis. If words such as LFO, oscillator and er... so on baffles you (they definitely confuse me rather a lot!), then point your browsers to this site: http://www.harmony-central.com/MIDI/Doc/tutorial.html Q- What is the Steinberg Studio Module ? I A-It is an addon for Cubase allowing you to manage your patches rather by their names than by bank/program- number. You may define instruments inside Cubase and assign soundnames to your tracks or parts. What is a Studio Module Driver ? Where can I use the driver ? What are the features of the VIRUS Studio Module Driver ?
With every data type you can up- and download the corresponding data and store it on your harddisk or floppy. The SINGLES and MULTIS data types have an extra AUX section. You can load a different soundset into the AUX section in order to transmit the whole patch data everytime you select a sound from there. And if you press the "info" button you will find me. ;-) contributed byFrom "Philipp Mott" flp@bigfoot.de Q- I can hardly tell the difference between Waldorf and TSI. Are they the same company? There seem to be lots of shared staff, email addresses and stuff. Spooky. A-TSi is a distributor while Waldorf and Access are manufacturers. Waldorf was first founded by TSi in the late 80's do build hardware products for Steinberg. Access is a manufacturer that is distributed world wide by TSi. However, Access and Waldorf partly share the same suppliers and 3rd party manufacturing facilities. contributed by Wolfram Franke (wmf@tsi-gmbh.de) Q- Does Access have any other products besides the Virus? A-Yes they do. Besides the line of synthesizers (Aug. 99: Virus (to be discontinued), Virus b and Virus kb) they make a hardware programmer (think "buttons and knobs") for the Waldorf Microwave and the Oberheim Matrix 1000. These came out before the Virus did and are semi hard to find and seem to be (at least temporarily) out of production. If you need one of these, contact Access about it. If there is enough demand, we can probably get them to manufacture some more of them. Also: there is a rumor about a certain Access helicopter in the make, but little evidence to support it. ;-) Q- I would like to participate in the sharing of sounds but i was under the impression that you cannot share single patches A-It's easy: go to the MIDI page where it says: MIDI dump TX and turn the parameter to "Single Buff". That's it. Q- I am trying to save my sounds to a sequencer for backup (or uploading)-purposes but the sequencer chokes on the sysex-load. A-Make sure the Sequencer doesn't "Midi-thru" the Sysex-Data the Virus sends to it. Even when the Virus is disconnected from the MIDI-out of the sequencer, the sequencer can choke on Sysex overload. In Logic go to the "Recording options" and switch off the "Sysex Thru" option. That way it should work. Q- 303 type sounds A-"I just want to know if anyone has find the original TB 303 sound with the virus i have tried but with not a good result :(" Well, this won't help you, but I did get a fabulous acid line out of it with some minor modifications to one of the factory patches (it's in the 20-29 range). Not having the Virus here at work, I can't tell you the exact parameters, but I'd say some keys to a solid 303 sound: Q- Ringmodulation: A-The ringmodulation respectively amplitude-modulation of noise and LFO is already possible on the Virus: Simply turn up the noise volume and modulate the FILT GAIN by LFO 1. Q- How do I use the vocoder? A-Well I finally installed v2.01 last night - I hadn't been using the vocoder much, but I wanted that spectral balance thang. Of course now I have to hit the CTRL key to switch banks, but never mind. For convenience I played story records through the Virus - 'Ali Baba & the 40 Thieves'. this gave me half an hour of talking wihout me feeling stupid talking into it myself :-) Here are a few simple tips for getting good results. The frequencies of the input signal are very important for getting understandable speech. So begin by setting your carrier signal (the synth sound) to something very simple, a fairly clear sound using only one oscillator say (turn osc balance all the way to Osc 1 or 2). Don't use a sine wave as this has no harmonics and filtering it does not sound exciting. I suggest a sawtooth wave to begin as this gives plenty of 'raw material' for the vocoder to shape. Make sure you are using the maximum 32 bands if you want clarity (filter release knob) Now concentrate on maximising the input of the voice. Hit the Filter 2 button and turn keyfollow (the bandwidth control) a bit below maximum. The reason is that the human voice has a fairly narrow frequency range, from about 150 to 2500 hertz. I get best results with the spread control at about +45 for female voices and a bit higher for male. Negative values will cause the voice to be vocoded 'inside out' which is interesting but usually incomprehensible for speech. Higher spread values introduce a chorusing effect that is very interesting but may sound corny if you are trying to make a scary voice! Next use Cutoff 2 to sweep the frequency range around. Make it a little lower for deep voices. Finally use the Time (=spectral balance) knob to bring out the high or the low tones in the frequency range you select. These two controls interact heavily: I got the best results by pushing the frequency range (cutoff2) to cut out the lowest frequencies in the input and using the Time knob to bring out the deep tones. Too bassy a signal coming in (via cutoff2) and you will get a lot of mud due to the power of the low frequencies. To tame high signals and distortion from 'sss' sounds, increase the attack a little and also lower the Q-factor so that the bands don't overlap so much. I did not use the Q a whole lot, although I suspect there are sounds where it makes a huge difference. Finally, twiddle the filter balance to compare with a 'clean' input signal. I found it fairly easy to home in on a good combination of input parameters this way. Now go wild with the osciallators and see what differnt timbres sound like when they are vocoded. Is uggest sticking with one oscillator to begin, and sweeping through the wave table to hear a wide variety of textures. Square waves can give you a weird 'talking through a pipe' effect. Try adding in the other oscillator and raising the FM parameter a bit - this will give you lots of crunchy noise to work with and may even improve the speech quality a little. Raising or lowering the pitch of the oscillators can give you an easy way to make a voice sound deeper or lighter. Mix with the original signal and sample it for a simple way to enhance a flat or weak vocal sound. A little work with the filter envelope modifier can also add extra texture to a voice. Don't forget that the delay and flanger/chorus work on vocoder patches too. The flange effect is particularly nice with heavy negative feedback, short delay, and a slow LFO rate - this will make the voice sound like it's falling endlessly or slowing down when it it isn't really. If you can match the flange LFO with LFO1 and put a gentle pitchbend or PW modulation you can get something really weird and wonderful. A clock-synced delay eith low feedback and 2 or 3 repeats (not the same as chorus FB) sounds nice and can help a vocode to sit better in a track. I had the most fun when I redirected the siganl on Ch2 (a normal patch) to Aux 1+2 and used that as my carrier signal. Now you can vocode onto a fully shaped sound. Calrity sometimes goes down when you do this, but it's worth it for the weird modulation effects you can get in return - and the lower the clarity, the stranger the modulation in my experience :-) I mostly used my own sounds to experiment with, but you might like to try a patch like B19 Crispy RP. Put everything over to OSC2 and drop the pitch on that osciallator by 2 octaves. Open a LP filter and increase the resonance to about 65 for a lovely sound. If you like freaky stuff, also try using the modulator (voice) as the input for the carrier, and vocode it with itself. (You can also vocode 2 external sounds by running them seperately to Input L + R and selecting these inputs for modulator and carrier respectively). The controls do really strange things (watch your hearing! don't use headphones, keep the volume down) in this case, and adding echo or flange to the result is good too. You will not get a standard vocode type sound but you will get some really strange spectral effects that will have people asking what plug-in you used :) If you are in a real hurry then this is also a cheap way to spectrally enhance any vocal or acoustic sound and make it seem 'bigger' - just mix a little of the original and vocoded-with-itself signal and it will sound like the speaker is right beside you. Finally, use 2 patches in the Virus and vocode them with each other to get something very unusual-sounding. A rich evolving pad or a skippy arpeggiator (or drum sounds) will be nice on the voice, and something with alot of character - perhaps a thin sound rather than a fat one - is good for the carrier signal. If you also remap some controls so that you can modify both patches simultaneeously (sequencer control mappings or a filter box) then you can make wild changes in both patches at once and produce the sound of a Kripthalian rock wole. At least that's what I think it was. I hope these basic suggestions are useful for a few people. Anig Browl PS when I am designing sounds I often use a spectrogram program on my PC that draws a scrolling frequency analysis on my screen and lets me see the sound as I turn the knobs. As well as being fun to watch when stoned, this is also a very good way to understand what is going on in a synth. I started using it on CD tracks and learned a lot from just looking at how other people blend textures. Since I also use Coagula to turn pictures into sounds (and filter or vocode *those*), I am starting to wonder if my computer thinks it is tripping on acid most of the time :) "Anig Browl" eddy@anig-browl.org Q- Can I use the Virus for a choir type sound? A-"For choirs you should try strong formants (careful use of static filter resonance and chorus might get you there)." OK, this has gone on long enough. To do vocal choir type sounds well, you need at least three tunable highly resonant filters. You tune them to form whatever vowel sound you want. The Virus only has two, so it will not be so great at doing this. If you have additional hardware like MAM or Doepfer triple bandpass filters, they will help a lot. A parametric EQ will help a little bit, but they don't allow enough of a Q setting. A vocoder that has a freeze function can also be used, and then tailored with additional filtering. Robert Moog wrote some articles on vocal simulation 10 to 20 years ago in Keyboard magazine, if you have access to those. Also the German Doepfer website has the online manual for the A-127 triple bandpass filter showing frequency settings for different vowel sounds. |
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