ORIGINAL: awilki01

So, it seems as though I will have to connect its audio outputs to my PC. Which audio output? Analog/SPDIF? How do I make the Virus send out on those?

Are you referring to recording the sounds from your Virus into Sonar, or using the Virus as your soundcard? I don't typically use the Virus as my soundcard per se, but I can tell how to connect it for recording it into Sonar.

I use the analog Output 1 on my Virus, but you could use the S/PDIF if your soundcard supports it. The Virus should automatically send the signal to the S/PDIF output. See page 133 on your manual to set the analog outputs, but I believe that it is set to Output 1 (L & R) by default. Connect the MIDI IN of the Virus to the MIDI OUT of your soundcard, and vice versa.

...the Virus audio device is 'grayed' out and I cannot select it as an input device. Is this because Sonar doesn't fully support it yet?

No, Sonar supports it. I just tried it and had no problem using my Polar as both an input and output device. In Sonar, go to Options > Audio, then select the Drivers tab in the Audio Options dialog box. I would start by deselecting everything in both the Input Drivers and Output Drivers boxes, then select Virus USB ASIO IN as your input and Virus USB ASIO OUT for your output. You'll have to restart Sonar for the changes to take effect. Hopefully, this works, but if not, then something else needs to be changed in Sonar's audio options.

...I'm not sure if my Audigy 2 soundcard can handle the inputs.

I'm not sure either - does it have two 1/4" inputs? If not, you'll need to get adapters or use S/PDIF if your soundcard supports it. FWIW, I have an E-mu 0404 USB that is dedicated to the Virus to get around the realtime rendering issue. The 0404 has two Neutrik inputs (XLR/1/4"), S/PDIF, and MIDI In/Out. It sells for $199, works great, and is a much better soundcard than the Audigy.

I thought one of the points of the Virus TI was that it could be your audio device..............be honest with me....do I need to go with something like Cubase to get the full benefit of my TI?

Yes, it can be your audio device with Sonar. I also have Cubase SL3 and the TI performs the same way and I get the same error message when trying to bounce the TI to audio. Granted, I'm not as well-versed in Cubase as I am in Sonar, so there may be some user error going on there. Regardless, a cheaper way to go would be to upgrade your soundcard while Cakewalk/Access work out the compatibility issues. Besides, have you been to the Cubase forums recently? Not a happy bunch of campers!

One last thing - if you haven't already done so, go to the Access website and make sure your Virus OS and Virus Control software are up to date - they released updates to both just recently. HTH.

-Dave

p.s. I checked out your tunes - very cool! I'm a fellow trancehead.

any news?

I just got the email announcing the release of OS 2.0.3. I'm not sure if there are any fixes with regard to the Sonar issues, but I'll check it out this evening. Anybody else installed it yet? The download comes with some new videos and some new sound banks that the users on the Access forums are raving (no pun intended) about!

Hi everyone

The problems with the Virus TI and Sonar are now being investigated, so it'd be great if you could help in putting together a list of the Sonar-specific issues encountered with the Virus TI/Virus Control.

I've not used Virus Control for a while due to the issues I had with it, so the problem descriptions below may need some corrections. If so, please let me know. So far I have:

1. Latency
The VC (Virus Control) plugin seems to work okay as far as latency is concerned when it's the only plugin running. However, once you add any other plugins in addition to VC, all the other plugins are delayed to an extent that they’re practically unplayable (presumably to make up for the delay added by the VC plugin).
In OS2.0, Access added a direct mode (clicking the D-button for the desired channel), which is to be used when recording an instrument on that particular channel. This causes the VC plugin to output via the TI’s analog outs rather than its USB output, which effectively gets rid of any delay while recording. However, since no other plugins have this workaround, they get the dreaded latency added. What this means in practical terms is that other plugins are not really usable while the VC plugin is loaded (ie pretty much all the time in a real-world scenario), as severe latency is added to them. If you disable the VC plugin in the synth rack, all other plugins can be used as usual, with no latency added.

2. Audio driver not exposed in Sonar
There's no way of adjusting any of the Virus TI ASIO-USB settings, as Sonar does not seem to expose the TI ASIO-USB Control Panel at all (see attached image). However, I'm actually a bit unsure if the Virus TI audio driver is required in relation to the VC, or if it's only relevant when the TI is being used as a regular audio interface – but I’m guessing this could help with the VC-plugin’s latency as well.

With regard to USB bouncing: It's been quite a while since I experimented with VC and USB recording, so I'm a little rusty on this aspect. As far as I recall, you could do regular - as in realtime - recording of USB tracks but not faster-than-realtime bounces akin to Sonar's freeze - correct? If not, could someone chime in on the specific issues in this respect?

Let me know if there are any clarifications to the above, and if there are any additional issues that need addressing and I'll pass them on.

Thanks!

- Asbjoern

Hi Asbjoern,

I also saw your thread on the Unofficial Virus Forums - thanks for taking the lead on this and let me know if/how I can assist you. I'm dying to see the track rendering issue resolved (i.e., one of the primary reasons I upgraded to a TI).

ORIGINAL: mystp

With regard to USB bouncing: It's been quite a while since I experimented with VC and USB recording, so I'm a little rusty on this aspect. As far as I recall, you could do regular - as in realtime - recording of USB tracks but not faster-than-realtime bounces akin to Sonar's freeze - correct? If not, could someone chime in on the specific issues in this respect?

You cannot do any sort of bouncing/freezing/rendering in Sonar, real-time or fast-bounce (at least I can't). I've gotten real-time bouncing to work in Cubase, but who wants to use Cubase?! The workaround in Sonar has been to either 1) reassign a sequenced track to MIDI out and into an analog audio input(s) routed to a new track as you would with any hardware synth or 2) loop the outputs of the soundcard back into another set of inputs, solo the Virus track and record it in real-time to a new track. Both approaches typically require some after-the-fact nudging to get account for latency.

The audio rendering issue and the well-documented latency issue that you mentioned are the only ones that I have personally experienced.

One thing to add even though I've seen it said a bunch of times already in other places:

it would be so SO awesome if Access would make a patch browser/editor only (no audio) version of the VC plugin!! To be honest, I'm not sure what the point is of having audio through usb if you're not using the virus as your sound card (I would love to hear an explanation for this... something to do with automation maybe?) - why not just use spdif (into fireface in my case) and midi cc for automation... at least you can copy and paste midi envelopes... sonar has a bug that keeps you from copying and pasting recorded automation envelopes.

I shouldn't really complain though... virust TI and Sonar 6 PE are two of the best music products I've ever used.

ORIGINAL: Destructo
sonar has a bug that keeps you from copying and pasting recorded automation envelopes.

you can insert VC into fx bin and copy/paste works fine....

I posted the issues I saw over at the VirusTI forum, I'll post it on this thread too:

IDO'S GUIDE TO SONAR


To start, Sonar works with the TI in "standalone mode" very well. To be clear, that means that you have a MIDI cable going from your computer into the TI. Since my audio-card (Audiophile 2496) supports SPDIF digital audio, I hook the SPDIF-OUT of the TI into my audio-card. This works incredibly well. If you don't have SPDIF, you'd need to record the analog-outs from the TI using your sound-card.

The down-sides to "stand-alone mode" are:
1) You obviously don't get the "patch librarian" functionality of the VirusControl VST.
2) It's a pain-in-the-but to get patch-libraries from the internet into the TI, since you have to do a SYSEX dump into the TI RAM banks. Using VirusControl VST, it's much easier, for instance, to load the patches from the Virus C.
3) You don't get the "total recall" of VirusControl VST. I.e. you have to save all of your patches as a "Multi" on the TI, and load the right one manually each time you load up a song in SOnar.

Remember that Access has the instrument mappings for the built-in patches of the TI on their website. This makes it easy to pick instruments that are built-in. BUT, it's sort of bogus, because Sonar will always re-load the patch each time you hit play. So if you're not clever, you can make changes to the patch, and then have them wiped-out when you hit play, since Sonar reloads the original patch. So, not quite sure what the point of the instrument mappings is really...


Now, alternatively to "stand-alone mode", you can also use VirusControl VST with Sonar. Unfortunately, Sonar is not OFFICiALLY supported as a host, so you're playing with fire here. There's no magic to how to set this up, just install the VirusControl software on your machine, and make sure you follow all the instructions. It will automatically create a new VST for you that will sync with the Virus TI through the USB connection, and this VST will be configured with delay-compensation. Delay compensation is necessary to the the TI in-sync with your host, since the USB-audio is delayed.

Actually, one note: In Virus OS version 1.2.4, they fixed some serious timing issues in Sonar. But to keep things working, you'll need to follow the standard VirusControl advice:
--Set the patch to "direct-audio" in VirusControl VST when recording.
--Immediately after recording, turn "direct-audio" off. Do not deviate from this!
--Never try to disable delay-compensation on the plugin. It just won't work. I've tried this from every angle...


Now, here's the peculiarities I've noticed with Sonar:
1) Trying to render audio so that you can do post-production (etc) is totally broken with VirusControl. As a workaround, you'll need an audio-card that let's you record "loop-back". I have the Audiophile 2496, and it lets you do this. Double-check on your audio-card.

TO BE CLEAR, you can't bounce-audio as you can with other VSTs. You also can't "freeze" the VirusControl VST. That's what I mean when I say you can't render audio...


2) It's not officially supported by Access, so if you're buying the TI to use with VirusControl, you're taking a risk that it might not work with the next OS update.

3) Sonar does not expose any way to change the samples that the USB audio is delayed. To be honest, I assume that other hosts let you do this, but for some reason Sonar doesn't let you get at the TI's audio-driver parameters (I assume this is because it's not my primary audio-card?!)

4) Sonar's implementation of delay compensation is a pain-in-the-butt: When you load a VST that is delay-compensated (i.e. VirusControl VST), ALL OTHER PLUGINS are delayed. That means that once you load VirusControl VST, not only is the Virus noticeably delayed when you play a note (with USB-audio out), ALL OTHER PLUGINS are also delayed! This makes it really annoying to work on a song when VirusControl is loaded, since OTHER PLUGINS DON'T LET YOU CHOOSE "direct-out" on them like VirusControl does!!! Ug!

My workaround to this is to temporarily UNLOAD the VirusControl plugin (in the Sonar instrument rack) when I want to work with other plugins. Works decently...



-Ido

My Sonar Guide above mentions an issue where the VirusVST being loaded causes OTHER VSTs in Sonar to have a slight perceptible latency when you play notes live.

To help Cakewalk/Access, here's my steps to reproduce this:

I using Sonar 6.2 on Windows XPSP2.
My soundcard is an MAudio Audiophile 2496.
It's set to 44khz, 384 samples (~8ms latency)
I do NOT use the VirusTI's audio as my computer's audio out (instead, I use the Audiophile 2496).
I have Sonar set to use ASIO. The audio-driver bit-depth is 24. The Sonar recording bitdepth is 16.
*** Make SURE that the VirusVST is configured for delay-compensation. Otherwise, this bug won't repro...

My VirusTI has the latest TIOS (2.0.3).


Repro:
1) Load the VirusTI VST into Sonar
2) Make sure the current part (#1) in the TI is NOT set to "direct out". (This means it should have some very small perceptible latency).
3) Now turn ON direct-out. You should feel each note played be slightly more responsive (i.e. the perceptible latency goes away). It's very slight, so pay attention...
4) Now load any synth. For this repro, I used Vanguard.

EXPECT: I expect notes played to Vanguard should NOT have any perceptible latency, since I don't get such latency when VirusVST is loaded.
ACTUAL: Notice that you feel the small perceptible latency when you play notes on Vanguard.



-Ido

ORIGINAL: idoben2

ORIGINAL: awilki01

There is a 'slight' delay with my other VSTs, but its in perfect sync with my Virus TI now - again.....

......To Ido, there is an option in the Virus Control to disable delay compensation. It doesn't sync up good when I do that, but it may work on your system

Thanks Adam. As you mention above, there is a slight delay with the other VSTs. What's "slight" to you is most-likely "annoying" to me, sounds like we BOTH notice the slight delay of other VSTs, but it just bugs me more. :)


Also, you mention that turning off delay compensation fixes the problem. Sure, it fixes that problem for me too, but adds a slew of other problems (including not being able to sync-up the TI to any music I write) - So it's a non-starter... If the VirusTI plugin worked without delay-compensation turned-off, I'm sure it would be great for a lot of people, but Access makes it clear that you NEED delay-compensation set on the plugin to make any of this work.


-Ido

I actually leave the delay compensation on. I just thought I would run that past you. Is there a way to tell how much delay there is on the other VSTs? I would like to quantify it so we could compare real numbers instead of subjective interpretations of the delay. I wonder if we are indeed experiencing the same delay and it just bothers you more. That may very well be the case, but I would still nonetheless like to quantify it to be sure.

Regards,
Adam

ORIGINAL: awilki01

It's sort of ridiculous that we pay a ton for our audio-cards, then buy a VERY expensive synth (TI) that completely busts the low latency that we have when playing our other VSTs. At least that's my opinion.

Agreed. I was also able to replicate latency using my Virus TI and Vanguard, z3ta+, and RP Albino3 (the only 3 I experimented with). The latency when playing is just enough to be annoying, but can also throw off quantization on fast-moving passages. I also wonder if there are any differences in latency associated with the desktop vs the keyboard versions of the TI. This would probably be impossible to determine without one of each to compare side-by-side on the same system. Just curious Ido - which version of the TI are you using? I know Adam is using the desktop version and I have a Polar, which I use as my controller.

Anyone have any updates for this? Has anyone been able to resolve the delay issues? I recently set the ASIO driver down to 2-3 ms, and so far so good.

yes, i am
more click&pops, glitches and still impossible bounce to track or mixdown.

Wow! I'm glad I stumbled upon this thread. I was planning on selling my Virus C and getting a new Virus TI because of the DAW integration. Now, I think I'll spend that money on a coupe of kick-ass monitors instead.

hi awiki01,

in response to your post about using the SPDIF audio of the 0404... which did you select as the audio track's input in sonar? i cannot find the emu spdif in the list of inputs?