Asbjoern---

thanks for looking into this.
I have been using sonar (6.2) and the TI (polar, recent update) for a long time with Sonar. I am using the 1/4" ouputs exclusively. It seems that when using any other soundcard device in addition to the TI, the TI becomes greyed out under AUDIO PROPERTIES and therefore unusable. I believe everyone ive emailed about this can confirm the same behavior inside Sonar, and I even removed my FF800 once and saw that the TI was indeed able to be used in Sonar.

Still, bouncing audio faster than realtime doesnt work for anyone. Im not sure if it works in other DAW software that IS fully supported by Access. I hope this gets resolved, as it stands now, the TI part of the Virus is just a nice graphic editor that i close when i want to actually use the TI to make music.



----------shane

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.

Edited from my other post.

I can add an instance of the TI to the synth rack on a new project and I can play/record it without any problems. If I add TI to an older project that has a couple audio tracks and an instance of Imposcar, the audio engine will no longer start if I press "play" on the transport. However, it will start if I press "record" instead. If I change the input of the TI audio track to "none", the audio engine will work properly again.

However, if I raise the buffer settings to 512 samples, the audio engine works fine. On this particular project, CPU was barely over 5% per core.

Did some tests:

1) On another problem project (1 instance of Imposcar and DKS drums), I added the TI. Audio engine won't play. I remove Imposcar and DKS from the synth rack. Audio engine still won't play. I deleted the audio tracks and track folders for Imposcar and DKS. Only thing remaining is TI track folders and TI in synth rack. Removing TI from synth rack does nothing... audio engine still won't play. I have to delete the remaining TI track folder before the audio engine will play again. I re-add the TI into the synth rack and create the track folder and audio engine plays.

2) I create a new project, add TI and record a midi clip. Add Imposcar, DKS, and midi clips. Add a couple audio tracks and some audio clips. Audio engine is OK and project plays fine. Essentially, this new project has the exact same vsts and # of tracks but plays fine. I then add 4+ Cpu heavy vsts, CPU usage is now up to ~50% per core, but the audio engine continues to play perfectly w/o a single skip with a 128 sample buffer size.

huh??

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....

Thanks for the support - glad to be of help. We'll see how much eventually gets sorted, but at least we can make sure that they know what the issues are. If there are any other problems, let me know and I'll add them to the list.

Cryo and soundsubs: Thanks for the input and clarification - appreciate it, and the info's been added to the list!
Destructo: Yes, that would be incredibly handy. That one's for Access to sort out, but I totally agree.
Parke02: OK, thanks for the heads up - haven't experienced this myself, but it's been noted. What audio card are you using, by the way, and is ImpOscar always involved when the problem arises?

- Asbjoern

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

I just found something interesting. I had everything working pretty good and then all of a sudden all my other VSTs were way out of sync when I had the Virus Control plugin enabled in a project. I did some playing around and when I went into the ASIO control panel and changed it from 32 bit to 24 bit, it all started working again for me. I believe it was 24 bit before. Maybe I changed it on accident recently - not sure. There is a 'slight' delay with my other VSTs, but its in perfect sync with my Virus TI now - again. It's not anything that bothers me because its really a very small amount of delay. Any discrepancy in playing can be resolved with quantization after recording a clip using another VST.

In Sonar6 (and probably 5), The ASIO control panel can be found Options:Audio:General Tab.

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 (Edit: I see that you have already tried that now before. I missed that the first time I read your post). Just for the record, I use Virus Control with other VSTs just fine with my setup. Like I said, there is a very slight delay of my other VSTs, but its so small it doesn't bother me. Again, quantization fixes that for me because I only experience the delay when playing via my MIDI controller. There is no delay from the MIDI notes within my individual tracks.


Now, when recording audio via my S/PDIF connection on my TI, I do get a very horrible delay. But, that is easily fixed with the Sonar nudge feature. You basically just record an entire TI track and then nudge it over so it's in sync with your other instruments. You should really only have to do this once for each Virus TI track at final mixdown.

Adam

Edit: I want to help you all out here. I am doing something different than the rest of you because I'm working fine. Is it a setting I have in Sonar? Is it my PC hardware? Just let me know how I can help you all in an effort to resolve this. I have a plethora of webspace so if you need me to post pics or videos or whatever of what I'm doing, let me know. I know this can be frustrating...

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: 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

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