The Future (?) of Access Virus

[tripleflows]

Hi,

a fun post for today: a bit techie article about the possibility (or the lack of possibility) of a next Virus synthesizer.
https://synthmorph.com/blogs/news/acces ... -virus-ti3

[madtheory]

Very interesting. There are other factors though. The Virus has a very good name, it's well regarded. And there is a bigger market now for hardware synthesizers, than there was back in 1997. Perhaps they will build an "analogue" synth next?

[tripleflows]

Very interesting. There are other factors though. The Virus has a very good name, it's well regarded. And there is a bigger market now for hardware synthesizers, than there was back in 1997. Perhaps they will build an "analogue" synth next?

Hi,
the fame of Virus mentioned there:
"20 years of classic heritage and achieved a legendary status, characteristic and unmatched sound (especially with the TI). After 20 years, any Virus model is still a good choice to add some unique flavour to your songs.
A premium brand that deserves innovation instead of abandoning it forever"

I am not sure if there is a bigger market, but I bet this is mainly for the cheaper, real analog monophonic remakes, like Minibrute, Microbrute, Pulse, Subphatty, etc. and the modular Euroracks.
I doubt they will build a real analog, as they have the expertise in the digital technology, no know analog experience yet... but all these are just speculations

[Ashe37]

Small error in the story, Motorola wasn't 'acquired by Freescale', they spun off their chip design and fabrication unit as a separate company named Freescale.

Yep the current Symphony DSPs are dual-core and price-comparable with the old pricing of 56321 that was used in the TI2.
Flash RAM has gotten something like 10x cheaper since the TI2 came out, and 4x denser.
The current ARM CPUs are multicore and faster for the same TDP envelope as well. (thanks to the smartphone market)

So yes, they should be able to make a TI3 that is either cheaper, or had drastically expanded capabilities from the existing one, at the same price point.

[meatballfulton]

One other thing about ARM: they don't make CPUs! Rather they design CPUs and then license their designs to other companies to manufacture, usually adding other circuitry for their specific needs. That mfr than pays ARM royalties for each chip they make/sell.

In other words, if they wanted to Access could license an ARM core and then add circuitry specifically for their instruments and implemtnt them in FPGAs at very low cost compared to doing a custom chip design.

[Ashe37]

There are already several arm+FPGA cores on the board i have seen, mostly for the embedded market.

[krzeppa]

One thing that has me worried about the future of Access is the fact that their website has been virtually quiet for like 4 years. I hope this isn't any indicator that things are not going well. I love their stuff. I have a TI2 and an Indigo 1 and love them. I would hate to see them go away.

[Ashe37]

when i went to NAMM (2014?) the Kemper booth only had then profiling amp thing, not a single virus. its like Kemper doesnt care....

[krzeppa]

when i went to NAMM (2014?) the Kemper booth only had then profiling amp thing, not a single virus. its like Kemper doesnt care....

That's very disappointing.

[Stab Frenzy]

They had a fairly big booth at Superbooth with a couple of grey TI2s on it.

[tripleflows]

Access Virus Dark Cinematics Live Jamming - using 4 instances of Virus Powercore (4x16=64 voices), improvised and jammed with the Virus Dark Cinematic presets for about an hour.

All sounds were recorded straight to four Cubase audio tracks, then quickly top'n tailed the best parts, but no mixing and equalization took place. I wanted to keep the live feel, creating the slideshow was a fast action too.