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Access Virus

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There are not many modern synthesizers which can claim to have shaped the sound of music -- from electronica to soundtrack -- as much as the Virus line of synthesizers has. The Virus is known as much for its flexibility and powerful sound as for Total Integration, our award winning way to interconnect a hardware synthesizer with your DAW.

The first Virus was released in 1997 and each new iteration has added more features more powerful hardware, and greater musical potential. That evolution explains why the Virus TI series is so sought after and why it receives such praise from owners, press, and fans all over the world.

Artists including Depeche Mode, Madonna, Linkin Park and the Prodigy tour with a Virus-based setup in 2009. Producers such as Sasha, Pete Tong, Roger Sanchez and Dr. Dre consider the Virus a core part of their studios. Composers such as Hans Zimmer, James Newton Howard, John Powell and Mark Isham are enthusiastic Virus users, utilising its signature sound for their Hollywood blockbuster soundtracks.

Classic signature sound

Even though the Virus is truly multi-talented instrument with great range, you still instantly know it when you hear a it in a production. That’s because we really "get" synthesizer basics: outstanding oscillators, amazing filters and breathtaking effects.

Every part, even in multi-mode, comes with its own chain of independent effects (including reverb and delay). The massive voice count makes it possible to stack even complex sounds for the first time without breaking a sweat.

The beauty of being different

Virtual analog oscillators aside, the Virus TI offers an extensive range of musically exciting tonal building blocks. From wavetables, to hypersaw, to grain- and formant table oscillators, every single one was created with complete attention to detail, commitment to innovation, and a passion for musical potential.

That’s why the Virus TI can sound like a burning race bike on its way to hell or a choir of genetically enhanced tooth fairies. It’s just limited by your imagination.

Innovative designs

Often it’s the little things which make all the difference. Section Locking for instance is preset mutation on steroids. You select what you like in a patch, lock it, and cycle through other presets to load only those aspects of the sound you want to explore changing. Imagine you were basing your lead melody around a user arpeggiator pattern and later in the game you realise that you want to keep the pattern but change the sound. Using Section Locking all you need to do is to lock the arp pattern and start browsing through your entire library to find something suitable.

More than 7000 great presets

As deeper instruments emerge many of us turn towards sound presets instead of building their own patches from scratch. We honour this tendency by giving you one of the largest free sound libraries anywhere, made by professional sound designers.

Even better, we make sure that all sounds officially released for the Virus TI are checked and refined by our internal sound design gurus first. This way we can assure that the sounds have a minimal CPU footprint and maximal flexibility with all sorts of controllers pre-assigned for your enjoyment.

Shred your Beats

Atomizer is our performance-oriented beat slicer, allowing you to play on your keyboard what others can only cut and paste inside their audio workstation. Features like this keep the Virus at the forefront of innovative sound design.

Music evolves and we evolve the Virus for you. Every day.

Tweaked for performance

We spend a great deal of time optimising the TI for performers. Studio players can automate a filter sweep until it sits right, but having controls that feel right to performers make the TI better for everyone, all the time. One of the reasons why many of us are drawn to vintage synthesizers is that the few hands on controls those had tend to be a joy when tweaked. That's why we fine tune every parameter in the Virus for performance.

Ultra fast response

The TI is ultra fast. Whether just switching a menu or loading an entire multi mode patch, it always feels snappy. All menus are laid out for quick access to the most important parameters. What's more, they are context sensitive, so for instance you don’t have to bother with reverb parameters when the actual effect is not enabled.

Little extras make all the difference

The wooden side handles were specifically designed to give performers who make use of the pitch benden and modulation wheel extra grip. The pedal inputs are auto switching, so you don't have to worry about configuration when you need to borrow a pedal in a hurry.
The keyboard versions' LED logo on the back pulses in sync with the Virus' tempo, providing a visual metronome for the rest of the band to make live arpeggitor lines more enjoyable. The Virus can interpret the tempo of an audio source and sync to it in as little as one bar. From that point onwards, everything will stay in sync -- LFOs, delays, arpeggiators, the beat slicer and more.

Assignable knobs

Every virus patch allows you to connect your favorite sound shaping functions individually to three onboard assignable knobs. You can name these mappings appropriately and even assign multiple parameters to one knob for multi-axis real-time sound morphing.

Built like a tank

We take great pride in the Virus TI’s construction quality. Every unit is is engineered, built and assembled in Germany by specialists who know that musicians must truly be able to rely on their instruments. The entire housing is made of metal, ensuring road-worthy reliability, while overall weight is reduced with lighter materials for comfortable transport. On the road, a reduction in weight is a gain in the quality of life.

Plenty of horsepower

During the development of the Virus TI range, we felt that in order to achieve the complexity on nowadays' production sound an enormously fast system would be needed. That's why, in difference to all Viruses before, the TI range utilises two parallel and highly specialised Freescale signal processors. With the Virus TI you don't have to re-assign effects in multi mode and think about how to share your reverb. Because every patch sounds exactly the same in multi and single mode.

The Virus in full effect

The Virus TI is not only a synthesizer; it is a full-fledged multi-effect processor with analog and digital inputs. Listen to the following examples which feature real bass, guitar and drums played through the Virus' FX engine. Of course the entire synthesizer engine works in parallel so you could play synth parts simultaneously.

Since the arrival of software based sequencers and audio plug-ins, the production of electronic music has vastly changed. That's why we invented Total Integration which enables you to use your Virus TI hardware synthesizer just as you would use a software plug-in. Enjoy the raw horsepower and sound quality of a high end hardware synthesizer without taxing the CPU of your sequencer workstation. Total integration has the added benefit of storing your sounds directly in the project file, eliminating the need for sysex dumps and sound mismatch problems. Lastly, the technology allows sample accurate timing-- a first in the world of hardware synths.

The Best Of Both Worlds

Total Integration allows you to stream audio from the Virus TI directly to an audio channel. The benefits are obvious: crystal clear sound, sample accurate timing instead of a sloppy midi connection and total recall. All of the synth's controls are fully functional and automation is seamlessly simple. Once you work with Total Integration, you will wonder how you ever tolerated the old ways of working, between cable problems, messy MIDI message editing, loose timing, and lost sounds. Total Integration is a complete revolution in a single technology.

Reduce Your Stress Levels

How many times have you opened an old project or song only to realise that the presets required are no longer available in the user memory of your synth? Or perhaps you had edited a patch to accommodate the specific requirement of a different song, only to discover that the change adversely affects your other works. "Total recall" puts an end to these troubles once and for all by automatically saving all patches and settings used in your song right within the project file. You are free to change any of the Virus' onboard sounds -- RAM or even ROM -- with zero chance of this causing problems later.

Get Organised

Virus Control is a comprehensive patch editor with a powerfully flexible browser. Managing thousands of patches becomes much less of a chore with categories and sophisticated search function, plus easy drag-and-drop style patch management. Virus Control truly accelerates the search for the right sound. The software automatically syncs with any connected Virus TI, eliminating hassle of data management. Your job is only to focus on what you were here first for: creating music.

Refine Your Music

The hassle of 1980s MIDI production is the last thing anyone wants. That's why modern producers so enjoy the ease and power of plug-in effects and automation. Total Integration facilitates modern production techniques by streaming audio from the Virus TI directly into your favorite DAW, enabling you to refine the sound coming out of the Virus with your choice of plug-ins. In difference to less-developed USB-powered synths, the Virus is able to stream discreetly directly into our Virus Control plug-in instead of arriving at the audio inputs of the audio interface. Automation is just as easy, with control lanes for sound parameters at your fingertips.

The best things in life are free

Virtually unknown to hardware synthesizers before, free feature upgrades put Access very high on the list for complete customer care. We were the first company to releasing such product updates on a regular basis, always reinvigorating and in some cases reinventing our products without requiring owners to buy new products. This mutually beneficial model allows us to develop great products on long lasting hardware platforms while Virus owners enjoy the free ride.

Technical Specifications

Sound Engine

Various oscillator models including Virtual Analog, Wavetable, HyperSaw, Grain- and Formant Table types.
A maximum of 192 parallel effects in total. Reverb and delay, chorus, phaser, frequency shifter, ring modulator, distortion, 3-band EQ and new Character processors.
2 independent multi-mode filters (HP, LP, BP, BS) and the Analog Filter which was modeled after the Moog MiniMoog™ cascade filter with 6-24 dB Slope and self-oscillation.
32-step user-programmable arpeggiator pattern for every patch.
Modulation Matrix with 6 slots each featuring 1 source and 3 destinations.
3 LFOs with 68 waveforms to choose from. 2 fast ADSTR envelopes.
Knob quantise for creating stepped controller movements. The stepping automatically syncs to the Virus clock or an incoming MIDI clock.
Adaptive control smoothing for jitter-free modulations on all important parameters.
Multi mode with embedded patches.

Hardware

Dual DSP system which dynamically allocates its resources. Depending on the complexity of a patch everything in between 20 and 90 voices can be achieved (10-50 voices with Virus TI Snow).
512 RAM patches and 26 banks of each 128 ROM patches which can be exchanged by the user.
6 balanced outputs with +4 dB level and soft limiting algorithm. Studio grade 192 khz D/A converters with S/PDIF digital I/O. 2x24 bit inputs. Surround sound capabilities. The Virus TI Snow has 2 un-balanced outputs and no SPDIF I/O.
The tempo of an incoming audio signal can be recognised and the Virus can lock to it within a very short amount of time (typically, for “4 on the floor” - style music, this happens in between 1-3 bars). Thereafter the Virus TI follows the tempo.

Software

Virus Control VST/AU/RTAS compatible virtual instrument plug-in included to create an audio link in between the host sequencer and Virus hardware synthesizer.
Audio and MIDI inputs and outputs can be used by the sequencer application as an audio and MIDI interface. Total Integration keeps working, even if you prefer to use another audio interface.
Sample accurate and delay compensated timing.
All knobs on surface and be used to control other software and hardware synthesizers (this feature is not available for the Virus TI Snow).
Virus Control Center application for convenient memory backup of the entire Virus TI and exchange of content of ROM banks.
Soft- and hardware specifications and details

Sound engine details

Huge voice count

The Virus TI series features a dual core DSP system with a high-speed local buss. This combo is capable of cranking out in between 20-90 voices. Also thanks to the high end design, we were able to improve the overall system response time (sometimes referred to as latency) which makes the Virus TI Series even snappier, especially for live musicians.

HyperSaw oscillators

HyperSaw is a multi-sawtooth oscillator. With a single parameter the user can alter the amount of parallel oscillators from 1-9, smoothly and in realtime. You can literally add more oscillators to fatten up the sound whilst playing a chord. The relative tuning and spread can be controlled as well. Using the highly efficient HyperSaw engine with 9 parallel oscillators per voice (each with it’s own parallel sub oscillator) the Virus TI series can calculate over 1800 oscillators in realtime.

Programmable Arpeggiator

The Virus TI features a user-programmable arpeggiator. Every single Virus TI patch can store it’s own arpeggiator pattern. You can build new patterns from scratch or use one of the 64 presets as a foundation.

PureSemitones

PureSemitones tunes the oscillator’s semitone knob to pure intervals. The technology, derived from Access’ PureTuning, tunes the intervals of the semitone parameter to the nearest harmonic and therefore combines a linear scale with intervals which are perfectly in tune. Sync sounds especially benefit from PureSemitones.

Delay and reverb per part

Each of the 16 parts in multimode can have it’s own, dedicated delay and reverb.

Graintable oscillators

The Graintable oscillators applies techniques as those used in granular sampling and pitch-shifting algorithms to synthesizer Wavetables. It opens up a whole exciting world of new possibilities. Imagine bending any Wavetable far beyond what is sonically possible with common Wavetable synthesizers. It all happens in realtime and of course all parameters can be modulated in realtime as well.
The formant-based oscillators work in a similar fashion, only with one crucial difference: the formants remain fixed as you play. This effectively turns the oscillator into a filterbank on steroids comprising up to 256 resonant bandpass filter poles, whereby the cutoff of each virtual pole is determined by the harmonics in the current Wavetable index.

Multi Mode

Multi Mode doesn’t just reference every patch in each of the 16 parts (as most synthesizers do); it embeds all patch data for every part. There is no longer any need to be cautious of editing single sounds that might be used by multi mode patches. Sounds can be tweaked and tailored to build stacks or to compliment each other without the risk of overwriting a patch which may be used in another song or Multi Mode preset. The second new mode is the Sequencer Mode, which replaces the Multi/Single mode from the Virus A-B-C series. In contrast to the new Multi Mode, it references the patches in single mode, so you could say that it makes the Virus TI Series feel like a synthesizer with 16 true single modes.

Wavetable oscillators

In addition to the award winning Virus oscillators the Virus TI series introduces Wavetable oscillators. These sophisticated new oscillators put a completely new array of sounds at your disposal. From gritty, screaming, somewhat LoFi sounding textures to silky-smooth wave cascades - the sky is the limit. Now imagine processing the WaveTable with Access’ self-resonating MiniMoog™ Filter... A mixture between Virus oscillators and WaveTable oscillators is also possible. The Virus also allows PWM-style modulation and the degree of interpolation between the individual waves can be altered. As a result a Wavetable can morph from smooth to coarse to stepped (which makes it sound similar to a wave sequence). It's like turning a nice ambient patch into a dark, gritty sonic monster by only changing one continuously variable parameter.

Section Locking

A new technology enabling the TI to lock specific aspects of a sound from changing. For instance locking everything but the arpeggiator. Now when browsing through the library the sound character will remain unchanged, but the arpeggiator pattern will alter depending on the settings of the selected new patch. Forget about random patch generators. This is so much more fun. It's practically like having a completely new and intuitive sound design tool to your disposal. All you need to do is to choose what you dislike about a patch and find something better within the huge TI library which counts thousands of onboard patches.

Modulation Matrix

Mod Matrix is comprised of 6 slots; each with one source and three destinations.

Hardware Details

Dual DSP system

The Virus TI DSPs are not only faster, they come in pairs*. A highly effective local buss in between the processors boosts performance even further.
* Virus TI Snow features only one DSP

Studio Grade Converters

192 Khz studio grade D/A converters (+4dB balanced output), with soft limiting algorithm. 24 bit A/D converters. The Virus produces one of the hottest signals in the industry. Live keyboards can leave their DI boxes at home and plug the symmetrical outputs right into the stage box (special cable required).

Digital I/O and USB

The Virus TI comes with SP/DIF (44.1khz/48khz) digital I/O as standard. The USB port is compatible with the USB 2.0 Specification and works with USB and Hi-Speed USB systems, peripherals and cables. Port speed is 12 mbit/sec.

Big and bright display

Which can show graphics in 128x32 pixels. The display shows up to 4 rows of text and graphics. In most cases three parameters are being displayed at the same time. As a result, there are only 1/3 of the menu pages in comparison to the previous Virus series.

Editing

3 edit knobs underneath the display which can edit three parameters at the same time. The 3 soft knobs can also act as programmable and nameable knobs for every individual patch.

Painless rack mounting

Virus TI Desktop only: The entire I/O board can be rotated by 90 degrees which makes rack-mounting the Virus much more fun. Instead of having to find special jack plugs or waste loads of rack space, simply turn the whole I/O section and voilá! - all the sockets are at the back of the rack mounted Virus TI Desktop. (Rack mounting kit is optional).

Patch memory

Virus TI Desktop/Keyboard/Polar:512 RAM patches and 3328 ROM sounds + 16 Multi Mode slots which embed all patches used + 112 referring Multi Mode slots. Virus TI Snow: 512 RAM patches and 512 ROM sounds + 64 Multi Mode slots which embed all patches used.

Tap Tempo

There is a dedicated Tap tempo button. The tap tempo algorithm used is based on SyncXtreme, Access’ acclaimed tempo sync algorithm.

Illuminated Logo

Illuminated Access Logo on the rear of the Virus TI Keyboard and Virus TI Polar. The logo pulsates in standby mode, and can be statically on during normal operation or pulsate to the tempo (like the tempo LED) which is especially nice for those drummers used to playing to a visual tempo source.