Virus - what's missing?

Anything about hardware musical instruments.
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I don't expect to see another iteration of the Virus either. But if there was...

...definitely rock-solid USB2/3 streaming (preferably taking a cue from RME and developing that in-house rather than depending on another party). Additional knobbage and a touchscreen to facilitate editing on the unit itself when not using VC. Multisegment envelopes or at least steppers/performers a la Massive/Spire. Enough DSP power to run all the effects at their full potential (which I seem to recall someone from Access/Kemper saying in an interview that the Profiling Amp can do with its Virus-derived effects but the Virus itself cannot with some of its effects because it's spread too thin).

Additional filter models and wavetables would be cool. But if they messed with the classic oscillator/filter sound in order to bring it more in line with the more detailed filter modeling in newer plugins and uber-clean oscillators and all that, it wouldn't sound like a Virus anymore. It may be "old tech," but for whatever reason, at least for the areas where it shines, it still sounds good today.

I'd love to see a Virus SI (Software Instrument? LOL) plugin or whatever and I think that if they could avoid piracy, they would clean up in sales on the strength of the Virus name, at least for a while. Everybody who ever wanted a TI but couldn't quite afford it or who has been frustrated with using the hardware would be all over that. But that's probably even LESS likely to happen than a TI3.
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After my experience with Overbridge i'm not convinced even current tech is quite there yet in terms of USB over audio. As much as I wanted to like it, I still had serious latency issues compared with just using the hardware in analog mode. I'm sure it works for some people who are running less CPU intensive projects than me, but what I love about hardware is that that even if you are pushing your CPU, you're not going to get as serious buffer issues that USB audio introduces and its need to run at lower buffer rates.

I tried the Ti software for about a month, but it was more trouble than it was worth IMO. In the end I went for using the analog outputs and SnowEd which has all the functionality of the official Ti software, minus the audio over USB. http://ctrlr.org/snowed/

Maybe USB3 will have the bandwidth/speed to make this issue redundant on future products, but that's still a few years off before it becomes standard enough for music hardware developers to get on board.

I would love to see it properly work in the end so as to have all the benefits of it (such as total recall, easier saving of patches, under the hood and extended features that aren't on the hardware outside menu diving), plus all the benefits of hardware such as that hands on instant live joy of tactile interfaces along with the zero CPU overhead of hardware instruments.

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More front-panel knobs and switches would be nice to reduce the multi-functionality, but I've never understood all the complaints about so-called menu-diving. Most of the menu items are utility settings, not parameters that you would adjust in real-time/performance situations, and the software handles it just fine IMO. That said, the new features added to the VC (e.g., additional envelope) have started to outgrow the hardware, so I'd expect to see some additional knobs on the next generation Virus, enough to accommodate the release version and any planned future firmware additions.

I do find using the arp on the hardware to be a PITA - the software is much better. I'd love to see a front-panel arp panel (ala the latest Dave Smith synths) on the next generation Virus. Also, I'll renew my request to allow copying/pasting for direct editing and saving of the arp presets via VC, something that could seemingly be achieved now with a simple software/firmware update.
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More flashing lights! :D
I wouldn't mind if they added a multi band comp like spire. I don't want much. I'm gonna buy more of them, I program the snow ATM on the hardware. It's not that bad once you get a flow for it, but I want the full size desktop now.

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