Prologue - Access Virus Rack User Manual

10 CHAPTER 3

Prologue

Dear Virus Owner,
Congratulations on your choice, the new
Virus. You have purchased a cutting-
edge synthesizer that comes fully loaded
with several revolutionary features. Here
are just a few of the highlights:
The Virus delivers the sound characteris-
tics and tone of traditional analog syn-
thesizers - for instance the Prophet 5 or
Memorymoog to name just two popular
examples of the species - in a previously
unparalleled level of quality and han-
dling ease. We're not kidding, the Virus
actual delivers the authentic response of
an analog synth via a digital signal pro-
cessor chip, although the sound shaping
and voicing options out-perform those
of it historical predecessors by a consid-
erable margin.
The Virus comes with 512 slots for stor-
ing SINGLE sounds. These are organized
in four banks. The first two banks (A and
B) are located in the RAM, so you can
overwrite them with new sounds. The
other two banks are "hard-wired", i.e.
they're programmed into the FLASH
ROM.
The Virus rack offers a maximum of 16
voices. In Multi Mode, these are allo-
cated dynamically to 16 simultaneously
available sounds.
You have two audio oscillators plus one
suboscillator, a noise generator, a ring
modulator, two Multi Mode filters, two
envelopes, a stereo VCA, three LFOs and
a saturation stage (SATURATOR) for cas-
cade filtering, tube and distortion
effects.
The Virus offers a veritable number of
effects. You have a powerful Chorus/
Flanger section at your disposal, as well
as the Analog Boost - a controllable bass
emphasis, with each effect available sep-
arately for every sound. You also get a
global reverb/delay unit that lets you
create high-quality reverb effects and
rhythmic delay taps. Delay time can be
synced up to MIDI clock.
With the benefit of two external audio
inputs, the Virus may also serve as an FX
device and signal processor that you can
use creatively to come up with all kinds
of effects. External signals can be pro-
cessed with filter, gate and lo-fi effects,
routed to the Virus effects section and
serve as a modulation source for fre-
quency and ring modulation.
Beyond that, you can use internal or
external signals as sources for the Virus'
on-board vocoder serve. The vocoder
works with up to 32 filter bands and
offers diverse manipulation and modula-
tion options.