Handling Midi Parameter Control; Adaptive Parameter Smoothing - Access VIRUS CLASSIC User Manual

Handling MIDI Parameter Control

If you have configured your MIDI system in accordance with the instructions in the previous section,
you may activate the sequencer's recording mode and record the knob and button movements as
you see fit. Check the Event or List editor of your sequencer to see if the recording operation was
successful.
Good-to-know info: Do not record knob and button movements to the same track that contains the
notes of any given passage. Instead, use a new track that sends its data to the same MIDI output
and channel as the track containing the notes. Although the sequencer merges these two data
streams internally, separating the two tracks makes it easier for you distinguish between the infor-
mation that they contain. Besides, you're thus able to edit and copy the recording of t knob and but-
ton movements without affecting the actual notes on the other track.
If you wanted to take this an extreme, you could record the movements of every knob and button to
a separate track. Although this sounds like a classic case of overkill, it can facilitate the process of
editing the recorded sequences: Bear in mind that the sequencer doesn't indicate the parameters
addressed via the control features of the Virus by their names; instead, it indicates merely the con-
troller and/or polypressure numbers. If you split up these control features by recording them to dif-
ferent tracks and giving these tracks names that give you an idea of what they contain, you'll find it
much easier to work with these tracks.

Adaptive Parameter Smoothing

We developed a feature called Adaptive Parameter Smoothing for the Virus that assures automated
knob movements are carried out so that parameter changes are not audible in steps commonly
called zipper noise.
This means that the Virus responds just as smoothly to your sound-shaping actions as did the ana-
log synthesizers of yore that were used before the devices that could store sounds were introduced.
To this end, the response of the Virus is manipulated so that it smoothes changes in parameter
value. Conveniently, this feature is dynamic, meaning that it takes into account the way these values
change. However, smoothing is many cases undesirable. For example, left to its own devices, this
feature would smooth deliberate, more radical knob movements where one value "jumps" to the
next, thus creating unintentional "glitches". For example, this type of response would defeat the
purpose of effects generated by a step sequencer's controller messages as well as gater effects
that you programmed in your sequencer.
VIRUS CLASSIC MANUAL 151
The Virus And Sequencers