Renoise & Virus Ti Vst Problems

[Dezacrator (Scott Lee)]

Hello team,

Long time. Hope all is well.

I recently been using a Access Virus - TI, which has a VST controller as some of you may know. Well, the results I get from playback is lack luster. not very tight playback, and sloppy midi inputing. Im seeing a very nasty delay from when a midi key is pressed, to when it plays in Renoise. Now, before you say its a configuration issue, I would like you all to know that I am producing fine with the TI in Calkwalk: Sonar and Fruityloops without a hitch (with all my other plugins working perfectly). This is a Renoise specific issue with the VST interface of the TI. Any help would be great. Thanks you.

Scott

[Dezacrator (Scott Lee)]

Id like to also add this problem is happening in both live and non live mode of the TI vst. thanks

[029]

@Dezacrator

Hello team,

Long time. Hope all is well.

I recently been using a Access Virus - TI, which has a VST controller as some of you may know. Well, the results I get from playback is lack luster. not very tight playback, and sloppy midi inputing. Im seeing a very nasty delay from when a midi key is pressed, to when it plays in Renoise. Now, before you say its a configuration issue, I would like you all to know that I am producing fine with the TI in Calkwalk: Sonar and Fruityloops without a hitch (with all my other plugins working perfectly). This is a Renoise specific issue with the VST interface of the TI. Any help would be great. Thanks you.

Scott

Hi I have a Virus TI also.

Same prob. The Virus TI VST is unusable in Rn.

I’m personally using Cubase synced to Renoise via MIDI.

[BYTE-Smasher]

Lets just hope taktik has access to a TI?

[taktik]

@BYTE-Smasher

Lets just hope taktik has access to a TI?

No, unfortunately not, so I am not sure how I could help here. I will contact them and ask them for a testi version.

How does the communication of the VST Editor with the MIDI keyboard exactly work?

[Dezacrator (Scott Lee)]

Tak - its a vst that controls the virus TI hardware via usb 2.0. The midi keyboard works normally with renoise as it does with all the other vsts. its not related with the midi keyboard, everything else works as intended. This is also not related to the midi of the virus TI in anyway, this has to do with the vst controller working in Renoise. They arent talking right, and introduce high latency effects with playback.

Access might give you one for dvelopment purposes or and rental. I hope they do, I want to use renoise fulltime now. but need this to work =( Thanks!

-scott

[daemon]

yes, please do. it would be great for the most cutting edge sequencer to work in unison w/ the most cutting edge digital synth. us germans know how to throw it down

the virus does get a new generation every couple years or so, though. and the current gen came out in '05…but i suppose the integration concept will make this gen last a bit longer.

[taktik]

@Dezacrator

Tak - its a vst that controls the virus TI hardware via usb 2.0. The midi keyboard works normally with renoise as it does with all the other vsts. its not related with the midi keyboard, everything else works as intended. This is also not related to the midi of the virus TI in anyway, this has to do with the vst controller working in Renoise. They arent talking right, and introduce high latency effects with playback.

Access might give you one for dvelopment purposes or and rental. I hope they do, I want to use renoise fulltime now. but need this to work =( Thanks!

-scott

You might also try to set the VST options in the CachedVsts.xml file for the Virus Editor to:
true
false

The CachedVsts.xml file can be found at:
Windows XP: x:\Documents and Settings%username%\Application Data\Renoise%renoiseversion%
Windows Vista: x:\Users%username%\Application Data\Roaming\Renoise%renoiseversion%

You can open it with any text editor, then search for the name of the VST as it shows up in Renoises VST list.

Or the Virus Editor simply needs PDC to work correctly?

[dave_overcast]

i have this problem too

[Dezacrator (Scott Lee)]

Any news?

[taktik]

@Dezacrator

Any news?

Have you tried that CachedVsts.xml trick I’ve described above?

[Aidan_Howe (Outsight)]

First post - Hi all!

I just received my TI today and I can confirm that editing the ‘CachedVsts.xml’ as you suggest does not have any impact on the performance in sequence. It may make the response of the keyboard input more snappy, but it being so slight, I can’t be sure if my ears deceive me.

The delay in triggering is the major bug here, but there are one or two (potential) others.

Multiple outputs work, but are not being treated correctly. The TI plug-in only allows one instance at a time, but has multiple outputs (16). I created an instance and then an alias. I could then assign a different channel in ‘VST Instrument Properties’ to each alias and gain control over each channel as an independent instrument.

Incidentally; when I sequenced 2 patterns to use 2 outputs, with 2 different sounds, they were in sync with each other, but not with the other (non-virus) parts of the sequence, as per the original defect noted at the start of this thread. I’m not sure if knowing that the delay is consistent across all aliases is useful information.

The defect I observed once I had started the sequence was that the track containing the first sequence had volume control over all virus sounds. It’s scope displayed a mix of all virus sounds. The subsequent tracks controlling the aliases had no waveforms displayed in the scopes, and had no control over the volume of the virus via the mixer faders. This may, however, be normal behaviour. I will give it a test in Sonar and see if you have independent control over each output there.

The TI does have it’s own faders in the plug-in for each channel, but it would be nice to have control in Renoise with scopes correctly displayed.

I’m not sure how much you can do towards supporting the TI without having one there to test. I’m sure all the TI users here would be happy to email Access technical support asking them to supply you with any information you need for fully implementing TI support in Renoise.

If I discover anything else I’ll post it up.

:EDIT:

It appears that it runs of a single output in Sonar as well. It also has the delay…I appears that Sonar is not an officially supported sequencer either. This doesn’t bode well for access co-operating with you if - presuming Cakewalk have tried - hmm I’ll continue to have a play with it.

:EDIT 2:

Despite the delay in triggering the BPM LED on next to the LCD screen flashes precisely in time with the sequencer.

[vvoois (vV)]

@Outisght

The defect I observed once I had started the sequence was that the track containing the first sequence had volume control over all virus sounds. It’s scope displayed a mix of all virus sounds. The subsequent tracks controlling the aliases had no waveforms displayed in the scopes, and had no control over the volume of the virus via the mixer faders. This may, however, be normal behaviour. I will give it a test in Sonar and see if you have independent control over each output there.

http://tutorials.renoise.com/Renoise/UsingVST :

Alias downsides
You can’t select different programs or banks in Alias instruments, because everything you do in the Alias will be affected on it’s host as well (with exception of the Channel and the Base Note). In basic terms, the Alias is nothing more than a ghost image of the host. Now for the other 5 instances you can add a new alias and increase the channel number to get their corresponding presets up front. Currently, another downside is that Aliases cannot be assigned to certain tracks. If you use an alias instrument in track00 and another alias instrument from the same host in track01, the leading alias will determine in which track all aliases will be played. But most of all, when the host-instrument itself is used, all alias instruments output will be redirected to the track where the host instrument is being toggled to play. This also means that all track effects from that track are applied to all alias instruments. You can’t lock an alias to a certain track: every change in the VST instrument properties will affect all other aliases of its host, including the host itself. Only the channel number is currently unique for each alias and host. There is planning for the near future to remove some of the limitations, but currently, they are there. You can circumvent these problems by using the VST instrument’s own native effects if it has them and supports them on each individual preset, or you will have to stick to using multiple instances of the same host in Renoise if you want to use different VST / DSP effects in different tracks. Keep an eye out for changes on this part of the documentation.

Multiout and single Alias control is on the ToDo list.

Okay to sum up your conclusion:needsstatic buffer doesn’t really affect the output, the plugin just requires a PDC algorithm which is also on the ToDo list (and one of the features most likely coming in one of the next two Renoise updates)

[Aidan_Howe (Outsight)]

Understood. Thanks for that. Shame I won’t be able to use effects on it for the timebeing, but having said that, it’s not going to be usable for practical purposes until the latency on triggering is fixed. Shame as it defeats the point of the plug-in, which gives a phenomenal amount of control with easy access. I look forward to these issues being addressed as I have no intention of switching sequencer away from Renoise.

Now the real question is - Do I even have any MIDI leads anymore tho plug this beast in the old fashioned way?!

[Dezacrator (Scott Lee)]

@taktik

Have you tried that CachedVsts.xml trick I’ve described above?

Yup. no go.

[029]

@Outisght

Now the real question is - Do I even have any MIDI leads anymore tho plug this beast in the old fashioned way?!

You don’t need to…

Running TI here using the USB as stand alone sometimes when needed. Usually it is the best to open the TI as VST in Cubase and run Renoise as a slave.

(you should see the virus TI midi and virus TI synth midioutputs in renoise)

[sknk]

dammit, for a second there i thought i had found the perfect synth/vst/controller that i’ve been looking for!

so triggering the virus when its connected via vst mode is the problem right?

what about just running it thru midi without cubase? would you be able to trigger with the pc keyboard without so big a delay?

and does this in anyway affect the ability to assign knobs to other vst’s?

if everything else works fine, other than the control via vst, i’ll be happy enough to pick one up and wait for a work around.

then maybe pay taktik a visit, and camp outside his house till he figures out a fix

[029]

@sknk

dammit, for a second there i thought i had found the perfect synth/vst/controller that i’ve been looking for!

so triggering the virus when its connected via vst mode is the problem right?

Yeah.

Virus TI can work in remote mode even without running it in VST.

@sknk

what about just running it thru midi without cubase? would you be able to trigger with the pc keyboard without so big a delay?

There is a delay compensation button for external synths in Renoise. Works just fine. And the sync in Virus midi is also awesome via USB. No problems here. Works with standard midi also.

@sknk

and does this in anyway affect the ability to assign knobs to other vst’s?
if everything else works fine, other than the control via vst, i’ll be happy enough to pick one up and wait for a work around.

Not sure about how it would affect. I think this would need some testing on how the Remote mode of the TI differs from the normal mode in terms of sending midi cc.

[sknk]

cheers for the reply 029.

looks like i’ll be getting myself a very early xmas present this year

[taktik]

Just contacted the Access support team and asked them to either take a look at the problem or to send us a test unit. I will let you know as soon as they respond.

Sorry, thats all I can do for now…