Virus indigo

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The first difference you're likely to notice between the old and new Virus plug-ins concerns the copy protection. The original used the then-standard floppy key, whereas Virus Indigo comes with a licence card for authorising an iLok dongle.

If you had the original Virus plug-in installed on your system, Virus Indigo overwrites it, so you might as well uninstall the original and save your authorisation, in case you want to install it on another system. Having discovered this, I was a little nervous about what would happen when I loaded in a Pro Tools session that had used the old Virus plug-in — especially as I often don't bother to save its settings as a Virus patch, finding it simpler just to save the entire Pro Tools Session.

I needn't have worried. The Session loaded without any problems, and with Virus Indigo automatically loaded in the inserts where the old version had been. When I pressed Play, everything sounded exactly as it had done before.

Top marks although a Readme file supplied with Virus Indigo warns that this may not work properly on the PC. Opening the plug-in's editing window highlights another change: the new Easy Page. The point of the Easy Page is to provide instant access to 10 of the most important parameters from across the range, so that you can do 'quick-and-dirty' edits without having to jump around the pages looking for the right parameter.

Some of the Easy Page controls actually manipulate several parameters elsewhere; for instance, the Easy Page Filter Cutoff knob adjusts the cutoff frequency of both of Virus Indigo's filters together. The new Easy Screen provides a quick way of getting to some of the main sound-generating parameters. The Easy Page is a nice addition, but for anyone familiar with the basics of subtractive synthesis, the detailed editing pages shouldn't be too daunting.

The interface is actually superior to that of the hardware synth in one respect, because there are no shifted functions — every parameter has its own dedicated control. However, Access haven't done too much to exploit the additional potential for visual feedback offered by a full-sized computer screen. For instance, the Wave Select and Shape controls for each oscillator allow you to choose a waveform from a preset list of 64, and then shape it to taste.

This feature would be so much more intuitive if you could actually see a visual representation of the waveform change shape as you move the controls; in fact, you can only find out what wave shape any number corresponds to by looking it up in the PDF manual. How about giving us values in seconds, Hertz and other real-world units? Minor gripes aside, however, Virus Indigo's interface is a model of clarity, and is easy to use. And what a difference it makes!

Is it really just 16 months since I reviewed the first incarnation of the Virus Indigo? So much seems to have happened in that time: wars, terrorism and famines, the World Cup Yet here we are again, and before me sits the Indigo 2; still sleek, still metallic, still covered with bright blue LEDs, but now beating with the more powerful heart of Access's latest Virus C synthesis engine. Photo: Mark Ewing Assuming you can still recall the era of the original review see SOS June you'll recall that — if you ignore their TDM plug-ins — Access offered a product range that looks little different from today's.

The flagship was the Virus Keyboard, accompanied by its desktop equivalent, the Virus B, the obsolete Virus A, the Indigo itself, and the then soon-to-arrive Virus Rack. At first sight, this appeared to be an inclusive range that allowed you to choose the machine format most suitable for your needs, but things were not as simple as they seemed. The number of oscillators, the polyphony, the multitimbrality and the effects structure changed from model to model, as did the latest useable OS revision.

This meant that you could not simply decide which physical format was most suitable; you also had to ask yourself whether the synthesis engine in that model was appropriate for you. If the answer is 'argent and shiny', read on.

One of the nice things about the standardisation of the Virus range is that in principle if you know one Virus C, you know them all. This means that I can direct you to Nick Magnus's review of the desktop Virus C in SOS August , and this will tell you what you need to know about the guts of the machine.

I happen to agree with almost everything that Nick wrote, so rather than regurgitate the bulk of his article, I thought that it would be more informative to refer back to my comments about the original Indigo, to see how the new model improves upon its predecessor. If I remember correctly which I do, because I checked , I made several criticisms regarding the Indigo. Some of its deficiencies were relatively inconsequential, but I felt that some spoilt what would otherwise have been an excellent synth.

Of the relatively inconsequential criticisms, one was physical: I disliked the position of the modulation and pitch-bend wheels. I still do. Given Access's desire to make the Indigo as compact as possible, I understand the need for this; I just don't like it. More significantly, I complained about the lack of quality of the keyboard, particularly when compared with the far superior Virus Keyboard.

I have bad news and good news here. Firstly, the Indigo 2's keyboard still feels cheap to me. However, it now responds to aftertouch as well as velocity. I'm a devoted advocate of aftertouch, partly because I find it far more expressive than any other modulation controller, and partly because my 'other' hand is always occupied with other tasks. So, although the keyboard on the Indigo 2 remains rather lightweight for my tastes, I am delighted by the addition of channel pressure and its associated parameters.

This makes the Indigo 2 expressive in exactly the way that the Indigo wasn't, removing it from the 'very nice, but no thanks' category and placing it within the far superior 'very nice; how much does it cost?

I had further criticisms regarding the original Indigo's effects section. Ever since Access launched the original Virus in , they have rather unnecessarily inflated its specification by calling voicing parameters 'effects'.

In their marketing for the Indigo, they claimed that the model offered 82 simultaneous effects, but I stick by my assertion that the ring modulators and 'boost' parameters have been included in the list as a marketing ploy, adopted to make the spec look more impressive than it would otherwise be. The situation is now even worse in this respect, with Access claiming that the Indigo 2 offers no fewer than 98 simultaneous effects!

However, the additional 16 really are welcome; they're three-band EQs, one for each of the Indigo 2's 16 multitimbral parts. I've long been a fan of dedicated EQs on synths. This is because they allow you to shape patches in ways that conventional filters cannot. Shaping can be subtle helping a sound to sit in a mix, for example , or it can be radical, completely changing the character of the sound.

Each of the Indigo 2's EQs offers a low-shelf, a high-shelf, and a parametric mid-band that allows you to select centre frequency, gain, and Q. The low-shelf offers up to 16dB of boost or cut though I suspect the cut won't see much action in these bass-crazy times , and an oddly chosen lowest shelf frequency of The mid-band boasts an extravagant range of This allows you to sculpt sounds radically.