The Virus could never give me the bread and butter Oberhiem sounds i was looking for, thick chorus saws.
The TI can do some very distinctive saw sounds, with the Hypersaw wave added.
But the R3's drive stage bring in the retro like few VA synths will.
Maybe the prophet 08, but its analoge and triple the price.
But even with the R3's subosc amp stage selected, you can get some tasty moog basses, but not in the same league as 3osc's + Sub on the Virus.
Then theres the TI software. In another league from the R3's editor.
Plus 16 timbres, versus the 4 on the Radias and 2 on the R3.
I love the virus, but so many people these days in the VA synth market just want 'analog-ish' sounds, nothing to complex.
I would recommend the R3 to everyone. Its just fun to play.
Daz wrote:p.s. just for larks ... when I first started doing this stuff and wasn't fully au fait with at all, I had a simple rule that I followed; if in doubt buy the German thing. It worked very well for me. Behringer being the obvious exception to that rule.
Daz.
i actually go with the Japanese thing generally, M3 being exception to the rule.
German stuff is way overrated. I prefer Swedish Nord over Virus. But nothing can beat a Roland, Korg (minus M3) or Yamaha, they are the leaders and they make the best romplers that every studio needs.
I hope nobody minds me taking this slightly old topic up again...
As someone who has a Virus TI and a Radias, I have to agree that any direct comparison along the lines of "A is better than B" doesn't make sense - The Radias does a lot of things that the TI doesn't, it's cheaper, etc.
That said, if you look at it as a whole, the TI is a flagship synth that doesn't do PCM or drums (well, it can certainly do drum sounds if you program them, but it doesn't have drumkits in the regular sense), but it excels at what it does. In direct comparison the Radias is a lot more limited in that regard, and while the sonic variety you can get out of this machine's VA is good, it's no match for the TI.
Then again, it doesn't have to be. The TI's Vocoder is harder to use, you have to use the VST plugin to be able to define custom arp patterns, and it's generally harder to get where you want to on the TI because there's so much you can do wrong. And did I mention the TI is expensive?
So all in all, you have to be aware of the fact that the Radias isn't the proverbial VA oil tanker flagship, and anyone telling you that with "just a bit of programming" you could get it to sound like the TI, doesn't know what they're talking about. You just can't, get over it. It's a different sound for different applications, and certainly a formidable voice in the choir.
