Access Virus TI Polar

Last week a friend from Sydney came to visit us and he brought his Virus Polar with him.  I was incredibly excited about this and had it hooked up within minutes.  Over the following few days I got to explore the sounds the synth was capable of and even replaced several synth parts in songs I had in progress with Virus parts, as well as taking about 150 multisamples and one-shots for my sample library. 

I only had the synth hooked up via MIDI and audio, so therefore completely forewent the whole “TI” (Total Integration) element, which makes the unit act as an Audio Interface and behave as a VST instrument, among other things.  This is probably a real shame, as I had seen youtube videos of the Atomiser, sidechaining and other TI features, however it must be said that the synth engine of the Virus Polar alone was enough to win me over and enthrall me for days (even years, potentially). 
The thing just sounds great.  It is quite seriously the most versatile synth on the market and every component of the synth is outstanding, from the cutting VA oscillators to the analogue-emulating filters to the freaky waveshaping controls and the high quality distoration and decimation and time-based FX. 
It won’t sound just like a Moog, but it’s the best representation of what virtual analogue has to offer.  When I was playing with it I kept imagining that it would be an invaluable commercial sound design tool, as much as a stock trance/electro staple, by virtue of it’s versatility and tweakability. 

The aesthetics are worth a mention, too.  There’s something about white shades and frozen themes that really turns me on.  If you don’t believe me, look at almost every CD cover for The Crystalline Effect - they’re essentially identical colourschemes to the Polar.  Access just understand good, understated aesthetics, and that adds extra inspiration. 

Here are a couple of demos I did:

Percussive loop.  The one-shot samples are from the Virus which I recorded while tweaking several paramaters, then chopping the files up and loading them into HALion and programming this beat.  This’ll be used in a Shiv-r song:

Synth demo.  This little riff won’t make it into any of my tracks but it shows off the Virus’ nice filters:

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