Access Music User Forum

I ask only because the Virus is my favourite synthesizer and I want only the best for Access. And I ask because all my Virus-owning friends want to know too!

For those who don't know, M-Audio (now a part of Avid, a very large audio company who makes Pro Tools and a Hollywood film editing standard) released their first hardware synth, called Venom. Its similarities and obvious inpiration taken from the Virus in name, sound, and design are very thinly-veiled. Avid positions this synth as an evil-sounding virtual analog synth with an integrated, real-time software editor.

I truly believe competition is good and this is probably the first time the Virus has ever had any real competition. While obviously the Virus sounds and looks better, and is better built, the Venom is cheaper (but offers much less polyphony) and has much larger marketing muscle behind it. Even though Access may not see this synth as a threat (and to people who really know synths, it's not), when a competitor muscles in on your market and uses your exact value proposition to sell their cheaper knockoff of your product, it's important not to ignore it and hope it goes away, or just hope people will recognize it for what it is and come to you for the better quality or just "the real thing". People are very fickle and have short memories. It could very well happen in a few years that people start accusing Access of making an expensive Venom ripoff!

I'm sure you guys have thought of all this, but on the off-chance you haven't: why not turn this whole ploy around on Avid by leveraging the existing maturity and vast sound library of the TIOS/VC and make a plastic, 49-key version of the Virus with a single, cheaper Sharc processor (as long as it can do more than Venom's 12 voices; ignore multitimbrality), call it the Virus | Toxin, sell it for $600 MSRP, and let Avid unwittingly do the marketing for YOUR entry level synth...possibly increasing sales to new levels.

Quoted from "Suges"

this is probably the first time the Virus has ever had any real competition. While obviously the Virus sounds and looks better, and is better built, the Venom is cheaper (but offers much less polyphony) and has much larger marketing muscle behind it. Even though Access may not see this synth as a threat (and to people who really know synths, it's not), when a competitor muscles in on your market and uses your exact value proposition to sell their cheaper knockoff of your product, it's important not to ignore it and hope it goes away, or just hope people will recognize it for what it is and come to you for the better quality or just "the real thing". People are very fickle and have short memories. It could very well happen in a few years that people start accusing Access of making an expensive Venom ripoff!

There's nothing totally amazing or new I see about the venom, a lot of synths in the past other than the virus have been there and done that. It doesn't even include a vst/au editor which a lot of synths are doing atm, also 12 voices over 4 parts??

However there are synths out there that do give the virus a run for it's money, more recently the novation ultranova which is probably as feature packed as a TI and even offers things the virus can't do like loop-able EG's. However it's only mono-timbral which is pretty much a fail for such a synth.

besides its not real V A its sample wave data