Tutorial

How to setup the Virus TI with Cakewalk Sonar

 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Table Of Contents

How to setup the Virus TI with Cakewalk Sonar

1 - Configure the audio preferences
2 - Load the tutorial song
3 - Examine how we have built the tutorial song
4 - Recording and playback
5 - Automation
6 - Mixing and Routing
7 - Bounce to disk
8 - General advice, tips and tricks
 6 SOFTWARE ADDENDUM
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Legal Notice
© Copyright 2008-2010 Kemper Digital GmbH. All rights reserved.

This manual, as well as the software and hardware described in it, is furnished under license and may
be used or copied only in accordance with the terms of such license. The content of this manual is
furnished for informational use only, is subject to change without notice and should not construed as a
commitment by Kemper Digital GmbH.

Kemper Digital GmbH assumes no responsibility or liability for any errors or inaccuracies that may ap-
pear in this book. Except as permitted by such license, no part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, record-
ing, by smoke signals or otherwise without the prior written permission of Kemper Digital GmbH.

Virus is a trademark of Kemper Digital GmbH. All other trademarks contained herein are the property of
their respective owners. All features and specifications subject to change without notice.

www.access-music.de
support@access-music.de
 8 SOFTWARE ADDENDUM
 HOW TO SETUP THE VIRUS TI WITH CAKEWALK SONAR

How to setup the Virus TI with

Cakewalk Sonar

Here are a couple of tips and tricks on how to use the Virus TI together with Cakewalks Sonar 8.5. The
goal of this Tutorial is to show you how to set up the Virus Control in Sonar, and work in the most produc-
tive way.

1 - Configure the audio preferences

Firstly, there are a few user-settings which are crucial in order to make the Virus TI work seamlessly in
Sonar. If you want to use the TI not only as a synthesizer but also as your main sound card: Open Op-
tions > Audio and you will see the following window:
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SOFTWARE ADDENDUM

Select Virus USB ASIO driver Out 1 as the Playback Timing Master and Virus USB ASIO driver In 1 as
the Recording Timing Master Click on the ASIO Panel button and select Virus TI under Device selection.

Setting the Driver to Access Virus TI will ensure that the TI is used as the main audio interface in Sonar.
Changing this setting is only necessary if you don’t already use another audio interface. The Virus TI
can communicate with the Virus Control plug-in in parallel to another audio interface, therefore it is not
mandatory to use the TI as your main interface. Set the System performance to Normal. Click the Close
button to close the Asio Panel. Next, click on the Advanced Tab and set the driver to ASIO, Dithering to
Triangular and Synchronisation to Trigger&Freewheel and select the Virus USB ASIO driver (1 in, 1 out)
as the Device under Record Latency Adjustment. Select a latency setting of 256 Samples for the play-
back and record buffer size.
 HOW TO SETUP THE VIRUS TI WITH CAKEWALK SONAR

Please note that Sonar can only compensate the latency for all your VSTs globally. Since the Virus has a
rather large internal latency you will need to activate the Live Mode in the lower left corner of the Virus
Control plugin when you want to use other VSTs in Sonar with minimal latency during recording.
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SOFTWARE ADDENDUM

Finally make sure that the Virus USB ASIO driver is selected under the Drivers tab both for the Input and
Output drivers.

2 - Load the tutorial song

“Virus TI Tutorial Song.cwp” is located in the same folder as this document. You’ll see an Arrangement
page which contains 9 sequences set to control 9 MIDI channels, all of which feed into the Virus Control
plug-in. Press Play and you’ll hear a 32 bar multi-part arrangement coming out of your Virus. If you don’t
hear anything, make sure that you’re using the correct outputs. The tutorial session is set to use Output
1+2 - depending on your hardware configuration (and especially if you don’t use the Virus TI as your
main sound card) you might need to adjust this setting in order to drive the correct pair of outputs. As
you can see, bar 1 is intentionally left empty. This is necessary in order to allow Sonar to “settle in”, and
 HOW TO SETUP THE VIRUS TI WITH CAKEWALK SONAR

especially important if you use arpeggiated patches like the one on MIDI channel 4 in our example (the
one called “Noise Arpeggio”).

3 - Examine how we have built the tutorial song

In contrast to other VST plug-ins, you cannot instantiate 16 copies of the Virus Control plug-in to control
the 16 Parts of the Virus TI. A single instance of the Virus Control plug-in allows you to communicate with
all 16 parts of the Virus TI. It is therefore important that you take care to set the MIDI channels correctly,
because these determine to which part you’re sending the MIDI data. The Part numbers correspond
with the MIDI channels respectively. To achieve this, we use 16 MIDI tracks with different MIDI channels
but assigned to the same instrument to gain access to the 16 parts of the Virus Control. There are sever-
al ways in Sonar to instantiate a software synth. You can open the Synthrack in the Views menu and click
on the plus button in the upper left corner to add a soft synth or click on Insert-Softsynth-Access-Virus
TI (or TI Snow if you use a TI Snow) in the Insert Menu. Then click the checkbox for “First Synth Audio
Output“ in the Insert Soft Synth options. Click OK and you will see that a track for the Virus has been
created that connects the main audio output of the TI with the Sonar audio engine.
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Now you can create up to 16 MIDI tracks to drive the track that you just created.

To do that click on Insert-Multiple Tracks. Set the number of Audio Channels to zero and the number of
MIDI tracks to 16 and select the Virus TI as the destination. Set Channel to 1 and click OK. On the left
side of the arrange window will now see 16 MIDI tracks that have their output assigned to the Virus TI.
Change the MIDI channels for the last 15 tracks from 2-16 so each track corresponds to a matching
part in the Virus TI. We, for instance, use MIDI channel 1 for the Kick, MIDI channel 2 for the Claps, MIDI
channel 3 for the Shaker et cetera.

4 - Recording and playback

When working with Audio Interfaces and Plug-ins, latency is introduced. In general, the good news is
that modern sequencers compensate for this latency once a track is played back. The bad news is
that often you have to record your performance while feeling the latency, which most people consider
to be rather uncomfortable. One advantage of the Virus TI’s analog outputs is that once a part makes
use of them, you will enjoy a lightning-fast response, similar to the zero-latency feature on some of the
better sound cards. While recording, we recommend that you switch the Main Outs (Virus Control >
Common Page) of the part you are about to record to Analog 1+2 instead of USB. This way, the audio
data doesn’t need to travel from the Virus TI into the Virus Control and from there to your audio interface;
instead, it’s being sent straight to the Virus’ analog outputs. Once you have finished recording this par-
ticular track, switch the Main Outs back to USB to allow this part to be fully latency-compensated. This is
 HOW TO SETUP THE VIRUS TI WITH CAKEWALK SONAR

especially important because when you playback these latency compensated tracks through the analog
outputs of the TI they would playback ahead of the others.

5 - Automation
There are several ways to automate the parameters of your Virus in Sonar. You can either use the soft
knobs on your Virus and move them while you record a track and the movements of the soft knobs will
be recorded on the track or you can call up the Synthrack in Sonar (Views-Synthrack) select the Virus,
click on the select parameter knob in the lower right corner of the window and click on any parameter
in the Virus plugin and then click on the knob in Sonar again to assign the control. A dialog box pops
up. Answer the dialog by clicking on yes. Then you can either record the movement of the virtual knob
in Sonar or if the parameter that you choose has a physical knob on the Virus hardware you can simply
move that to create data for automation. We recommend that you only create automation events with
matching Virus TI / Instrument MIDI channels in order to avoid confusion. For more details on automation
events, see the Sonar user manual.

6 - Mixing and Routing

You can use the TI with up to 3 stereo Outputs over USB. In order to make use of the additional audio
channels you need to check the “All Synth Outputs:Stereo“-box in the Insert Soft synth window when
you instantiate the Virus plug-in. This will create 3 separate TI Instrument tracks, each representing one
of the 3 virtual Stereo Outputs that the TI offers over USB. Track 5 of the Tutorial session (“Dub Pad”)
sends it’s audio to USB2 instead of USB1. As a result, the Virus will output this particular part on the sec-
ond TI instrument track, instead of the instrument’s main outs. You can switch the output assignment of a
part in Common > Output > Main Outs drop-down menu as shown in Step Four. Now have a look at the
second Virus TI Instrument track in the Tutorial session. This object receives audio from the Virus Control
plug-in. We instantiated two insert effects (Delay and Reverb) on this particular track to show how you
can process individual Virus Control parts.
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SOFTWARE ADDENDUM

7 - Bounce to disk
Sonar allows you to export a certain audio output to an audio file on your hard drive. Fast Bouncing
is currently not supported using the Virus TI. In order to achieve a usable result without dropouts and
crackling, you need to Export Audio using the Export command in Sonar’s file menu, which will open the
following dialog box: Click on the “Fast Bounce“-checkbox to deactivate that option.

Note: The Freeze function in Sonar doesn’t work because it can’t be set to execute in realtime. Freezing
faster than realtime will result in crackles and other unwanted artifacts.

8 - General advice, tips and tricks

Try to avoid to start your song at positions lower than 1.1.1.1 even though it is possible, we advise
against it. Film score producers should move the SMPTE start point of the movie back into the arrange-
 HOW TO SETUP THE VIRUS TI WITH CAKEWALK SONAR

ment instead of positioning it on the First bar; that way, your VTR can rewind to the top of the film (and
beyond) without Sonar’s song position becoming negative in value.
© 2010 Kemper Digital GmbH, Germany. All rights reserved. Product features, specifications, system requirements and availability are subject to change without
notice. All trademarks contained herein are the property of their respective owners. Printed in Germany. VTISOTU 05/10 Revision A