DSP56300 Xenia and OsTirus, new Waldorf Microwave XT, and Access Virus TI Synthesizer emulators are coming soon to your DAW.
Good news from DSP56300. The Access Virus TI/TI2 and Snow emulator is now available. You can download the emulator and the editor from the DSP56300 website.
However, you need the original ROM of one of the Virus TI synths to make it work; otherwise, you won’t hear sounds from it. The developer does not share this. I will not do that, either. Also, I will not accept comments with links to the ROMs in the comments. Sorry.
The developers write on the website that this synth was developed to be used by hardware Virus TI users as a backup. It must be noted that owning the ROM is illegal and is at your own risk.
According to DSP56300, the emulator supports the hardware sample rates and higher ones, including 64000 Hz, 88200 Hz, and 96000 Hz.
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Article From April 16th, 2024
Digital synthesizers have a long history. Something has never changed. They are based on code that runs on DSP chips. Many synthesizers in the past used the Motorola DSP56300. For example, the Access Virus or the many Waldorf synthesizers used this in their core.
Unfortunately, these synths are slowly dying out in hardware because the DSP 56300 chip is at the end of its life. Thanks to a developer project of the same name, however, they will live on in software. They have created an emulator software that recreates many of these synths for free in your DAW.
DSP56300 OsTirus
Their first four Synthesizer emulators, Virus A, B, C, and the Waldorf Micro Q, were great successes in the synth and music production community. Good news for the 56300 synth hunters. There are currently two more synths in development.
This is the Ostirus, the emulator of the Access Virus Ti Synthesizer. It is a synth that they have been working on for a while but couldn’t release due to the hardware’s commercial availability. But now it has been discontinued, and the situation is different.
DSP56300 says:
We are happy to announce that our Virus Ti emulator is not far from release, it includes the ability to switch to the Snow model also which only uses one DSP rather than 2. It’s being heavily tested by our loyal supporters currently and as soon as known bugs are squashed it will be made public
If you can’t wait and do want to help us test and improve it then feel free to join our discord server and find out how to become a supporter of our project and join the testing team!
DSP56300 Xenia
In addition to this update to the Access Virus TI emulator OsTirus, there was another surprise. They unveiled that they are working on a Waldorf microwave XT emulator. It was the Microwave II Synthesizer in bright orange color, 44 knobs, and an audio input.
The core offered two wavetable oscillators per voice, a ring mod, a noise generator, various filters, and more. This classic Motorola-powered digital synth from the 90s is coming to your DAW very soon too. The developers say:
This one’s fresh off the press and is still being worked on and tested internally, it’s working pretty amazing up to now. Once we feel it’s stable enough it will be tested internally by our supporters to squash any bugs before public release
We have been working really hard since we last posted and we are very exited for everyone to experience the results of our efforts. If you want stay up to date with our daily progress then feel free to join us in our Discord server (link can be found on our website)
I’m very excited to see how the Access Virus Ti emulation will sound. I’m very interested to see what owners of the Virus TI will say about the sound quality.
DSP56300 Xenia and OsTirus will be available soon.
More information here: DSP56300
Schwing!
Loool haha
JP8080 is also in the making as far as I can tell from the discord Chan as well as some nord 😉
Yeah they’re “working on” several synths. Or no..they’re “doing research” on the Nord Lead. AKA doing nothing while the donations pour in. The only reason they even released the TI is because someone leaked it. Interesting how all the bugs suddenly disappeared within a couple days. It will be years until you see the JP8080 or whatever else they’re “working on”.
I used to think it was admirable what they’re doing until I realized what’s actually going on. Guess I can’t blame them, capitalism brings out the worst in people.
Yeah, I’m inclined to agree with this assessment.
Their turnaround times for bigfixes are super slow – if certain bugs are even addressed in the first place. They’re also all about “no mention of how to acquire ROMs and all” on their server, or “you’re only allowed to use this, if you have the hardware in question”. Yet people talk publicly about the fact “I never had the hardware, lol!”, or openly share links to archives of more than questionable legality of content.
I’ve also seen them randomly kick out users that actually try to help / do normal banter – no warning, unlike their “NO ROM” bot message. Therefore cutting them off from filing bug reports (if they even respond to those) and custom skins (not available through their homepage — and some skins actually fix their instrument usability, see Vavra). I’ve seen my fair share of toxic (sub)communities in my decades of being in the audio realm, but that’s not the figurehead you want to have.
Their “company” is also super secretive who is actually behind this project — I mean, just look at how the page and official statements (e.g. for Vavra) are designed, and if you know of certain… archival sites, this should give you an idea (yes, they are also active there!). Their manuals (for added features that the hardware didn’t have) are seeded in random blog posts, and aren’t really manuals at all. Filing regular tickets is not possible – because there is no email address to reach out – you have to have a Discord account -which they can block anytime at their own leisure.
Also… kind reminder. Vavra was only available if you spent 20 GBP as donation to keep the project alive. After the TI emulator was “leaked”, they also released the micro Q emulator. Now you have spend the same money again to get access to their Alpha-Beta-Whenever-it’s-ready Microwave XT emulator. Considering that donations drop in around 3-6 times per day… do the math.
The Access Virus had to die… for it to come alive again! Great to see this opening up, a living museum of these legends. Now if they curated the patch banks and offered new features the originals didn’t have, like picking a random patch (from the many 1,000s) and MPE support, that’d extend things far beyond!
Looking forward to Xenia. I wonder if it will satisfy my craving for a Waldorf M.
it will be nice but not comparable to a hardware synth with analog filters 😉 It’s pretty sure a different character
Well these were digital to begin with so theoretically they should be pretty faithful. Virus filters were already great sounding if not as mean as I’d like sometimes
sure but often the used digital to analog converters added something to the sound. In today’s synths less but more in the vintage synths. In this case, the developers offers emulators for the DSP chip, not for the actual synthesis. So the part where the digital sound transforms into analog sound is not modeled or so. So there will differences between the hardware and software.
Let us know how you like it in the year 2030 when they finally decide to release it.
I have been using the beta and it works great. Though I haven’t compared it to my hardware TI2.
On another note, I did find, subjectively, that it sounds better than some of my software synths.
as a Virus TI 2 owner i can say for sure, that its sound absolutely identical like the hardware! Now its time to say good bye for the Virus 😉
Oh man I’m excited to see “Xenia”. I’ve owned 2 different XTk’s and probably 3 XT racks since they were first released. One of my all time favorite synths. Still have all my Patches & Multis from those machines ready to load into Xenia. A donation is definitely in order for the crew @ The Usual Suspects. AMAZING WORK!
Hi, im an old waldorf xt user, i had the opportunity to grab the xenia in beta, and it does sound like the hardware minus the big digital to analog converters and some fm bugs.
Sound is pretty the same (some artifacts in modulations and fm) some of my patches sounds a bit different on xenia but is a big step in the plugins development, at 93% sounds the same and for the new generation is a big opportunity.
One important thing, i didnt see the opportunity to mod wavetables or load them…sincerely i didnt not tested if can load some user wavetables via sysex.
The virus TI A B C and microQ vavra are well emulted too…these guys made a very nice job.
“Hum actually” moment… Owning the ROM is obviously legal. What’s illegal is downloading and using it without having a licence to use it. You get that licence by owning the hardware, that includes the ROM in the machine.