well, I´ve tried a NL3 and a Virus C.
I´m a complete programming moron (or close to it, a simple calculator would already start confusing me),
and both were pretty easy to work with in my opinion.
Although any clavia synth is obviously still the best synths I´ve seen if you look at the interface.
And that is thé most important thing in my eyes for a FIRST synth : the interface.
If you start with synths, and you work with a ****ty interface, usually you will start loosing interest in it gradually, and all together sell your synth after a few months or a year or so...
It happens to so many guys out there.
It happened to me about nine years ago. (I played piano since I was 7 and just got back into pianoplaying untill very recently, I never gave up music, I simply couldnt´t, but I gave up on the electronic labyrinth of synths back then) There was no internet available back then (or at least not where I came from), and I had a menudriven synth, and a ****ty manual. (Now I´ve restarted about 9 months ago, and I just love the internet for this now)
I once heard a guy on vintagesynth saying he picked his first synth purely after reading some manuals on the net, and didn´t even listen to it at all. I would never go that far, but I really see his point.
But trying to say that the clavia is better than the virus or the other way around is a) a matter of personal taste, so not really discussable and b) comparing apples with oranges.
I personally didn´t like the virus (but that´s just me) but it´s a great synth, no doubt. I loooooved the NL (again, just my taste). Also a great synth, although the virus wins when you compare both specs. But both synths will be used for different sounds, I think.
But I don´t agree on the Virus sounding good even without fx. But hey, I´m a sucker for fx.
As I said, it´s all personal taste.
I recently tried out an andromeda, and found it´s interface pretty intuitively to work with too, even for a programming loser like me. In any case, whoever wrote above there that the virus is one of the worst modern synths if you consider it´s interface obviously never worked with 90% or more of any menudriven roland synth.
Man, I just hate roland for that
(only their old stuff or the grooveboxes shouldn´t come with free aspirine, all the rest is just a pain in the.... and seriously, those manuals... written by some polish guy, after being translated from Japanese to Hebrew, Swahili and Martian respectively. And all translators were on large amounts of acid. definitely.
)
