Vengeance Producer Suite - Avenger synth [1.3.1 FM cross modulation out now]

[Guy Rowland]

Yes, looks like the inevitable day one teething internet problems.

I have bought, successfully downloaded (if you register the serial, you get links that download MUCH faster than the ones you are originally given). Other than a systems check, no time to play with it yet though - slammed with work....

[woodsdenis]

Demo backup

[X-bassist]

Yes, looks like the inevitable day one teething internet problems.

I have bought, successfully downloaded (if you register the serial, you get links that download MUCH faster than the ones you are originally given). Other than a systems check, no time to play with it yet though - slammed with work....

Does this mean we might get a classic Guy review when time permits? Would be great to see this thread conclude with your feelings about the sound and workability. I'm also wonderi if you updated your darn keyboard (I have twice since hearing about your issues). Got myself a used KK S61 at a good price in pristine shape (Now if KK was only better ) . There are more options out there than 2 years ago. Either way would be good to hear your review of Avenger... When time permits.

[Guy Rowland]

I've still not updated my damn keyboard, still waiting for literally anything that gives me even the slightest confidence that it might be a solid improvement as a semi-weighted. Might be fun to do a video of this - over xmas probably as lord only knows when I'll have time to do it otherwise. And I've got to figure out how it works. I did a media composer's look at Nexus, will likely do the same here, although of course there's an awful lot more ground to cover. It's like an unholy lovechild of Nexus and Omni (without the sample content).

I'm hoping to have half an hour's play later, I'll report back with first impressions.

[Muziksculp]

They are offering a 20% X-Mas discount.

I might get it in the next few days. Looks like it is loaded with features, and does a bit of everything. I need to watch some of the video demos to see if I really like it. Especially Sonically.

[X-bassist]

I've still not updated my damn keyboard, still waiting for literally anything that gives me even the slightest confidence that it might be a solid improvement as a semi-weighted. Might be fun to do a video of this - over xmas probably as lord only knows when I'll have time to do it otherwise. And I've got to figure out how it works. I did a media composer's look at Nexus, will likely do the same here, although of course there's an awful lot more ground to cover. It's like an unholy lovechild of Nexus and Omni (without the sample content).

I'm hoping to have half an hour's play later, I'll report back with first impressions.

Since there are so many videos already perhaps you could focus on two key areas, How much do you like the tagging (does it surpass Omni?) and reviewing any Presets that are Not EDM. I've been through the 80 min preset video and most of it squarely falls into EDM music, EDM source, or trailer music with EDM. But I like the clarity of what I'm hearing.

You may want to check out the S88. The S61 seems to have more accurate velocity control than any other keyboard I've owned, and the knobs being setup and lightguide are great bonuses. I'm already seeing some S88's sold used in Los Angeles for a little over half the retail price. The ARP function on it is killer as well, a number of very original controls- with real knobs! Once you learn it and how to record it (not hard), it becomes a great/quick midii source. Even for string ostinatos (with any library) it has worked well for me.

As far as Avenger with the 20% off it's $176 in cart, good price, just not sure I will get much call for EDM, so I'm curious as to what it does outside that realm - and yes, I'm covered for drums and bass (both real and electronic). Thanks.

[Guy Rowland]

S88 - weighted. Nah. Actually played it once, and... nah.

I've just had a first Avenger play. Tons of fun. Does an incredible amount, but it is gonna need some time to get familiar with the conventions. Some are intuitive and great, others less so.

My biggest concern though I guess is that I'm not sure how well it does warm. I was playing around with various combinations of oscillator sources and filters, but nothing was leaping out as fat and / or warm. Which is a great pity - I do have plenty of call for crisp and clear, but my heart is in the warm really.

Browser seems straightforward and easy to use - by default it adds categories on top of each other rather than switches between them, which takes some getting used to. Tags are nice and straightforward - my sweet spot would be between this and Omni 1 probably, but this is better than the NI categories for me - musically useful terms like Aggressive, Dark, Fat, Warm, cold etc alongside the expected genre categories and basic stuff like Arp / plucked etc. You're probably covered for 90% of the basic searches you'd need, and it will be pain-free. It's the kind of browser I'd expect to be the norm these days but certainly isn't. This makes it really solid going forward - I think we're going to see a ton of third party content, which should integrate well with the factory stuff.

So as a first assessment, this looks more likely to replace Nexus than Omni for the jobbing hack (I mean, nothing was ever going to replace Omni obviously). While Omni somehow still seems to struggle a little with aggressive / bright modern EDM styles which Avenger and Nexus handles with ease (twinned with programmers immersed in their niche fields), Omni is really good at rich and warm, both analogue and sample-based material, which this - so far anyway - is not. The "cinematic" stuff is largely unimpressive too, though I'm not sure how much of this is to do with the programmers and how much the sonics. I'd guess 75% programmers, 25% sonics.

I need to get to grips with the drum sequencer, which is a whole other thing. I'm hopeful that this will be a goto for modern stuff. Sounds are spot on.

[woodsdenis]

I am liking it more and more, as with all new VI takes time but really quick and very well thought out IMO.

[Marius]

Can't say I'm seeing much here that expands upon what I can accomplish with the Komplete synths, Serum, and Omni (ignoring the shelves of other synths I have lying around various hard drives) but the fact that it covers a lot of ground in a single well-built plugin is very appealing for folks just getting into synthesis.

[Guy Rowland]

Marius - its definitely appealing to a good deal more than those just getting into synthesis. It's really quite difficult now to bring something genuinely new to synthesis - how long ago would you say the last genuine sonic innovation was in the field? So we inevitably have endless variations on the same core ideas.

There's a seemingly limitless pursuit of the ultimate emulation of classic old units - that's one way to go I guess. Otherwise it becomes a case of the precise ingredients and the precise way you bake them. The attraction of Anvenger is (sorry for repetition) - that it's a very well-conceived platform. It can handle a wide variety of synthesis options, very quick to modulate and contains a whole drum engine that is very unusual for a synth. Finally - and critically - it is designed to be friendly towards patch creators and has very solid library and patch management.

It has some way to go yet before it reaches its potential imo. On further exploring the drum sequencer, it's sadly crippled at the moment by having only one loop available per patch, and not at the same time as the individual drum elements. This is the difference between a toy and a workhorse, and its frustrating as there's a terrific core library and some really clever features in the sequencing. The good news is that the developer seems very responsive, and has already said they plan to expand how this works.

[Marius]

I didn't mean to disparage its capabilities—it looks very powerful indeed—I meant that it's appealing to those getting into this in the sense that they don't already have 15 other synths with overlapping functionality, so this covers a lot of bases. It's almost a no-brainer. For those of us with an existing synth collection, it has more convincing to do.

It either has to sound better than what we have, or it has to confer workflow benefits through the breadth of its capabilities and/or the effectiveness of its interface. Personally I'm neither seeing nor hearing anything that's tempting me to add yet another synth plugin to my arsenal, but these days the synths that catch my attention are the weird ones—Madrona's and so on.

[Erik]

Well,it surely is fun, though the demo powers off much to early to try to program sounds decently - decent sounds is another problem...

I'm with you,Marius and Guy.

Well thought out, kind of intuitive for someone who knows a fair bit about synths.
Not expensive considering the breadth of sonic capabilities
Do I need it, considering I've got my back covered ? I mean, I haven't upgraded my Omni yet and it's almost the same price tag.Don't have Nexus nore Serum (the latter I've demoed and was not convinced, or should I rather say the presets were not of my liking.
It's taxing on my i7 3770,I jump rapidly toward 25%CPU
I too am on the warm side of synths - our age, probably. I've messed around with the vinyliser insert FX and it's efficient as are the Shaper options on the right side - some added gritt with the filters closed :Canada and its Boards were not that afar... but it was a tad late to really say.
I hate it takes more than a blink to jump from one preset to the other
FX are powerful
As a hobbyist, I'm not into tight deadlines, just workflow, ease of use,and of course a family of sounds I fancy : would it deliver ? (see above) Sometimes it's just fun to insert plugins to do the job rather than fussing around a huge GUI.

[Guy Rowland]

Finally had some proper time to play with programming the thing. And I tells ya what - I LOVE IT. And my reservations about not sounding analogue enough are melting away - playing around with some wavetables and filters, and it sounds pretty damn good to me. It's probably the most fun synth to program I've yet worked with - the big interface is very well thought out. I've always been a fan of Omni's zooming into details, but turns out if you have a big enough UI and design it well, this maybe works even better for me. The drag and drop modulations are a joy. And I know I'm only exploring a fraction of what can be done.

Unplanned, I seem to have embarked on a mission to create dozens of analogue-sounding 16ths arps all with modwheel fun. I'm just a sucker for 'em, can't get enough. It's so easy to create an publish a bank, I might just do so if there's any interest out there. I made 10 today, perhaps 30 or so would make a nice little microbank for the new year?

[X-bassist]

Finally had some proper time to play with programming the thing. And I tells ya what - I LOVE IT. And my reservations about not sounding analogue enough are melting away - playing around with some wavetables and filters, and it sounds pretty damn good to me. It's probably the most fun synth to program I've yet worked with - the big interface is very well thought out. I've always been a fan of Omni's zooming into details, but turns out if you have a big enough UI and design it well, this maybe works even better for me. The drag and drop modulations are a joy. And I know I'm only exploring a fraction of what can be done.

Unplanned, I seem to have embarked on a mission to create dozens of analogue-sounding 16ths arps all with modwheel fun. I'm just a sucker for 'em, can't get enough. It's so easy to create an publish a bank, I might just do so if there's any interest out there. I made 10 today, perhaps 30 or so would make a nice little microbank for the new year?

Sounds great! I wasn't convinced by the videos so far, considering the synths I own I don't use enough, but if it can do some unique things and be simplier to create patches on, it might be worth a go (it is, afterall, cheaper than upgrading my omni). Does this mean we could expect another exciting walkthrough video with your favorite patches? Would make for great pre-Christmas "what do I get myself?" Viewing.

[Guy Rowland]

Does this mean we could expect another exciting walkthrough video with your favorite patches? Would make for great pre-Christmas "what do I get myself?" Viewing.

There is definitely a chance - gotta re-install Camtasia which has meant I've put stuff off, but I'm rather enthused by this, and there might well be enough time this weekend. I've read a few other people use this word with Avenger - "fun". It's fun to program. 99% of soft synths are a chore to me when it comes to programming. This isn't perfect, but fundamentally I get it I think.

I think we're gonna see an explosion of third party stuff. I've never thought about releasing anything before, but the very architecture of Avenger almost demands it. Quite like the idea of microbanks - mine will likely be really mining the 16th theme, just 16 patches, all 16th Arps. Why not? Just for free of course, no delusions of grandeur here.

[Scoredog]

Here's the drums. To me, this is golden - a simple, easy to use step sequencer integrated into the drum software, so its easy to change everything from effects to pitch to anything on a note by note basis. What he doesn't mention in the video is that there will also be provision to route every element to any output.

Would be nice to see this expanded to cover broader territory beyond electronic basic kit elements, but as is it'll be very useful to me.

Pretty cool...I have a couple of issues but maybe I am missing something. It's seems I need another instance if I go beyond one sequence. So to create a song with fills I need multiple instances. Also I can play a sequence but can't play individual sounds unless I create a 2nd instance and turn the sequencer off. Wish there was a midi drag and drop, that might help. Again let me know if I am missing something.

[Guy Rowland]

No, you're right - they did the hard bit and skipped the easy bit! Sounds like it'll be evolving feature-wise though. Hope so, obviously.

[woodsdenis]

If the Drum seq was the same as the Arp with an ABCD version and rudimentary chaining that would do it for me.
Without a doubt the easiest and most fun synth to program, very well thought out with a great sound.

[Erik]

Sorry to insist on what you've already kind off stated Guy, but don't you think you could land to same sonic territories with Omni 2 ? Considering it has all these new raw synth waves...
I have yet to update my Omni so don't know if I'll jump on the special Vengeance Christmas deal (when it ends up, by the way ?), knowing Omni upgrade is not about to vanish anytime soon.
Has someone had the chance to compare it to Serum ?
Has Vengance a good reputation for updating its products ? (drum patterns chaining issue...)
I suppose I could ask all this on KVR rather than annoying you here...
Thanx !

[Guy Rowland]

Sorry to insist on what you've already kind off stated Guy, but don't you think you could land to same sonic territories with Omni 2 ? Considering it has all these new raw synth waves...!

In theory - absolutely with the analogue stuff. And in practice to some degree too. But I'm a huge believer that it's the UI of a synth - or any product to a greater or lesser degree - that imposes what you create with it every bit as much as the sonics. To me, it's a totally different experience programming with Avenger to Omni - and I do love Omni, but it's quite different. With Avenger, everything is laid out in front of you in one go, save a bit of tabbing. Everything is about drag and drop, which is a workflow I always gravitate to. So how a synth is laid out leads me down certain paths, and a lot of the patches in Sixteen that I wouldn't have come up with Omni for that very reason (plus a few feature and wavetable specifics I guess).

That's old analogue. Where Omni 2 is still curiously unsatisfying is in EDM and other modern dance. It never quite gets what Avenger can do in literally seconds. That Avenger init patch, like Nexus 2, just screams EDM and it's only a sawtooth - just turn up unison mix and there's your EDM lead. It's the default effects that already lead you down a certain path, so it's essential to turn those off for programming anything else (and you can save your own init). I'm initially approaching programming Avenger in very traditional analogue ways just because that's a) my thing and b) the workflow makes it such a fun experience.

For anyone who hasn't seen btw, here's a little video I did giving a very very quick broad overview, and a look at the tiny little freebie Arp expansion, Sixteen, I did for it:

[Erik]

thanx for your feedback Guy. BW, I've watched your vid 2 or 3 days ago. I agree with the UI factor : the way it leads you to a certain path or direction or inspiration.
It's he reason I keep struggling churning patches in Zebra when it's so easy for me in Massive - particularily the MSEG sections inZebra copmared to those in Massive

[Guy Rowland]

Avenger 1.2 is on its way, with granular synthesis and a new oscillator browser. This video introduces the latter:

[Guy Rowland]

...and here's the upcoming granular synthesis walkthrough

[Erik]

Thanx Guy. Very tempting for the synth sucker I've always been - well, at least since 1976 or something... Will grab it some day.

[Guy Rowland]

It's really well designed I think, Erik. Essentially, the big draw for me is having that big UI with everything right there, and then just drag and dropping for the mod routings. It seems a very intelligent use of a computer UI for a synth.

There's been a few more videos since on their youtube channel about recording envelopes, using envelopes in granular and the granular library. Pretty impressive stuff.