VPS Avenger 2.1 released

[Guy Rowland]

Avenger 2 will be released on November 24 2023. Retail price TBA, upgrade from 1 is €99, with a Black Friday intro discount.

Here's what we know of the new features and Manuel's demos of them:

Spectral Synthesis

FFT Filter on samples

ARP ratchet filter

New Drum Browser

Shimmer upgrade for AA Reverb

BitBite lo-fi FX

Rutaverb new Reverb plugin with 5 algorithms inc "black hole" and shimmer

Envelope Follower as a mod source

ARP Randomizer and Quantizer

[My name is Nobody]

hmm, not yet heard anything that would actually cover new ' ground' , while new features suggests the upgrade price to be valid..... maybe when new sound banks come it might show what it's capable of...

[Guy Rowland]

hmm, not yet heard anything that would actually cover new ' ground' , while new features suggests the upgrade price to be valid..... maybe when new sound banks come it might show what it's capable of...

I don't disagree. It's an evolutionary update, not a revolutionary one, but the features look solid enough.

I think I just like Manuel actually. He's hilarious in those preset walkthroughs. Such a small company, and I like 'em.

[My name is Nobody]

hmm, not yet heard anything that would actually cover new ' ground' , while new features suggests the upgrade price to be valid..... maybe when new sound banks come it might show what it's capable of...

I don't disagree. It's an evolutionary update, not a revolutionary one, but the features look solid enough.

I think I just like Manuel actually. He's hilarious in those preset walkthroughs. Such a small company, and I like 'em.

Manuel has indeed this ‘almost stereotype’ ( south) german feature to look like he doesn’t enjoy what he’s doing, but clearly he does, producing soundbanks after soundbanks, including his participation in Refx.

A contrast appears clearly in his video’s with Dr Mix. Although for my side I quickly have enough of dr Mix’s over the top enthusiasm, both together could turn into a classic comical duo. And……there are some actual smiles on Manuel’s face.

[Guy Rowland]

Manuel has indeed this ‘almost stereotype’ ( south) german feature to look like he doesn’t enjoy what he’s doing, but clearly he does, producing soundbanks after soundbanks, including his participation in Refx.

A contrast appears clearly in his video’s with Dr Mix. Although for my side I quickly have enough of dr Mix’s over the top enthusiasm, both together could turn into a classic comical duo. And……there are some actual smiles on Manuel’s face.

Exactly! It's a classic odd-couple that really works. And Rene is a great third wheel.

[bbunker]

Any updates on the copy protection that will be used? Something about my system makes codeMeter (that's what they're on now, isn't it?) it is think that it's constantly a new system, and I haven't been able to get Avenger running for a while.

[Guy Rowland]

Any updates on the copy protection that will be used? Something about my system makes codeMeter (that's what they're on now, isn't it?) it is think that it's constantly a new system, and I haven't been able to get Avenger running for a while.

It's no longer Codemeter, hasn't been for a while. It's their own proprietary thing.

[bbunker]

Hmm - perhaps it not running for a while is also because I haven't tried running it for a while! Might go try it out again after the weekend

[Guy Rowland]

It's out, but quelle surprise, servers are down. Price for new users seems to be £133 with a Black Friday discount. Upgrades are circa £73 with the discount I think, but until their servers are back up I can't be sure.

While we wait, here's a nice no-nonsense 8 minute overview of some of the new features:

[Guy Rowland]

Well don't be fooled - of course this can do all the EDMs, but this is also a highly capable sound design synth. The new spectral synthesis gets some very interesting tones, similar but different to granular and less over-familar to my ears. There's a lot of good raw material in the factory library to muck about with too. I've barely scratched the surface of course, Manuel's tutorial videos are very helpful.

It's kind of a jack of all trades synth, but master of quite a lot as it turns out. Being an old analog-head, I like it can do that pretty well too, it's not cold and sterile like so many modern wavetable synths. So you can have a good analog feel and then that can be a jumping off point to all manner of goodness.

Fantastic value and depth.

[My name is Nobody]

Well don't be fooled - of course this can do all the EDMs, but this is also a highly capable sound design synth. The new spectral synthesis gets some very interesting tones, similar but different to granular and less over-familar to my ears. There's a lot of good raw material in the factory library to muck about with too. I've barely scratched the surface of course, Manuel's tutorial videos are very helpful.

It's kind of a jack of all trades synth, but master of quite a lot as it turns out. Being an old analog-head, I like it can do that pretty well too, it's not cold and sterile like so many modern wavetable synths. So you can have a good analog feel and then that can be a jumping off point to all manner of goodness.

Fantastic value and depth.

I cannot get to my account at all....servers down still?

[Guy Rowland]

I cannot get to my account at all....servers down still?

They're being slammed for sure. Just keep trying. I put it on the macbook this evening and it probably only took 20 minutes all in. Had to refresh a fair few times mind, waiting a day or two might be sanity-saving.

[My name is Nobody]

Well don't be fooled - of course this can do all the EDMs, but this is also a highly capable sound design synth. The new spectral synthesis gets some very interesting tones, similar but different to granular and less over-familar to my ears. There's a lot of good raw material in the factory library to muck about with too. I've barely scratched the surface of course, Manuel's tutorial videos are very helpful.

It's kind of a jack of all trades synth, but master of quite a lot as it turns out. Being an old analog-head, I like it can do that pretty well too, it's not cold and sterile like so many modern wavetable synths. So you can have a good analog feel and then that can be a jumping off point to all manner of goodness.

Fantastic value and depth.

I think I might wait till I hear some more , or newer, sound collections that indicate its new features are worth the €80,- upgrade price. I guess eventually I will do it, but for now I am still happy with the current tools, and the new few sound sets that require version 2 didn't yet convince me.

@guy: did you actually have (enough) time to play round with the new features? in your above words you seem to say it is all worth it?

[Guy Rowland]

I think I might wait till I hear some more , or newer, sound collections that indicate its new features are worth the €80,- upgrade price. I guess eventually I will do it, but for now I am still happy with the current tools, and the new few sound sets that require version 2 didn't yet convince me.

@guy: did you actually have (enough) time to play round with the new features? in your above words you seem to say it is all worth it?

Spectral works well on some stuff - unfortunately there's a bug where you can't set the root note at the moment, so that's limiting. To be honest the only other feature I've really made good use of is the new Quad effect thing - that's terrific because it is so deeply integrated into the synth itself it can do way more than standard delay effects.

Overall it's a nice update, but not really essential I'd say.

[Guy Rowland]

Spectral works well on some stuff - unfortunately there's a bug where you can't set the root note at the moment, so that's limiting.

Fixed now in 2.0.4

[Guy Rowland]

2.1 is out, with some new features:

NEW EFFECTS
AA Peak Limiter
AA Peak Compressor
AA Wha wha
Vowel Filter

NEW OSCILLATOR FEATURES
Harmonizer
Chorder main voice now mutable via preset browser menu

MISC
New Parameters to StereoMatrix fx
Preset-Preview can be played with DAW-BPM to get a better feel how it sounds in your project.
volume-control for preset-preview in presetbrowser.

BUG FIXES AND IMPROVEMENTS
- fixed: a fx will display "Default Preset" instead of "untitled" when a new instance is loaded.
- fixed: drum slot aux routing pulldown not updated correct after preset load
- fixed: mod-matrix "add target" was showing inactive routing elements
- fixed: drum loop sample is still visible in the scope after removing the sample from the slot
- fixed: osc velocity zone was ignored when osc is in multi-loop mode.
- fixed: trigger module saves user samples in the preset now.
- fixed mod-env osc-x trigger where keyzone was not taken into account on note release.
- fixed an issue where last ratchet note may slide, even if the gate is lower than 100%
- fixed a crash when try to copy/paste to master filter
- fixed click-sound issue in spectral playback when looping a sample.
- fixed a cpu spike that could occur when using random-arp-auto-dice
- fixed an issue where a fx preset is not selected correct when using the "save preset as..." function in the fx preset browser.
- improved stability. fixed several crashes that could occur while loading a preset.
- improved: when saving a preset via the memory button into a custom expansion, the preset will be located/revealed in the expansion-preset-browser