VPS Avenger

I'm overall very satisfied. I was choosing between Parawave Rapid and this. While Parawave Rapid offers the ability to import MIDI Files (Great!) it isn't yet about allowing a user to import their own wave files. What made me purchase Vengeance (Sound) Production Suite Avenger was not the long name (although it is clever - helps searchers find it on Google and Youtube).

What made me purchase it was the ability to import my own waves. But I found a lot of other reasons that it is a good choice. I still may get Rapid one day, and Serum one day (I got Amaranth Cycle instead, which allows me to draw and drag my 3D waves while recording them - which might be one of the cooler things out there - but its not as well supported as Serum - in fact, I don't know if its supported at all, please send its developer a check so he can afford to continue!).

But this newcomer Avenger is one of a few dozen truly monster synths out there that are clear workhorses, and it is one that is not only flooded with usefulness, that screams, "work with me today", but one that comes with hundreds of great well-crafted patches that are not, as some of the nexus patches may be, so finalized as to be the inverse of inspiration.

There will definitely be some work needed to nearly "perfect" this softsynth workstation, adding many additional desirable tools to it. But its combination of features is unique, and compared to synths of several years back, it can just seem rather boundless; providing less frustration, more ease, more good compliments from others... In fact this is really such a good effort that its hard to be nitpicky. Just the fact that it is a great synth that already has a great sounding drum machine and sequencer built in is a hard one to match. (But getting it to play your song with you, that's not one of its more perfected applications... How do you make it switch to the next earliest or next latest drum sequence, or MIDI trigger drums while in drum sequence playback mode?)

I would say that it should be possible with a few enhancements to give a lot of other companies a total run for their money. In the mean time it is cutting edge and probably will get a lot of traffic but won't truly dethrone anyone.

But still, if you're into owning more than one heavy-hitter virtual synth, particularly if you like playing in some amount of EDM, this may truly deserve your consideration. Because if you have another synth, no matter what it is, I doubt if you will find this combination of both useful EDM or experimental sounds, AND inviting editing tools.

I'm not easy to please. When I first listened to a couple of sounds in their preset library I did not think it sounded very good. I really had expected "something", and did not hear that "something" right away. Which initially turned me off.

But later, after enjoying the layout and synth editing features, arp, step, mod, drum, and keymap pages, when I finally actually began going through the included library, (which is well demarcated and fairly searchable), it immediately flipped to a reaction 180 degrees from that one. (As the other reviewer pointed out, there are slightly less sounds than was stated on their promotional page - really? did they decide that a few of those "included" ones were keepers for inclusion in a later package :) But nevertheless, there are some very good ones here, including some very useful guitar-ish sounding and keyboardish sounding ones.)

After I adjusted my volume (read LOUDER) I realized that because this synth is more designed for a certain style, EDM, it needs to be a heard a little differently than my other large library synths - the dynamics interplay such that they belong, well, in your face. Not that EDM is all this synth is good at, but my point is just that really good sound designers all produce work that is original. It can take a moment to get used to it. I haven't been particularly focused on EDM, but am planning to incorporate a bit of the feel here and there in my work, and am looking forward to using some of these sounds right away.

But many original sounds are included. While it is possible that they are original to me only because I do not own Nexus, and only have about 5 Spire libraries, I still think there are very definitely some gems in the library that you will probably not have from elsewhere, and will probably want.

Yes, I do own Spire, and even though i purchased a number of the 3rd party expansions, it hasn't completely filled my need for such sounds (I guess it wouldn't be doing its job unless it made me feel like acquiring more anyway.) But I'm more interested in creativity, rather than using or exploring other people's work. Spire hasn't been a synth I've really enjoyed doing editing in, the way I do it in Falcon or Omnisphere.

The setup of synth tools in Avenger, like in Falcon, is a more up-to-date entry, with a certain amount of wave table synthesis, and wave table user creation (but less than 256 as in Serum, much less than the 600 + that Waves Codex allows), combined with virtual analog synthesis. It doesn't combine this with physical modeling and granular synthesis as Falcon does (unless I'm mistaken). The filters are decent - not the best in the world. But it is good to have a modulate-able pitch edito, r a reasonably concocted step sequencer, arppegiator, and a very nice included 16 measure drum sequencer. (But why are there less than 5 modes of arpeggiation - that's a lack - this is not up to Kirnu Cream).

It does provide 7-Voice/4 Octave "V-Saw", which is killer, in each of the 8 OSC sections.

It can use quite a bit of CPU but that doesn't mean it isn't programmed well. I experienced no crashes or weird behavior whatsoever, and from what I tested the CPU usage appears to be reasonable for the amount of processing.

At this point, in addition to Spire, Twin 2, Omnisphere and Falcon, and was not expecting something particularly game-changing (ALL of these can sound really good and have their own uses). But after a day or two I was actually grateful I made this purchase. It is different and workable, both in enough quantity and quality to make the overall grade.

Possibly off on a complete tangent here, by Vengeance Sound calling their synth Avenger, they remind me of Judas Priest's album, Screaming For Vengeance, with what looks like a metallic falcon on the cover, which is coincidental because Falcon is one of the more recent synths that this one is competing with. I think they are giving UVI a run for their money. I want to continue to see this kind of competition and we as users are definitely benefiting.

As I have stated, some of the cons for this include a less than stunning filter library, an Arp toolset that is not quite top-level, and less than full-blown competition for some of the other Wave Table players. And it appears true that there are only 4 AMPs modules, although I haven't explored this situation. (Omnisphere has two AMP modules per 8 patches).

There is some confusion to be had when you try to figure out where to turn things on or off, and how the routings work. The videos are helpful, but a little too quick in some places. I found myself loading random patches to try and find some that could help me understand such basic features (as turning things on and routing).

So, to get my 10 stars, it needs a few optional enhancements, not necessarily one specific one. I recognize this is a creative, very time consuming creation. it will never be all things to all people. But make it excel in at least one more area.

What could it use first? These are just some ideas that came to me:

1) More than 5 or 6 Arp modes.

2) MIDI import into arp and drum patterns.

3) Might be overboard, but I would love this: Equivalent of Groove Lock within Omnisphere and Stylus RMX. Groove modifying of such arp and drum patterns (use of non-quantized MIDI timing) so that a composer can get one or both of them matching a groove, rather than just simply swinging. Moving samples early & late relative to the grid is a start, but can also be implemented on the pattern itself, triggering patterns (relative to their chosen start point but also relative to pattern groove shifting - see Geist).

4) Groove import (from MIDI) into Arp and drum patterns (selecting to use groove from drum pattern groove for Arp, or vice versa). (If MIDI file is too short, groove is repeated in the 4 arps, or in the full length of the drum pattern.)

5) Another mode or two of portamento.

6) Trigger mode by 16th note, not just beat and bar (usually 16th note is included - why not here?)

7) Ability to load more drum sequences/patterns on the fly, and use MIDI key switches to trigger them.

8) Ability to simultaneously play drums from one keyboard layer, while in drum sequence playback mode (I couldn't figure out how to do this...).

I probably missed a lot of ideas that other users have mentioned elsewhere. But in summary, I'm excited for this product and a happy customer, because its design incorporates a combination of great tools that differ enough from other products out there, in a useful way, that I will turn to it regularly for inspiration.

Falcon usually has a sale going. (For me, I received a $100 voucher and was able to use that to pick up the Synth Anthology 2 for only $4 dollars - which is a great library. Twin 2 (think insanely smooth filtering - modifiable and modulate-able and drag-editable) is I think less than $150 at this moment.

There are definitely some other great buys. But I think this one is a close contender if not a winner for many of us.