What synths are in equal or better footing than VPS Avenger?

[MuzikFreq]

I've spent quite a long time making a collection of sampled basses to save time for the future, tweaked to the max using a chain of effects (multiband compressors, multiband transients, spectral things...). So far Avenger is still unmatched to me.
Everything else falls far behind. This can be transients that can't compare, or body that's not there, but even the synths that I thought would rock (Spire, Knifonium, Dune3...) disappointed me when passed through my chain. Only Thorn sounded really as solid.
I've not tried Rapid for basses yet, but Rapid is a serious contender for Avenger still.

multi.....band...Transients?

[DJErmac]

I've spent quite a long time making a collection of sampled basses to save time for the future, tweaked to the max using a chain of effects (multiband compressors, multiband transients, spectral things...). So far Avenger is still unmatched to me.
Everything else falls far behind. This can be transients that can't compare, or body that's not there, but even the synths that I thought would rock (Spire, Knifonium, Dune3...) disappointed me when passed through my chain. Only Thorn sounded really as solid.
I've not tried Rapid for basses yet, but Rapid is a serious contender for Avenger still.

multi.....band...Transients?

OK, found.

[DJJD2021]

I've spent quite a long time making a collection of sampled basses to save time for the future, tweaked to the max using a chain of effects (multiband compressors, multiband transients, spectral things...). So far Avenger is still unmatched to me.
Everything else falls far behind. This can be transients that can't compare, or body that's not there, but even the synths that I thought would rock (Spire, Knifonium, Dune3...) disappointed me when passed through my chain. Only Thorn sounded really as solid.
I've not tried Rapid for basses yet, but Rapid is a serious contender for Avenger still.

Rapid really is phenomenal! For bass it's very smooth/clean to work with but also I find it's lead pads complement Avenger's, however, for sure when it comes to bass and sub bass I usually start working with Rapid before adding more depth with Avenger

[MegaPixel]

Before the summary list below the synth that I've been waiting for still doesn't exist. The one to end them all for me would feature:
A GUI/UI that works like Bitwigs Grid / Unreal Blueprints / Blender Texture editor, that is modular and infinite on all features, you should only be bound by the limits of your computer not by the instrument. If you want 300 LFOs and 200 MSEGs, then have them (overkill example) but you get my point.

What in my OP is better than VPS Avenger
1. Falcon
2. Rapid Synth

Halion would be a contender but its GUI is just too much of mess and even though it is the only one that can contend with Falcon and does sound great its GUI drives most people away.


Here's what I've found for myself:

VPS Avenger
Pain in the ass licencing system, wish the GUI was a bit more friendly but its ok, this is quite the collection of powerful tools, has dot animation on graph based components (which I find is a very nice thing to have). I don't think its sound quality is that good though. Stupidly expensive sound bank/expansions and they are not that great and not that many presets in them, and doesn't come with many good ones if bought alone, which is good as it forces you to learn it. But its clunky, its preset browser for some reason just annoys me.
- Sound Quality: 7/10
- Features: 8/10
- GUI: 8/10
- Routing: 8/10
- Ease of use: 6.5/10
- CPU Load: 7/10
- Preset browser: 5/10
- Presets shipped with: 1/10


Rapid Synth
Sounds better than VPS Avenger, one of the best sounding instruments out there IMO, but the LFO / etc assigning and editing is a bit of a pain, the list view helps but its limiting. Both Rapid & Avenger need to see how it's done in phase plant & vital etc for a better way of doing things. Needs more LFOs & MSEG etc, Bitwig however does help fill in the gaps with Rapid. I find myself reaching for this more than VPS Avenger as it just sounds a lot better and I like to work from a preset as a template than from init.
- Sound Quality: 9/10
- Features: 8/10
- GUI: 8/10
- Routing: 6.5/10
- Ease of use: 7/10
- CPU Load: 9/10
- Preset browser: 7/10
- Presets shipped with: 9/10


Icarus 2
This is not even on the same level as Rapid Synth or VPS Avenger, it could be, but its limited in so many ways but has the potential to be so much more, but the developers have too many other synths to manage and I don't see them doing much more with this as they haven't had the balls to make the big changes, even going from v1 to v2. Also for the love of god do not buy their preset expansion packs (wave table pack sure/maybe) but the rest is a WTF, I got caught on this and they wont refund you. Presets named leads or bass etc are full on sequences or arps etc, many are drowned in effects. The sound design on 90% of presets shipped with and bought are as if they were made by a random kid they grabbed off the street, sat down in front of FLStudio for the first time and told to make some presets for Icarus 2. (really is that bad) Of those VSTs that could be a contender functional wise with VPS Avenger, this is not it, not by a long shot. This is like aim for the moon, shoot yourself in the foot.
- Sound Quality: 6.5/10
- Features: 5/10
- GUI: 5/10
- Routing: 3/10
- Ease of use: 6.5/10
- CPU Load: 7/10
- Preset browser: 5/10 (has some bugs)
- Presets shipped with: 1/10 (you really need to make your own)



PhasePlant
Love the modularity, probably is the best designed vst out there, lacks some features such as real msegs & arp. But I find that a lot of what I create in it tends to end up the same sounding. It still think it needs some serious optimisation to possibly the assembly level of programming to optimise some of their components as some things which cause little to no added latency in other plugins can eat as much as 10% of the cpu in phaseplant. However PhasePlant is a suite of plugins also which makes it an odd one to evaluate, however over time I find that I will reach for Rapid, Dune 3 or Pigments before firing up PhasePlant but I might use some of its plugins in the rack.
- Sound Quality: 7/10
- Features: 7/10
- GUI: 9.5/10
- Routing: 9/10
- Ease of use: 7/10
- CPU Load: 4/10
- Preset browser: 7/10
- Presets shipped with: 4/10


Anna 2
I get on with this vst well, it sounds great, it quick and to the point and overlooked by many, I often load this up. One of the best preset browsers out there also.
- Sound Quality: 8/10
- Features: 7/10
- GUI: 8/10
- Routing: 7/10
- Ease of use: 8/10
- CPU Load: 8/10
- Preset browser: 8/10
- Presets shipped with: 7/10


Serum
A legend everyone already knows everything about, but I don't find myself using it much these days. Development has stagnated, if you try to organise the wavetable and noise folders you pretty much end up breaking every preset you ever bough and the developers refuse to make something as simple as a search for matching file name for noise / wavetable (a request I made many years ago). Preset authors often use stupid noise, wavetable and folder naming which is annoying. This is the only VST I've ever programmed my own utilities for to clean up presets. You will also find that many presets are copies from others just with minor differences such as the noise removed, some of the mapped macro nobs undone or added etc, and you will find you get presets thrown at you constantly in free newsletters, free sample packs and even purchased sample packs. In the end you end up with 100s of presets which all sound the same, the ones with the macro nobs mapped usually mans you are getting close to the real creator of that preset. Then when your in clean up mode (deletion) your faced with mass preset deletion and serum doesnt do this (another collection of feature I asked for many years ago), so another tool I had to build.
- Sound Quality: 7/10
- Features: 7/10
- GUI: 9/10
- Routing: 7/10
- Ease of use: 8/10
- CPU Load: 8/10
- Preset browser: 8/10
- Presets shipped with: 6/10


Dune 3
A great sounding synth this one, now has a decent preset browser (still not the best), but to my ears this synth sounds great. The old school LCD display could be enhanced to modern day, there's a few things which are limiting and a bit odd but once you know your way around, I often find it puts a smile on my face.
- Sound Quality: 9/10
- Features: 7/10
- GUI: 7/10
- Routing: 5/10
- Ease of use: 7/10
- CPU Load: 8/10
- Preset browser: 7/10
- Presets shipped with: 7/10


Synthmaster 2.9
One of my first synths I purchased but never got on with the GUI or how it works, something just doesn't click with me. It has a huge collection of presets (everything bundle), many of which are great and sound good, but I find myself keeping to the basics with it, rather than ever getting into it.
- Sound Quality: 7.5/10
- Features: 7/10
- GUI: 6/10
- Routing: 4/10
- Ease of use: 6/10
- CPU Load: 8/10
- Preset browser: 7/10
- Presets shipped with: 9/10 (everything bundle)


Spire
Some epic sounds can be created with this beastie but its gui, routing and ease of use is in dire need of modernisation/simplification. Put spire side by side with any of the others I've mentioned here and its, yeesh... oh, oh, get me a bucket... Preset browser is great though. But once you serve your time getting to know it, it's not that bad but still yeesh what a gui.
- Sound Quality: 8.5/10
- Features: 7/10
- GUI: 5/10
- Routing: 4/10
- Ease of use: 5/10
- CPU Load: 8/10
- Preset browser: 7/10
- Presets shipped with: 7/10


Pigments 3
Looks great, sounds great, not the best preset browser but it could be far far worse. Pigments is where I go when I've had enough of Serum, u-he etc, I often find it gives me a new breath of fresh air. It has a nice GUI, and the way it works just puts you on a different track. However its not all good it is extremely cpu hungry at times and is in need of serious optimisation but I don't think Arturia have the programmers that can handle that. It can be limiting at times, finding myself wishing for a few small things here and there but I just like it, I'm glad I got this one. Seems to take longer and longer to load these days.
- Sound Quality: 9/10
- Features: 7/10
- GUI: 8/10
- Routing: 7/10
- Ease of use: 7/10
- CPU Load: 3/10
- Preset browser: 6/10
- Presets shipped with: 7/10


Diva
Looks great, sounds great but can eat the cpu of a supercomputer made in year 3094 for breakfast. And as with all u-he synths one of the best preset browsers you will find.
- Sound Quality: 8/10
- Features: 7/10
- GUI: 8/10
- Routing: 4/10
- Ease of use: 6/10
- CPU Load: 2/10
- Preset browser: 9/10
- Presets shipped with: 6.5/10


Hive
Looks great, sounds great (not as good as Dune or Rapid), the usual great preset browser you get from u-he but there's just things that bug me when using it, a few limitations and menus and niggly things which always make think, why did you do it that way? programmer just got tired or couldn't be arsed in this area? The devil is in the detail and they didn't give everything the same love they should have with this one.
- Sound Quality: 8/10
- Features: 7/10
- GUI: 8/10
- Routing: 6/10
- Ease of use: 6/10
- CPU Load: 8/10
- Preset browser: 9/10
- Presets shipped with: 5/10


Zebra & ZebraHZ
Looks great, sounds great and the great preset browser you get from u-he. This one took me a bit of working out to get used to, but once I did, love it and find myself coming back to it a lot.
- Sound Quality: 9/10
- Features: 7/10
- GUI: 7/10
- Routing: 7/10
- Ease of use: 7/10
- CPU Load: 8/10
- Preset browser: 9/10
- Presets shipped with: 6.5/10


Vital
One of the best looking vsts around and sounds great too, a true serum killer? hmm kinda, but I think it compliments it more than kills it. Can be very very heavy on the cpu and makes some good use on the GPU. Visually this thing is a work of art, preset borwser is good, not the best, but more than does the job. And most of all, insanely it's FREE, I bought it for the extras and to support the developer and do love using it. However it not all great, it needs more lfo's, msegs etc but if your bitwig user then you are given a boost. wavetable, noise, lfo, preset file organisation is far more organised than Serum's which is good.
- Sound Quality: 8.5/10
- Features: 7/10
- GUI: 9.8/10
- Routing: 6/10
- Ease of use: 7.5/10
- CPU Load: 4/10
- Preset browser: 8/10
- Presets shipped with FREE Version: 5/10 (but go on the forums, each month many are shared for free and sound awesome)
- Presets shipped with Pro Purchase Version: 7.5/10


Falcon
I do love this power house of an instrument, its still got more to offer me and more for me to learn even after using it for a very long time. It is a beast and yes it eats VPS Avenger for breakfast. There is nothing to rival this one for me, but really really wish it was built in modular fashion like the blueprint system in unreal engine or blender's texture designer, fully vector based, animations from serum, phaseplant and vital, make some serious use of the GPU and not just the CPU for audio processing also, then it would be the alpha and omega of instruments.
- Sound Quality: 9/10
- Features: 9.5/10
- GUI: 7/10
- Routing: 7/10
- Ease of use: 6.5/10
- CPU Load: 7/10
- Preset browser: 6.5/10
- Presets shipped with: 8/10


Halion 6
It has great sound quality, it is the only one that can try to compete with Falcon and yes it also eats Avenger for breakfast, however the GUI and usability of it has been made a real mess, but steinberg have never been good at GUI/UI IMO. If and when I do use it (not often), I do usually like what I come up with using it, but I go there less and less these days. Another thing is font size is annoyingly small, 4K at 100% scaling halion has me using a telescope to see what I'm doing, steinberg are still living in 1999.
- Sound Quality: 9/10
- Features: 9.5/10
- GUI: 3/10
- Routing: 3/10
- Ease of use: 2/10
- CPU Load: 7/10
- Preset browser: 3/10
- Presets shipped with: 6.5/10



If I had to do it all over again, what would I do?

• Bitwig
• Falcon + most of the uvi expansions and some 3rd party ones
• Rapid Synth + 3 or 4 expansions
• Dune 3
• Diva & Zebra
• Anna 2
• Pigments 3
• Vital (Pro)
• Serum (this is a big maybe however)
• Cableguys Shaperbox 2
• NI Komplete Ultimate xx
• And a good few 3rd party kontakt libraries

[Fraggle]

Your list didn’t include Vital , and why pigments 2 when we are now on 3.5 ??

[Fraggle]

I demoed Avenger 2 years ago and the font on the UI was so squashed and the UI so cramped.
For me, Avenger exemplifies the concept of ‘bloat’.
A synth like Serum or Vital, will more quickly, and with more fun, help me do what I need, and I don’t make EDM.

[MegaPixel]

------

[MegaPixel]

I demoed Avenger 2 years ago and the font on the UI was so squashed and the UI so cramped.
For me, Avenger exemplifies the concept of ‘bloat’.
A synth like Serum or Vital, will more quickly, and with more fun, help me do what I need, and I don’t make EDM.

Your not limited to making EDM in any of them IMO, Avengers font size has got better, it is still cluttered but Avenger is not quite like the others, its more on par with Rapid Synth and Tone 2, the others are just not as feature rich, but Rapid Synth sounds a lot better but it probably wont be up your street either, their presets are very EDM based though.

As for Avenger just being about EDM, check out:
https://www.triplespiralaudio.com/produ ... r%20engine.

https://www.triplespiralaudio.com/produ ... expansion/

You can say this about Spire etc also, but I've got some amazing preset packs which are pads, textures, atmospheres and drones for many of them, far far from EDM.

[Biome_Digital]

Surprised by those results! There are a lot of synths missing though.

[nusound mind]

All the U-he synths other than Ace. All the Tone 2 synths aside from Rayblaster. Spire. Reaktor and a lot of the other NI Synths. Probably ones I'm less familiar with like Omnisphere, Falcon, maybe Halion. Possibly Sylenth. Other ones that don't come to mind atm.

But that's jmo and also bias, I personally wouldn't buy Avenger, myself.

[Aloysius]

One Ping Only

[j wazza]

the ones that are most similar to avenger are rapid, serum, icarus, vital, maybe some others like pigments etc

from your list id say these 1s are as good or better than vps (not in order):
Parawave - RAPID
Kilohearts - Phase Plant
UVI - Falcon
u-he - Zebra 2
Native Instruments - Reaktor
VCV - Rack VST
Tone 2 - Icarus 2
Xfer Records - Serum
(recently added) Arturia - Pigments 2

avenger is better than these 3:
KV331 Audio - SynthMaster
MeldaProduction - MSoundFactory
Cherry Audio - Voltage Modular

All the U-he synths other than Ace.

ace is the best uhe synth for me but each to their own, why dont you like it as much?

[nusound mind]

I do like Ace, but in the context of the question if I honestly had to pick b/t it and Avenger all things being equal (which in reality they aren't if you take into acc. other factors like the codemeter thing or whatever it's called, among others, but I digress..) I'd take Avenger.

[zvenx]

Taste really is subjective... some people think Rapid and Falcon sound better than Avenger?

My two biggest issues with Avenger, well three... the price of their expansions, the every 3 month check in but most importantly it is a cpu hog especially at low latencies like I work at.

But for sure the sound is not its limitation at all for me...
It would need a Dune 3, or the u-he synths or omnisphere to sound better to me.

rsp

[MegaPixel]

the ones that are most similar to avenger are rapid, serum, icarus, vital, maybe some others like pigments etc

IMO there are probably 3 groups:

Group 1
Falcon and those that can compete with it, as far as I know there only 1 that can, and that's Halion 6.

Group 2
Rapid, VPS Avenger and Icarus 2.
(No 1: Rapid, No 2: Avenger, No 3: Icarus 2)

Group 3
Vital, Phaseplant, Serum, Pigments, Anna 2. all u-he, plugin alliance instruments, cherry instruments etc etc etc etc


I think the comparison between groups is a bit unfair, only group 1 can compete with group 1 etc, eg Falcon would crush nearly everything in the other groups in many areas but not all etc etc