VPS Avenger 2.4 [RELEASED - FAQ in OP]

[noiseboyuk]

Yup, it's all very subjective. Others in the Omnisphere thread find its UI "dated", which I personally think is silly. But Ex Machina I do hear you - the more that goes into Avenger, the more it does get a little overwhelming. To get going it's so fast and fun to work with, but it can get cumbersome when you get into the weeds.

On the XPs, the nice thing about Avenger is that they are inessential, unlike Nexus. If EDM isn't your thing then there are more expansions than you think. Or indeed don't get any - the core synth and library is a good workhorse.

Bottom line is - we're spoiled. Synths like Pigments and Avenger have their individual strengths and weaknesses, but they're both highly capable and reasonably priced. Lucky us.

[SamDi]

UVI Falcon 2 was free upgrade, Pigments 1-4 was free upgrade, Phase Plant 2 also was free upgrade. Serum 2 will be free upgrade. This good examples of companies, which do not try to squeeze out as much money as possible from their plugins. And i am glad to support them, buying new plugins/expansions. I don't know how VPS team thinking and what business model they have. But if they rely on selling expansions, so it would be great to maintain base product(Avenger) for free or nominal price.

Avenger has got to be one of the most bloated, if not THE most bloated synth plugins on the market. I would actually pay Vengeance to remove features rather than add new ones.

The interface is a cluttered, convoluted mess. If Avenger sounded absolutely amazing, I would be more willing to put up with its cramped UI. But Avenger is just another EDM-focused synth plugin for people who gravitate towards overly complicated software.

Compare Avenger to Spectrasonics Omnisphere. Given its complexity, Omnisphere has a very straightforward UI. The company doesn't try to cram everything in to one window. As a result, there is space for the UI to "breathe" so to speak as opposed to the claustrophobic, suffocating Avenger UI.

Anyway, that's my rant for the day. I do agree that it seems like Vengeance's business model is to sell you as many overpriced expansion packs as possible. I'd rather have more 3rd-party support at more affordable prices.

Yes, I feel the same!

Yup, it's all very subjective. Others in the Omnisphere thread find its UI "dated", which I personally think is silly. But Ex Machina I do hear you - the more that goes into Avenger, the more it does get a little overwhelming. To get going it's so fast and fun to work with, but it can get cumbersome when you get into the weeds.

On the XPs, the nice thing about Avenger is that they are inessential, unlike Nexus. If EDM isn't your thing then there are more expansions than you think. Or indeed don't get any - the core synth and library is a good workhorse.

Bottom line is - we're spoiled. Synths like Pigments and Avenger have their individual strengths and weaknesses, but they're both highly capable and reasonably priced. Lucky us.

Yes, that was me, so be careful to call me "silly". But while Omnisphere is just dated und suboptimal IMHO, it's nevertheless good usable and somehow makes fun to work with.

On the other side, I really tried it with Avenger. But the messy GUI is a kind of blocker for me. Furthermore, I never liked the sound. And latest since the "Codemeter-Gate" I am done with this company. They fixed it, but my confidence is lost. If I once start to sell my plugins, Avenger would be one of the first to get rid of. But isn't in NFR? Next issue with this insolent company.

[pizzatime]

Your a silly person.

[SamDi]

Your a silly person.

I guess that's reality satire now. Not bad!

[Jac459]

...But isn't in NFR? Next issue with this insolent company.

No it isn't NFR. I bought it in KVR with the blessing of VPS support.

[eagle007]

December last year there were lots of rumors about Avenger 2 to be around the corner, same for Serum 2. We're now 7 months down and neither saw any sign of release. Given that we are being teased with an Avenger v2 for over two years now, I start to wonder if it ever gets released.

[zvenx]

Where either of those rumours (about release being around the corner) started or fueled by the developers?

rsp

[noiseboyuk]

December last year there were lots of rumors about Avenger 2 to be around the corner, same for Serum 2. We're now 7 months down and neither saw any sign of release. Given that we are being teased with an Avenger v2 for over two years now, I start to wonder if it ever gets released.

Manuel’s always been honest about where they are with development and release, so I think this is unfair criticism on the part of Avenger. A few months ago Manuel gave the first meaningful time-frame for release, which was / is Q3/Q4 this year, as mentioned in the OP. Sounds like they’re still on track to me.

[c0LIn]

as written in the Facebook group they added the last big new feature.
Manuel wrote: "the last new big feature, then we will start optimizing and bugfixing 2.0. This one "Quantum", is a 3x Delay with each 3 modulizable multi fx slots and a master FX with also 3 of these slots for the sum. I can say you, this delay is insane. Mirko and me both developed that crazy thing, based on an idea I had, Rene currently integrates it into Avenger".

[zimmerabc]

Q3 starts in 9 days! Yippieee!!

[Rod Staples]

Q3 starts in 9 days! Yippieee!!

It would be better to focus on when Q4 ends, otherwise you will always be disappointed.

[stebsgb]

It’ll be worth a larger update price, no doubt. A very solid synth that is more of an electronic music workstation.

I gave up on Avenger 1 once my addiction to buying the packs had subsided. The packs felt too much like the music wasn’t my own work, and I didn’t invest time into working on my own sound within its almost standalone application interface.

I then had issues with copy protection and didn’t return to it after that. The plug-in load time was also a minor annoyance. I like my synths to be far lighter. I’m just not the target customer really.

[Hanz Meyzer]

As a customer, I do not care so much for added fx inside the synth, since in a proper mix, you should do that with additional fx. Maybe this is only great for Manuel, doing songs inside Avenger or so... You already have a DAW in Avenger 2, so why even use a DAW.

What is way more important to me are solid performance improvements, no more cpu spikes, much less memory usage, maybe mpe support. But this won't happen. So for me, this update is not worth a high price at all. If the fx also was available as separate plugin, ok, would be a different story. But this won't happen either, due licensing issues or so.

[Jac459]

As a customer, I do not care so much for added fx inside the synth, since in a proper mix, you should do that with additional fx. Maybe this is only great for Manuel, doing songs inside Avenger or so... You already have a DAW in Avenger 2, so why even use a DAW.

What is way more important to me are solid performance improvements, no more cpu spikes, much less memory usage, maybe mpe support. But this won't happen. So for me, this update is not worth a high price at all. If the fx also was available as separate plugin, ok, would be a different story. But this won't happen either, due licensing issues or so.

That's not always true.

I am not sure of the routing capabilities of Avenger but FX in a synth do matter when you can apply the effects on a per note basis or per sound source basis (huge difference for the distortion behavior for example). This is useful even when you don't use the synth as a full workstation (for which I feel like you).

In Avenger you can apply FX differently by oscillators...
Maybe somebody more knowledgeable than me can say if you can do by note, I didn't found how.

[noiseboyuk]

I am not sure of the routing capabilities of Avenger but FX in a synth do matter when you can apply the effects on a per note basis or per sound source basis (huge difference for the distortion behavior for example). This is useful even when you don't use the synth as a full workstation (for which I feel like you).

In Avenger you can apply FX differently by oscillators...
Maybe somebody more knowledgeable than me can say if you can do by note, I didn't found how.

Yup, absolutely. And yes, you can route what you like to what you like.

Moreover, there's more to v2 than new effects:

Spectral Synthesis
FFT Filter on samples
ARP ratchet filter
ARP Randomizer and Quantizer
New Drum Browser
Envelope follower as a mod source
Parallel filters with send and return
New drumloop library
Additional user macros

I'd also expect a new factory library. Entirely plausible that that alone would be an equivalent of an XP or so, and go a long way to the upgrade price.