Vengeance Producer Suite - AVENGER - 1.8.5 the main thread

[simmo75]

How does Avenger compare to Falcon?

It's different. For basic patch creation and immediate satisfaction, it's better than falcon in my opinion. However, now that I've played with it a bit more I think it's safe to say that it's nowhere near as powerful and indepth when it comes to the details.

There seems to be quite a few details that are missing that would make it much easier for a sound designer to add "finesse" to patches. What is sorely lacking in my opinion is a sort of mod mapper/value mapper thing that could be used for processing any modulation source. Ala Alchemy or Falcon.

For instance, I'd like to tweak the MIDI Velocity curve I've assigned to the modulation depth of a mod envelope. Nope, can't do it. There's velocity mapping separately for the "hardwired" amp and filter modules but none in any other places. There's also no way to tweak the actual scaling or centre point for the Keytrack modulation source.

I thought this synth may be the Alchemy killer but I'm starting to realize that we're not quite there yet. I'm sure a lot of these features could be added later.

I'm also quickly getting annoyed at the tiny mod matrix window. It's the place I keep spending a lot of time in but it's sooooo tiny. Which it could get a pop up option where it eats up all the filter and amp module places.

Thanks! You and Simon have answered everything i needed to know Cheers!

[simmo75]

.. and Avenger just crashed when I tried to save a nice little preset I made. Sigh..

Damn!
I'll be skipping this one...

[Sampleconstruct]

How does Avenger compare to Falcon?

It's different. For basic patch creation and immediate satisfaction, it's better than falcon in my opinion. However, now that I've played with it a bit more I think it's safe to say that it's nowhere near as powerful and indepth when it comes to the details.

There seems to be quite a few details that are missing that would make it much easier for a sound designer to add "finesse" to patches. What is sorely lacking in my opinion is a sort of mod mapper/value mapper thing that could be used for processing any modulation source. Ala Alchemy or Falcon.

For instance, I'd like to tweak the MIDI Velocity curve I've assigned to the modulation depth of a mod envelope. Nope, can't do it. There's velocity mapping separately for the "hardwired" amp and filter modules but none in any other places. There's also no way to tweak the actual scaling or centre point for the Keytrack modulation source.

I thought this synth may be the Alchemy killer but I'm starting to realize that we're not quite there yet. I'm sure a lot of these features could be added later.

I'm also quickly getting annoyed at the tiny mod matrix window. It's the place I keep spending a lot of time in but it's sooooo tiny. Which it could get a pop up option where it eats up all the filter and amp module places.

Yes, modulation mappers are really missing in Avenger, coming from Falcon Avenger feels very restricted, but it certainly can produce exceptional timbres.

[bmanic]

.. and Avenger just crashed when I tried to save a nice little preset I made. Sigh..

Damn!
I'll be skipping this one...

Nah, it was the first crash. Don't let me sound too negative. I'm having an absolute blast with the synth. It's just easy to find everything that is "missing" and the bad stuff.. so I forget to actually mention the good stuff because I thought they were self evident due to the excellent videos.

So let me be clear: I love this friggin thing and it can only get better from here!

[OzoneJunkie]

I'm also quickly getting annoyed at the tiny mod matrix window. It's the place I keep spending a lot of time in but it's sooooo tiny. Which it could get a pop up option where it eats up all the filter and amp module places.

You'd also assume you can turn a OSC layer on/off with the nice little green LED being so prominent. Nope. You need to hover the mouse above a layer tab and then a M and S button fades in. I think the LED could be used this way: Left click = mute, right click = solo.. kind of like in FL Studio.

+1

[Touch The Universe]

How to init?

[wagtunes]

How to init?

Click on where it says Memory at the top.

[3ee]

wow, what a long thread!

Just saw a product presentation of Avenger and I am (very) impressed!
From the (somewhat cheesy/generic) sounds in the background, it seems to have a clean, smooth sound... (won't know for sure untill I give it a try)

Quick questions so I won't have to dig in this thread:

How buggy it currently?
CPU usage?
Effect version? (something like Zebrify)
Any other hiccups?

...hopefully not iLocked

[Gregorius]

Well where to start? I am really disapointed! I did not expect Vengeance to release a buggy beta version again. As we remember this happened earlier to Phalanx (which I unfortunately bought blind on release because there was no demo) and is the reason I didn't buy and probably won't buy Avenger. What's the reason behind this? Is it just to release a product right on time to get the christmas sales? That su**s man and probably scared off many new customers.

There were troubles downloading the demo and the content. That can be excused since this seems to be a new situation for you and you handled it good and very fast. There were many questions that you answered well in this thread and you made a FAQ on your website. I appreciate that. But I can't understand why it is so hard to make a additional video "how to install, register and activate Avenger"? You did it with Phalanx after many users asked. You uploaded lots of sound-stuff but you've neglected introducing the new copy protection to the customers which were used to the dongle.

I can confirm that there are crashes when scanning the plugin and installing the content again and again is a PITA. Also that there's often just noise when using multiple outs is not reasonable to me. When stepping through the presets I randomly got short clicks resulting in constant max output. Same behavior like a limiter that got a high peak. I then have to restart the host because simple unloading doesn't help.

The CPU use is too high and seem unoptimized. Sometimes (doesn't matter if the editor is open or closed) the init preset takes about 30% and falls a bit down to 25% when playing. I installed the content to a SSD but some presets still need too much time to load (about 5 to 10 seconds max). Speaking of presets: I stepped through the arps and played chords. Many of the arp presets have melodies in it which sound terrible when pressing more than 1 key. Why? Am I wrong or isn't this a normal use case. These arps are pretty useless since nobody would use it like this.
Oneshot sample import - why so complicated? I also didn't figure out how to OSC1->OSC2 RM/FM? Is this just not possible? Then I can't understand that. I played some time with the wavetables and I agree that 256(!?) single cycles are too less. Most sound steppy even in smooth mode. I noticed that also when turning the noise color knob. Like the parameter doesn't update the process often enough.
Avenger has 6 reverbs but only two of them are really useful (AA Reverb, Impulse) and one of them you didn't even develop. The FM & AM shape menu has 3 shapes (the outer right column) that are the same and I think this is a bug. Maybe with the menu itself or on processing side since they sound the same.

I don't get the point with the drum sequencer. I can create 1 pattern and then? Need to use this 1 pattern for the whole song? This isn't thought very well! Why? You wrote you spent 3 years developing it. But it doesn't seem so. Some things are just not thought till the end. I had timing issues with it as well. I drew a 4 to the floor bd pattern inside the drum sq and drew 1 bar on different notes in the piano roll of my host (having a 4 bar midi clip). Sometimes the 1st bd got triggered twice (from the last bar and the new one) resulting in a louder bd with flanging sound. I double checked that there's no note overlapping and tested it with different blocksizes, too. It occured randomly but often.

The product has a new editor style now. I liked the old one more so it takes time get comfortable with it. But there are many other things wrong with the ui. Starting with a 100% default size which doesn't fit to a FullHD screen. Resizing the editor results in flickering or white screens and crashes. The font gets small, blurry and unreadable in any size lower than 100%. The "font-size/control-size/control number"-ratio is too unbalanced. There plugins that offer more knobs but still have a clean, readable and balanced layout.
The colors... Why are there so much different inconsequent colors? It seems like a greyish/orange concept, but then there's the Arp (blue/green), Step SQ (purple), Envelopes and Shaper (light blue). To me it seems like different devs or designers where involved in 1 plugin. The GPU bug (which I wrote last because you already posted a solution with the ECO mode) is also a big failure.

The "SQ Trance Autopilot" preset has 2 macro buttons which got drawn red. It was the only preset I noticed that. What's the point behind this?

No offense, but what did the beta tester do? Did they do their best and you decided to release it anyway since you've set up a fixed release date? Or did you optimize the code and destroyed much with that? Or did they just not find bugs while testing the plugin? I don't know.

I then saw the expansion price and got shocked.

This may sound a bit harsh but Avenger is the 2nd disapointment to me this year after No Man's Sky. You hyped this plugin so much with your own videos, [edit: I was a bit upset because of the troubles I had. Let's say to me this CM review is a bit too good to be true ] and your presence in this thread but then it's just a small really buggy characterless workstation synth that can do all stuff but nothing good enough compared to synth that are specialized to some tasks (WT, MS, additive, FM). I don't know what to say. Avenger is just a mix of Serum, Spire, Sytrus, maybe some Massive and Nexus. I'm really sorry but I just expected a lot more.

[MirkoVanHauten]

I did not expect Vengeance to release a buggy beta version again. As we remember this happened earlier to Phalanx

Yes but Avenger seems to be a bigger project and I think most customers were aware of the previous troubles with Phalanx and didn't buy Avenger at first sight.

to make a additional video "how to install, register and activate Avenger"?

+1 Would indeed be very nice and easy to do.

I randomly got short clicks resulting in constant max output. Same behavior like a limiter that got a high peak. I then have to restart the host because simple unloading doesn't help.

Confirmed.

I also didn't figure out how to OSC1->OSC2 RM/FM? Is this just not possible?

No, you may use other modulators for that.

I played some time with the wavetables and I agree that 256(!?) single cycles are too less. Most sound steppy even in smooth mode.

Manuel said it this would be caused by the sound of some wavetables itself. But others noticed this too.

I had timing issues with it as well. I drew a 4 to the floor bd pattern inside the drum sq and drew 1 bar on different notes in the piano roll of my host (having a 4 bar midi clip). Sometimes the 1st bd got triggered twice (from the last bar and the new one) resulting in a louder bd with flanging sound. I double checked that there's no note overlapping and tested it with different blocksizes, too. It occured randomly but often.

+1 I had something similar with the arp.

Starting with a 100% default size which doesn't fit to a FullHD screen. Resizing the editor results in flickering or white screens and crashes. The font gets small, blurry and unreadable in any size lower than 100%.

Already posted some screenshots of this. I'm sure they can fix that.

I then saw the expansion price and got shocked.

The good news is that it's open for 3rd party sound designers. There may be many good and cheap expansions from them.

This may sound a bit harsh but Avenger is the 2nd disapointment to me this year after No Man's Sky.

It's a bit hard even though I can understand that. Also some users wrote something like that in a nicer way

[Touch The Universe]

For the next update, please allow ability to save presets in the demo that can be opened in the full version. I'm not so inclined to spend hours exploring when I know all my work will never be recalled.

[vanhaze]

Anyone using Avenger in Reaper OSX ?

In Reaper, Most of the buttons in Avenger's GUI don't react on mouse clicks. (tried AU,VSTI,VST3).
I tried Avenger in Ableton Live and then that issue doesn't occur.

Reaper is my main daw so Avenger totally unusable atm.

OSX 10.12.1
Latest version Reaper (64bit)
Latest version Live (64bit)
Macbook Retina 2015.

[xamido]

Why is it assigning amp 2 to any parameter does nothing? A Bug?

[jacqueslacouth]

Hoping to see most of the issues discussed here while the Xmas Discount applies or at least an extension of the discount until the teething problems are ironed out...Or will Parawave release Rapid for OSX first...one synth to rule my Xmas purchase, who will it be???? At this point probably Predator 2...lol

[Ingonator]

Hoping to see most of the issues discussed here while the Xmas Discount applies or at least an extension of the discount until the teething problems are ironed out...Or will Parawave release Rapid for OSX first...one synth to rule my Xmas purchase, who will it be???? At this point probably Predator 2...lol

Well, not everyone is having all the issues that people reported here.

I am on Windiows 10 64-bit with different hosts like e.g. Live 9.7 64-bit, Cubase Pro 8.5.20 64-bit, Studio One 3.3 64-bit, Bitwig Studio 1.3.14, Reaper 4.78 and Pro Tools 12.5.2 and no crashes while scanning the plugins here (VST2, VST3 and AAX).
The plugin is also working here and the factory content seems to install and work properly too. Resizing works too here and saving/laoding my own patches too (got a beta key file here, not a demo).

The key file works here and i know the location of it where i could remove and/or replace it when necessary.

Also no GPU overheating here with 2 different Radeon HD graphics cards.

Drag & drop of content files from teh Windows Explorer is possible too while here in Windows but for this you have to start the host without administrator rights (which is an option when starting a program)