Reviewed By Milkman [all]
October 30th, 2024
Version reviewed: 2.0 on Windows
Avenger 2 is a massive synth, and can do SO much it is unreal. The stability of Avenger, the massive features(drum sequencer??!) under the hood, quality of audio, and overall enjoyment of playing this synth immediately sends this to my top 5 synths.....
But.....
I would really, really, really like more musical genre representation in the stock presets and premium packs. Do any NON house/trance producers use this synth?
Can Avenger2 do anything? Yes. Do the devs represent that in stock presets? No, and I wish they would. =P Oontz oontz gets tiring eventually.
Any criticisms I have of this awesome synth have nothing to do with playability, sound quality, features. This synth gets 5 stars for every category except stock content.
Read ReviewReviewed By Milkman [all]
March 28th, 2023
Version reviewed: 1.0 on Windows
After spending a few days with this fun, approachable synth / workstation powerhouse, I've begun to feel like what some people say about it might be at least somewhat true - - that it is tailored mostly toward house & trance artists.
I really enjoy many of the sounds that are included with the stock version of this synth, I like the embedded sequencers, and I like how easy it is to bind MIDI in standard and creative ways, but... As a general sound designer and someone who makes mostly music that ISN'T trance or house, I keep feeling pulled by Avenger toward making those genres.
It feels like it's harder to make other styles, including ambient, drone, bass music, glitch hop, etc, and that the dev really built this for eurovision fans lol.
I am undecided. I'll probably keep it and use it for rhythmic melody and creative inspiration, but I would like it if more categories of sound inside this synth felt general purpose.
Read ReviewReviewed By Chipi [all]
November 20th, 2022
Version reviewed: 1.8.5 on Windows
Unfortunately 1 star is due to the protection that this Avenger VPS has that I bought and after a couple of months it asked me to 'register' it again ??? what the fuck? I had to stop a project I was working on in my DAW to find the username and password for the V-Manager, then I had to re-start all instances within the project because it wouldn't take the change. It is a shame that after having spent hundreds of dollars and having registered it, it asks me for license registration again, it has no meaning other than to "remove" potential buyers. DO NOT MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE, DO NOT BUY THIS VST until this stupid thing has been corrected.
***** Opinion updated on December 1, 2022 *****
I think it's a great synthesizer after all, I shouldn't detract from the sound quality and the synthesis features that are incredible, just for an opinion against the protection system that the synthesizer uses, I think it's not fair and for That's why I withdraw and give it 5 stars for the magnificent sound and the quality of its library. Hopefully the protection will be reviewed and improved in the not too distant future.
Read ReviewReviewed By AxlMaldini [all]
July 31st, 2022
Version reviewed: 1.8 on Windows
Simple question:
So how does VPS Avenger stack up against other heavyweight softsynths?
* It's no contest: at the moment VPS Avenger has them beat in all aspects. The workflow feels natural and there is an unbelievable amount of included presets amongst the factory content and expansions.
It's definitely the easiest digital synth we've used in terms of opening a preset and then dialing in the sound we want. Compared to other synths, the GUI is intuitive throughout- from the sequencer to modulation routing, to dialing in complex waveforms.
Most importantly, though, it sounds absolutely incredible, with that characteristic Vengeance energy, power and richness married to the deep textural nuance that only wavetable synthesis can bring.
Overall, we were very impressed by VPS Avenger. It sounds amazing, and the sonic possibilities are limited only by your imagination. If you're a synthesis newbie, this might not be the easiest place to start in terms of learning and understanding synth programming, but if you've got some experience under your belt, Avenger is a treat that you won't quickly outgrow. And, the presets alone will have you creating inspiring music right off the bat. This is a worthy sonic addition to any MIDI studio.
Read ReviewReviewed By ssaaddoo [all]
September 26th, 2021
Version reviewed: 1.7 on Windows
I own Avenger 1.7 but I stepped back to 1.4.1 because of CodeMeter. The design of the synth is almost perfect, and the possibilities are really huge.
BUT:
With CodeMeter I do not own it any more. It only works for 90 days (!!!!!), then I have to validate my license online (really every 90 days, unbelievable!). My second computer had problems with that, I had email contacts for one week, remote support from Keilwerth, did not help.
The good side of all: in my anger I looked around and found Parawave Rapid Synth which has almost the same features and a reasonable protection. Bought it, installed it, perfect. It also has a very easy to use granular section, as well as a very ergonomic design .
When they move away from Codemeter, I will install a higher version of Avenger again.
Read ReviewReviewed By Dipzta [all]
August 8th, 2021
Version reviewed: 1.6 on Windows
Great sounds. BUT, this plugin is a huge CPU hog, hits it hard, and slows down your PC.
Its heavy and not easy to run plugin, and after many years its still as bad.
So we can only hope the will optimize the code in the future.
Read ReviewReviewed By SFlashMan [all]
June 13th, 2021
Version reviewed: 1.7.0 on Windows
I'm working with VPS Avenger for a long time. It's still number one synth for me. Because it's not just a wavetable or fm synth. It's powerful production station.
Read ReviewReviewed By rotong [all]
July 28th, 2019
Version reviewed: 1.4.10 on Windows
Absolute awesome and worth the money! Sounds incredible and the routing possibilities are countless.This synth is a paradise for sound designers. Also the support response is top. Well done Keilwerth Audio!!
Read ReviewReviewed By rlared [all]
January 6th, 2019
Version reviewed: 1.4.2 on Windows
I am in love with this synth. I demo'd it for a while and finally purchased it yesterday. It is hands-down the best synth I've owned. This is the first synth where I've actually smiled and said "God I f*cking love this synth" on multiple occasions while using it.
The sound is incredible and the feature set is amazing. The routing capabilities are super flexible. The effects sound awesome. The arpeggiator is world-class.
The interface is amazingly good, which makes it a pleasure to work with the synth. I love how the routing works. I love that "mute" and "solo" buttons appear over each layer when you mouse over them. I love that right clicking each module in the routing draws a red box over the section it applies to. I love how the modules have the colors of the applicable layer above them to make it easy to see what's going on. I love that the envelopes pop up when you're adjusting a parameter, and that they clearly show a dot that moves over the envelope in time. I love how it shows the chord you're playing up at the top. There are so many thoughtful additions and "quality of life" features that the developers put into the synth to make it easy to use and intuitive.
The developer is on KVR all the time and actively engaged with the community. There's tons of videos showing the features.
I was a little concerned that it might be too resource-hungry for my PC but I loaded up 10 instances of it with different arpeggiated presets, each playing 4-note chords, and all of those being sent to one separate convolution reverb plugin, and my system was able to run it without problems (I have an Intel I7, 4 core 3.2 GHz, 8 gigs ram) although the RAM was almost maxed out at that point. I consider that a "stress test" since I doubt I'll have 10 instances ever loaded in a song with that many notes playing at once. So if you have lesser specs you might want to test the demo out before buying to make sure it will run well.
Other than that, I finally found the perfect synth for me after years of trying different ones and I highly recommend it.
Read ReviewReviewed By godly [all]
August 24th, 2018
Version reviewed: 1.3.5 on Windows
My only go to synth.
And I've tried many, because I'm very demanding to find all I need in 1 synth for live use. But only Avenger can please me up to now. I use it as my solo live synth running in my DAW on stage. It's demanding but I've found a way to get it running pretty smooth. Besides it's the only synth that has a next/prev preset assignment (thank you devs !;-) Very handy when you want to load the next preset in your DAW, because like most synths, you can't pc a preset/bank anymore.
It sounds like a monster, can distort multiple ways, has huge filters and effects, lot's of synthesis, .. in 1 word I love it.
Why I choose Avenger?
Sound Quality: Just perfect, what more could you wish? A ton of fx, waveforms, drum samples, drum patterns, arps, ... to choose from plus many filters.
UI: Consider it the Nord of usability. All knobs in your reach, use rightclick or shift for more functions, ... and very nice skinable. I already made several skins for it. It's not easy to put all the functions into one interface, but somehow they managed it. Some things could be better and I'm still demanding those tweaks to the devs, ... Hoping one day they will make this great synth even better.
Synthesis and functions: Almost unliimited, you can assign everything to everything. And the developers are working on even more functions and synthesis every month (it's version 1.3.6 already since 7/2016.
CPU: It's quite demanding but works perfectly for many instances on a modern music PC via Wasapi (I hear Mac is the same). Although there is an optimisation problem with ASIO (I get pretty fast some cracks on my MOTU mk4 at 128 smpls).
Price: A fair price for such a great product. The expansions are rather expensive, but worth the money and very well programmed into the detail.
Support: The dev Rene is always ready to answer your questions or fix any problems. And sound dev Manuel is every day online here at KVR forum for your prayers...
Conclusion: The intrest is growing very fast in this synth as it's still kinda new under the soft flagships. It's not perfect. It has flaws, but I believe in the product and the dev team is very helpful and responsive. They even help me solve issues I have with live situations for the synth. Which is quite unique (sorry for the nagging Rene and Manuel;-)).
I see this synth rising the coming years, next to other big boys as Serum, Falcon, Omnisphere, ...
Keep on improving the product .
Read ReviewReviewed By hollyWorse [all]
February 3rd, 2018
Version reviewed: 1.3.3 on Windows
6/5
If you're wondering: Shouldn't I buy Serum instead of VPS Avenger, "cause Serum's a standard and everyone's using it, including deadmau5"?
Well, then maybe you should. But if you're looking for a synth that beats Serum in practically every aspect, and even isn't (much) more expensive: Buy Avenger! Don't get fooled by the sound demos and packs that all sound like pure "EDM / Mainstream Trance" directly from the Netherlands. Avenger can do this, granted, but it can also do pretty much anything else. I'm into Dub Techno / Minimal and Avenger is a pure joy to work with. Coming from UVI Falcon, which is very different to Avenger, not better or worse, the great thing about Avenger is you kinda get the versatility of Falcon, but in a much quicker and more userfriendly workflow. I wouldn't wanna miss this pure awesomeness of a synth ever again (nor would I wanna miss Falcon). It has some rough edges, but it's few.
Sound Quality: Purely excellent
UI: Good
Versatility: You can phase-modulate (FM) a Wavetable with a Sample or whatever combination you want. Then add Analog Style Filters or FX. You can draw synth shapes. There're so many things. 100%, seriously.
CPU: No problems on a decent CPU, Ryzen 7 or Core-i5. Even running on my Tablet-PC although mileage will vary depending on the patch. Still performance is great in my eyes, a lot better than U-he synths for example.
Made myself a lot of enemies with this review I guess, but I hope I also made a few new friends! :)
Reviewed By dune_rave [all]
May 11th, 2017
Version reviewed: demo on Windows
I review Avenger based on its demo. It's quite easy to install it, though has more than 4Gig factory content, but it's OK for me. One word from the the developer : Vengeance Sound means quality, and browsing the forums I have never read any bad about their stuff.
The factory sounds are good, but for me, something is missing (maybe I should demo it more). Similar hybrid monster synths like Zebra or Blue II contain more presets I like. I think my problem with the sound is that VSP Avenger mainly offers sounds for the todays' producer, and don't contain "oldschool" sounds in its factory set, Sure it can sound many different ways.
Anyway, the GUI is interesting with lots of visual feedback and animation, so a great fun factor, but on the other hand is quite a mess. There are some parts that are small despite of their role, for example the modulation matrix should be bigger% from the whole gui. I think Avenger gui problem is that they want to put many things in one screen, where some parts should deserve a second screen alone.
I Quite like the Arpeggiator, and the Zone screen where you can layer sounds. I only tried some of the effects, and filters. That was really interesting to see a "tape stop" kind of fx in the effects rack.
So currently I have mixed feelings with Avenger. The main reason of this is I mainly like synths that are made for one specific goal, and Avenger is not this kind. It is made for covering many synthesis types, and the question is if it can sound wicked enough...
Read ReviewReviewed By ZaBong69 [all]
May 9th, 2017
Version reviewed: 1.1.2 on Windows
They said "the last synth you will ever need".
And they have a point. If there is one word for the philosophy of this soft synth, it's MORE. It pretty much has everything you may want to see in one synth, overdelivering on many things - who actually needs 8 oscillators in one sound, and what do I want with hundreds of waveforms and 4 Gig of sample/wave content? Well, the answer is: I don't know yet, but I plan to find out.
There seems to be very little this synth can not do... audio rate modulation between oscillators or on filters is missing, and wavetable editing is not (yet?) part of the game, but other than that, a great many synthesis methods and FX are there already. There is a Zebra 2 like flexibility in routing sounds and building layers. The ergonomics are great, I had fun navigating the GUI.
How does it sound: Pretty much like anything you want. It can be digital, it can do analog, it even can do some physical modelling. Warm and fuzzy in some presets, icy cold in others. The filters are good, a wide variety is there. One of the highlights of this beast are the effects - the quality is very high, no need to use external effects. If you really must, you can program sounds that start a whole track with one key press, including a drum sequence.
VPS Avenger runs smoothly on my system, but that system is pretty high end. You are advised to test it on your computer, as some sounds can be demanding.
Highly recommended.
Read ReviewReviewed By moonchunk [all]
December 13th, 2016
Version reviewed: 1 on Windows
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.
Read ReviewReviewed By DPhil [all]
December 12th, 2016
Version reviewed: 1.0.24 on Windows
I experienced the Avenger release as a really bad start for a good plugin. There were problems with downloading the installer as well as the content, bugs with registering and installing the content, crashes during initialization, a website dedicated to this plugin (?) and so on. But they kept up their effort and started fixing. Unfortunately it seems this wasn't the right time to start doing it. It should have been done earlier. I never had that many problems with their earlier releases.
The factory content is about 4.5GB in size and is one of the selling points and price justifications. This seems very much but keep in mind that there are about 4GB of multisamples, drumsamples and wavtables. There are 899 presets (not over 900 like stated on the website) if one can trust the results of the plugins search engine. Personally I don't care about drum samples and SQ presets at all. I would rather consider 2 pricing models for Avenger: a 1st like it is now and a cheaper 2nd one with only the at least needable wavetables and settings.
If you compare the Avenger expansions with the Nexus ones you'll definitely notice a big overlap. Some sound designers work for both (or more companies) and you can hear that. Eventhough the dev said these are 2 different plugins for 2 different uses (of course what else should he state) one might get in a content conflict if you already own one of them.
The ui doesn't feel good or inviting to me nor does it fit my taste. Compared to their old ones this feels steril. I think this is the price of vector based graphics and future proof. Although it's claimed to be skinnable I didn't find any info or way to do it. I could imagine I'd like more with a new skin, maybe flat, maybe more warmth, maybe more clear.
Pros:
Cons:
In conclusion it is a nice toy but it definitely needs some work to polish it up - featurewise, bugwise, performancewise. Maybe with version 1.5 or 2.0 then. If you already own some synths you'll get nothing new with Avenger but you'll get it wrapped within some workflow goodies. You also have to like the workstation, layer and 1-finger-song approach. But if your new to edm production you'll probably like it. Please check Nexus and Rapid too, because Avenger could be another expansion collection plugin and you'll definitely don't need 3 of them. I'm looking forward to the time where the first 3rd party expansion will appear and I'll try to investigate the plugin again.
Read ReviewReviewed By shittytunes [all]
December 7th, 2016
Version reviewed: 1 on Windows
First of all, great synth
After downloading for 3 days with my 56k modem i could finally install, register and open up the vst
No need to stick dongly little things in my computer in order to help scared developers sleep better. Great, i can have this on my laptop
The presets:
Those are not only presets, many are finished loops which can be tweaked. Its almost like a tweakable samplepack.
Tweakable nexus. Not exactly, it will use a lot more CPU depending on the number of modulations.
To me the sound quality depends a lot on what kind of filters and effects are used, gladly there are about a thousand to chose from, maybe less i am not sure as i am overwhelmed by such high numbers.
The Ui:
While quite logical one should know what a synthesizer is, what waveforms, filters, envelopes, LFOs and such are there for. It does look a bit overwhelming due to all the options, but so does shitting in the toilet for a one year old.
No need to have a PhD in soundesign to start making your own presets, but considering how well made the 600+ presets already are you will need that expertise to make something better.
If you dont have friends or if you are willing to part with your social life you could easily become a true expert at making amazing presets with this, so dont give up.
Or use the presets, your friends will think that you are the next avicici. I recommend not telling them the truth about your skills until you have exploited everything that your limited stardom has granted you.
To my taste, the Ui, while logical and practical, will not win a beauty pageant anytime soon.
Hopefully it is skinnable, id pay for a good skin to not look at that bland vibration creating machine.
The current skin almost looks like its made to control military robots or something like that, super efficient, no funk here, the funk is in the presets and tools provided.
Also, i miss some of the luxury visuals i got used to in serum, not many, but here and there its kinkier
Practicality:
I see myself using this a lot, you dont NEED another synth as this does it all.
Still i prefer using serum and dune, mostly because i am so familiar with them. Also they dont look like they are a controller to operate a spacestation, they do, but not in the same bland way.
All in all, great synth, but you already know this, so go buy it while its still warm out of the oven.
Or make the world a better place by learning how to make great sounds with any shitty synth and spend that money you saved to help the hungry and sick.
Just kidding, its ok to play.
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