I like the demos i heard. I see it's more EDM oriented which is fine by me, compared to Falcon and Omnisphere 2 which seem to be more oriented towards the cinematic and general electronic directions. And perhaps it's just the nature of the presets that come with each plugin.
It seems Avenger has some tricks the others don't, but is it that significant?
I'm debating whether to get it or not, also because it's on sale now for 20% less.

It’s a sound designer dream synth in my experience/opinion, It’s the definition of versatile I would like to say, without compromising useability or quality. I would say go for it, but that’s from my point of view. Good luck making the right design!

It’s the most amazing sounding synth. And it’s ON SALE!

I’ve been using the demo mode for a few weeks. Sampling the crap out of it. Send it through the SP16 filter and drive circuit = Amazing.

I love it. I finally bought it with this sale going on.

Going by their marketing, preset banks, and target audience Avenger is about the last soft synth you'd think I would buy - but I got it a couple of years ago during a sale and I have to say it can sound really good, really aggressive, and really huge. I have just about every soft synth you could name and Avenger can hold its own with all of them. They've really refined the feature set to allow very fine-grained control over the most important and aggressive aspects of the sound. It can really cut through a busy mix even when the sound is NOT a huge, dominating, unison / hoover dubstep blaster. Even pointy little arpeggio patterns and single-oscillator 303 type sounds stand up loud and proud.

It's a beast.

About that...
I noticed most of their expansions are in the "region" of hard trance, hands up and stuff like that. And price-wise, when you compare them to maschine expansions or Falcon expansions they are damn expensive for a list price of €65.
Do you find any interest in these?

Huge and beastly.

I took many of the presets and made blistering and/or mangled monsters out of them.

I think this synth is made for a sampler and heavy electronics: earlier prodigy, Noisufx and SAM and the days when you worked with Nails. Something about the motion and reverb with this synth ... and a crunchiness that reminds me of an SSL G-comp

Good to see you here, man.

I don't actually have any expansions yet but... they do also have stuff like Hip hop, Future Pop, Synthwave, Cinematic etc. so not all Trance and Techno, but yes, their main focus is definitely the EDM crowd.

On the surface their expansion don't seem cheap, but keep in mind that they often contain 20+ drumkits, new wavetables and multisamples, which makes the price a bit more justifiable.

Avenger is the first virtual synth I've tried that just seems like it's on a whole different level. It sounds amazing and the GUI design is awesome.
I do think they need to expand the factory library to include more sounds that could work in a variety of genres. I'm also not a fan of charging so much for the expansion libraries. I think they should provide more of these libraries in the factory set.

I haven't gotten any of the add-on preset packs. Just the batch that it came with was enough to show me what it can do, and I generally just use those as starting points to make my own patches. Since it's very clearly laid out I can move pretty quickly on it.

Good to be here, man. Yeah, Avenger is a bad mofo. I buy just about every soft synth, and never use most of them. But Avenger can get harsh, in a good way. Definitely in that Prodigy / Atari Teenage Riot / NIN category, even though it's more popular with the EDM / Trance crowd.

It's in my top five for sure.

Charlie,

What are your top five? As you can tell by my username, I’m partial to your style. Downward and Fragile had those massively, trumpet like harsh sounds that seemed impossible. It was like war horns and machine gun leads. I was always so blown away by the hugeness of grit, yet it was so Prodigy fat.

That’s what I think Avenger does. Although, it could be the Curtis Filters on the samplers that help.

I’ve been into 5 soft synths:
Avenger
Corona
Arminator
OBXD
Dune

Anyway, it’s so cool that a legend like you hangs out here sometimes.

Not counting EXS24 or Kontakt, which do 95% of the heavy lifting on my stuff, my top five would probably be:

Alchemy (so deep and loads EXS24 sample maps)
Omnisphere (can't skip this one)
Serum (Duda really nailed this one, sounds absolutely great)
ZebraHZ (the king of fake analog)
Avenger (the surprisingly good Chav synth)

No surprises there. Runners-up:

Diva / RePro (I hardly use purist analog emulations but these sound great)
Hive (a recent purchase but sounds great like all u-he plugs)
Arturia (all are at least okay but Matrix-12 and CMI-V are faves)
TAL Sampler (turn jitter knob to max)
Granite (great sounding and simple granulator)
Audio Damage Quanta (another easy take on granular)
Hexeract (can make some dirty grinds)
Phobos (wild convolution synth but a little inscrutable and easy to sound bad)
Vacuum Pro (surprised at this tube-simulating synth I got for $1)
Waldorf Largo (dated UI but sounds like Waldorf Q etc.)
Thorn (all Dmitry Sches plugs are good, especially Tantra)

For hardware the rig only includes things that plugs can't duplicate (yet):

Quantum (the new KING of feature sets, and sounds ridiculously good)
Pro-2 (the most flexible mono synth of all time, CV outs drive my Euro rig)
MicroWave IIxtk (another classic from Waldorf, can sound very ugly)
VS and VSrack (Arturia doesn't sound the same at all)
Emax I SE rack (that NIN/Public Enemy jangle)
Xpander (still the most unique filters in hardware)
MKS-80 (the only Jupiter that remains in the room)
JP-8080 (the fixed-filter bank still sounds unique)
V-Synth 1 and XT (truly unique sample shredders)
Virus TI (I still like the cheesy shine of the distortion)
Model D re-issue (gotta have one)
MS-20 (ditto)
TTSH 2600 (ditto ditto)
EuroCrack (time suck, why oh why did I go down that rabbit hole?)

No Moog One yet - jury still out.

thanks Charlie

I'm sure it is. But what i'm also asking is - aren't Omnipshere 2, UVI Falcon and Reaktor 6 also a sound designer dream? And if i have those, do they make Avenger redundant?

None of those make Avenger redundant to any large degree. Omni and Falcon are really aimed at sample manipulation, and although their feature sets overlap somewhat with Avenger, there's a world of other stuff in the way.

Avenger is really focused and points you toward a destination in a way that more open-ended synths like Omni and Falcon don't. It can't do what they do by any means, and even though you could probably do most of what Avenger does in either of those, the results will be different and the path will be much much longer.

I love Avenger for aggressive, Prodigy-style synth stuff - it's sophisticated but "stooopid" in a good way. It's quick and fun to use and it's easy to get results that cut, bite, and slam.

It's like you can just hear some chav from Essex saying, "Oi dat's sick bruv!"

... and I mean that in the best way possible.

Sample manipulation?!
Falcon does VA, FM, wavetables, granular, karplus etc. Perhaps you meant Omni. But Omni also have a vast array of synth oscilator choices such as traditional analog waveforms, wavetables etc.
The raw tone and the overall sound, though, might very well be different. But summing up Falcon as mainly a sample based plugin is very far from what it is.

Oh, I know. I have Falcon and Omni and all that stuff. But using either Falcon or Omni is a very different experience from using Avenger.

Can you pound a nail with a big, heavy wrench? Sure. But having just the right sized hammer will be quicker and easier.

For a certain subset of sounds, Avenger is the right sized hammer.

To me Omni and Falcon seem more like a whole toolbox full of wrenches, hammers, etc.

I like 'em all, but if I want a bad-ass 303-influenced sequence I can knock it out in minutes on Avenger because the right stuff is right there. I could build it out in Falcon or whatever but it takes more digging.

I'm afraid I have not enough experience with those synths to make a fair comparison. I totally believe you though that they are also heavenly for sound designers.

I think if you ask yourself the following question: is Omnisphere making Falcon and Reaktor 6 completely redundant? Or is Reaktor 6 making Falcon and Omnisphere reduntant? I'm guessing there is some overlap, but at the same time they are not redundant. I'm pretty sure it's the same thing with Avenger.

As a sound designer, I have access to a lot of synthesizers, and even though there is always some redundancy between all of them to some degree, I find basically all of them unique enough to make them useful in their own right. Every synth triggers my creativity in a different way. Sometimes I'm stuck with Spire so I load Avenger for example and a few minutes later I'm rocking on! On another day, it can be that I'm stuck with Massive and I switch to Fathom or DIVA to get the creative juice flowing again (that sounds nasty to some degree ).

So yes, there absolutely will be some redundancy, but it's the approach that is different and sometimes that helps see things from a different perspective.

Yes, sir. As a musician writing songs after work and on my days off, Avenger is a dream synth. I don't have the time to "design" every sound. I'm practicing my skills as a guitarist, singer and performer for a few hours every day. There's not enough time. Sometimes you need to just plug in the guitar and crank the gain for the sound you want. For more complex sounds, I just look for presets. Someone has to keep the sound designers employed. And, it's like collaborating anyway. Every person brings something to the table. Manufacturer, musicians, engineer, designers etc. I love hearing what amazing sounds people have come up with. It's inspiring.

Ended up buying it.
Indeed fun fun fun!
The step seq, arp, modulation routing - so deep yet you can dial in a sound in seconds.

"in seconds" - that's the best selling point right there.

It's expensive compared to maschine expansions or Falcon expansions.
Maschine expansion gives between 40 - 50 new kits, new samples, one shots, loops, multisampled instruments and new presets for Massive, reaktor etc. And the initial price is $49 compared to an initial price of €63 for an avenger expansion.

I don't have a Maschine so I realise I'm missing out a bit, but I do have a couple of expansions.
I find there's only a few synth presets - compared to Avenger, and the ones they do have are only half decent. Same with the drum samples.

Vengeance is known for their high quality output, which is why their prices are high. Trust me, I wish they were lower.

last night I bought the PROPHET soundset from encounters media,
because they have a 50% sale (they are quite expensive normally).
but oh my...

Maybe not a 99% copy as the U-he Repro with all the knobs etc, but I wish the Repro had the vibe, the size,
and the punch. All presets are programmed, not sampled, all great & usable.
Included are also famous 80s Prophet sounds

really really good stuff !

also bought now with the 50% discount the crazy good FAIRVENGER expansion
plus the 2 add ons, which turns your Avenger in super duper cool FAIRLIGHT

I'd say this and the Prophet expansions are a MUST for any AVENGER user
https://www.encountersmedia.be/index...ger-expansions

https://www.encountersmedia.be/index...xpansions/acic

With EXS24 or Kontakt being 95% of your work load, what are some of the companies you use for sample libraries? I know 8dio makes great content for composers and sound designers, but what other great companies are out there like 8dio that you use? Especially some of the other worldly sounds that are not typical synth sounds but more organic ones.

For left-of-center sample libraries, I like:

Sample Logic
Heavyocity
8Dio
Soundiron
String Audio
SampleTraxx
Silence and Other Sounds
Gothic Instruments Dronar series
Keepforest
Cinematique
Sonic Couture

... and so many other small developers that I find on Kontkat Hub or Sampleism. I've spent too many late nights just browsing those sites but I've found a ton of inexpensive libraries with nifty stuff.

FWIW I have a copy of Avenger that I put out for sale here on GS earlier. I have one extra pack (PSY). If interested, PM me.