New M-Audio "Venom" Synth (aka the Gus Viper)

[zoink]

I found a little more info here:

 

http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2010/12/24/m-audio-venom-synthesizer/

 

It sounds like it might be decent, though not revolutionary. My first thought, seeing the picture, was that it looked like a budget Blofeld or Snow with 49 keys. The four parameter knobs are sort of a give-away. It's probably one part multitimbral, though four parts would have been nice. No mention of a vocoder or anything else special about it. In the distance there appears to be a one or two line LCD display.

 

Features:

 

* 49-note, full-size keyboard

* 12-voice virtual analog synthesizer

* Editor software included

* Integrated audio interface

* Intuitive top-panel controls

 

[Bernard]

I found a little more info here: http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2010/12/24/m-audio-venom-synthesizer/ It sounds like it might be decent, though not revolutionary. My first thought, seeing the picture, was that it looked like a budget Blofeld or Snow with 49 keys. The four parameter knobs are sort of a give-away. It's probably one part multitimbral, though four parts would have been nice. No mention of a vocoder or anything else special about it. In the distance there appears to be a one or two line LCD display. Features: * 49-note, full-size keyboard * 12-voice virtual analog synthesizer * Editor software included * Integrated audio interface * Intuitive top-panel controls

''Venom comes with 512 patches and 256 straight multi-sound patch (the layers) made by the renowned team of sound designers in the world. All the Venom will find a classical arpeggios, for more animation. With the new synth engine of the M-Audio, Venom flavor blends anolog sound on digital power. Thus they create a distinctive note that is distinguished easily from other digital synthesizers. Where you have 41 oscillators and 53 sample drum sounds from the keyboards of cargo last 40 years, and an oscillator for a DSP May retro vibe. Each of the 12 simultaneous voice virtual analog oscillators have three each, which gives tremendous flexibility for octave, intervals and detuning. For more ways to manipulate the sound, the filter multimodal operations can 12dB/octava Venom (2-pole) and 24 dB / octave (4-pole).

The most important caractersitici:

* heat combines modern digital processing of vintage synthesizers
* 512 and 256 single patches patch layers
* intuitive control surface and easy to use software + editor
* 49-sized keyboard
* Compatibility with Pro Tools
* USB Audio / MIDI ''

12 voices x 3 oscilators and what appears to be on those buttons approx 4 part layers. Thats 36 oscilators across 'x' parts? ..

Understand some may feel its only 12 oscilators but layers are mentioned very clearly...

[Gaul]

I'm only sure that the hands pictures on the add do not belong to a real keyboard player. They have such an unnatural position in relation to keys.

[Bernard]

Careful, it could be Gus ... LOL

[keybdwizrd]

Having a TI and scads of softsynths, I have no great interest in a non-multitimbral VA. I was somewhat excited about the GAIA until I realized it had no LCD (and hence no patch names, etc.).

 

But it's good to see companies making these things - inexpensive synths = more people playing them = more synth music, etc., and that's not a bad thing.

[Gus Lozada]

But it's good to see companies making these things - inexpensive synths = more people playing them = more synth music, etc., and that's not a bad thing.

 

This ^^^^

 

[Metrosonus]

yes, no more micro keys please.

[Bernard]

This ^^^^

Is Gus confirming it really is just a single layer in spite of the garbled marketing leaks

Can we survive till more info

Can we left him up by his legs and shake him to get to the truth

[wwwjd]

That's not exactly what you think you thought he didn't say. But more around what he said that wasn't what you heard he meant.

[Gus Lozada]

That's not exactly what you think you thought he didn't say. But more around what he said that wasn't what you heard he meant.

 

True that

[Bernard]

[Yoozer]

 

But it's good to see companies making these things - inexpensive synths = more people playing them = more synth music, etc., and that's not a bad thing.

 

 

No no no, you don't get it. See, if these... proles can easily make music the market is flooded with utter crap! Do you want to live in a world where every 15-year old can score a potential "hit" because the gear's so cheap? If it was expensive, this would not happen, and you'd get quality music made by people who are actually talented.

 

Of course I'm joking but I've encountered this sentiment several times

[Bernard]

:-)

[gregwar]

curious to hear what it sounds like and this could make a nice va + controller especially for a beginner/novice

 

if they're really successful it could help bring the prices down on other vas like the nords, viruses, etc

 

my only concern is that the venom knobs break at some point. with my keystation pro 88 i've tried to replace some of the knobs and contacted tech support but apparently they're not standard issue and need to be done at a service centre (not by my tech)

 

so if you buy the rather cheap plastic knob synth and it breaks its not like access, who sent me replacement knobs from germany and my tech fixed my virus c no problem.

 

i guess if people want to buy cheap synths just don't cry if they break and stuff

[Conbrio]

Do you want to live in a world where every 15-year old can score a potential "hit" because the gear's so cheap?

 

I haven't seen that happen yet. It ain't the price of the gear... it's still the talent.

 

[Yoozer]

I don't know if that makes me happy or sad, seeing the current state of popular music.

(did you click the little "spoiler" button btw)

[wwwjd]

[reply to conbrio - not sure where the quote went]

 

 

meh... have you turned on modern radio today? a lot of it is pathetic. I mean REALLY pathetic. If it is really still the talent? WHERE is this talent? Kesha? Rianna? Perry? Where?

[Conbrio]

 

(did you click the little "spoiler" button btw)

 

 

No, I don't click blind links.

[Unfed]

 

meh... have you turned on modern radio today? a lot of it is pathetic. I mean REALLY pathetic. If it is really still the talent? WHERE is this talent? Kesha? Rianna? Perry? Where?

 

 

why does everyone crying about "the lack of talent in music today" always bring up pop radio? like that's the only music being made or something. pop radio has been full of bull{censored} since at least the 70s, talented or not. when was the last time you heard 'talent' on pop radio, the mid-80s (if that...)? what do you consider talent?

 

 

also, why bug the piss out of Gus for details on this thing? you can't wait a couple weeks for the full info? even then, info doesn't mean too much until you've heard demos of what can be done with it. it's a VA, and by M-Audio of all companies (notorious for sub-par build quality and breaking down). how exciting/innovative/need-to-have do you think it could possibly be?

[Gus Lozada]

also, why bug the piss out of Gus for details on this thing? you can't wait a couple weeks for the full info? even then, info doesn't mean too much until you've heard demos of what can be done with it. it's a VA, and by M-Audio of all companies (notorious for sub-par build quality and breaking down). how exciting/innovative/need-to-have do you think it could possibly be?

 

We are all just playing, amigo!

 

They know I have all the info about the Venom because I work for AVID and had been following really close the development of this product, but that also means I am under a NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement) as an employee, so I can not "spill the beans".

 

It is a nice, naive "game". I'm as anxious as some others here to try out the final version of it and answer some questions.

 

 

You may be right, this is not something as "huge" technologically speaking as when the first VAs came to the market (and I'm talking about the Yamaha VL-1 or perhaps Korg's Prophecy, 10 to 15 years ago) or say, as when the OASYS was released with different synthesis methods.

 

 

The only thing I can say as user -not as an employee- is that I am really willing the VENOM to fill an important link missing in many people's studios; think as an example about the ELEVEN Rack: it is an audio interface + guitar processor and was -by then- the only one able to run Pro Tools. Less is More... but More is also welcome!

 

There you have a hint

[ChipCurtis]

 

 

 

I don't think keeping equipment out of the hands of novice musicians is the problem here. In this day and age, if we were to do that, it would only exacerbate the problem more.

 

I think it was different several decades ago, when only guys like Stevie Wonder or Keith Emerson or John Paul Jones could afford something revolutionary (and super expensive) like a Yamaha GX1. Those guys had already proved themselves as talented, made money off their talent, and could therefore get the new expensive kit, which didn't increase their talent but only expanded their sound pallette.

 

It's different in today's world, where if the kit were expensive and hard to obtain, it would only fall into the hands of studio hacks producing one assembly-line American Idol wannabee after the other. These days we need more inexpensive but usable gear to fall into the hands of upstart musicians with some talent to express themselves, but who would be otherwise ignored if they couldn't get their hands on anything decent.

 

This phenomenon kind of reminds me of George W. Bush bragging about his being in the National Guard when he actually used that to dodge the draft back in the 60s. Back then, it was a way to get out of going to Vietnam. Nowadays, it's a way to get IN to going to Afghanistan. That's a little trick we play on those guys. They think they're signing up for Paintball on the weekends, but they end up in Afghanistan.

 

By the same token, people think that if we can limit what music gear is available to the public to strictly expensive gear, it would only create talented musicians. No. It would only put that gear into the hands of the Wall Street banksters to have sitting in the living rooms of their McMansions as conversation pieces. It's a different world now. Money talks a lot more loudly and in more concentrated pockets than it did back then. We need to keep the cheap gear flowing and let the chips fall where they may.

[liliththekitten]

erm anyone can have a hit with cheap guitar bass and drums. Pop music should be accessible to anyone. Johnny Ramone's first guitar cost $50. granted the Ramones had no real hits in the US ("Baby I Love You" reached #2 in UK I think) but they should have. got it at the old Manny's, where as legend has it a shipment of TR-808s were left out in the rain so they were sold cheap to most any hip-hop producer in NYC and this is how the 808 entered hip-hop. legend.

 

as for M-Audio, I don't like their gear or their tech support for when it doesn't work. and I don't like the Crystal Method - OH LOOK an American Big Beat act named after a {censored}ty drug and doesn't even match up to British BB B-listers. I remember they did a soundtrack to N20 on Playstation and you could take the disc out and put in your own music CD. So I always took it out and put on Digitalis or psytrance.

 

But if it sounds good - might consider it - maybe not over Ultranova

[liliththekitten]

as for music today, call me hipster but I get fantastic music off music blogs and I don't have to listen to gagarhiannabritney if I have to.

[wwwjd]

 

why does everyone crying about "the lack of talent in music today" always bring up pop radio? like that's the only music being made or something. pop radio has been full of bull{censored} since at least the 70s, talented or not. when was the last time you heard 'talent' on pop radio, the mid-80s (if that...)? what do you consider talent?

 

 

Timeline of talent:

- cavemen make flutes, and play 3 notes (or something. I'm kinda making all this up as I go for a point)

it's the first music, this the POP hits of the time

- people with white wigs make multi layered orchestra music for kings, it's the POP hits of the time

and requires KNOWLEDGE of music to create something good and interesting to entertain kings

- bands shrink down from 90 piece orchestra to 4 pieces, yet the players can still PLAY songs all the way

through, knowing the notes fit together and having the talent to PLAY the instrument

- multi track recording is invented and now said bands can share their songs with everyone. but

they still have to play them to record them. access was limited to only the most skilled.

 

- computers start taking over doing everything and digital recording is given to everyone so

even tone deaf people lacking rhythm can make "music" making them feel like they are amazing

thanks to quantitization/autotune. they don't know anything about music except how to loop a beat and

rip off other artists that know how to piece together notes in a fashion to form music. instead,

the new breed Cuts and Pastes and it is done. No playing a musical instrument, no knowing music.

the end result shows the slop, the lack of talent, the poor workmanship.

 

Would you enjoy food in a fine restaurant made by some guy calling himself a "cook" that didn't know

ANYTHING about cooking? Would you want your brain operated on guy calling himself a "neuro surgeon"

that didn't know ANYTHING about brains or surgery? Do you take your car to the LEAST KNOWLEDGEABLE

mechanic you can find? Do you want a handy man with zero skills working on your house?

Do you want talentless people making music? I don't.

 

I feel rap was the beginning of the end as far as pop "music" goes or the redefinition there of. Instead of

making a glorious, melodic celebration of life, which is where real music originated from all the way back to

those cavemen, rappers yell about their fake lives and all the bad things that happen. "Music" takes

a back seat to "Aggression" as a form of entertainment.

 

True, every generation feels the up and coming generation is getting worse and worse, but most will

right that off as "Bah, they are just old fashioned". In truth, it IS getting worse and worse.

music is reduced to a repeating drum machine pattern (that does nothing interesting), a single note

bass line, and some guy yelling as aggressively as possible about killing cops or beating women.

At some point in the future we will just be listening to STATIC and calling it music.

 

At what point does music cease to be "music"? Many will claim Art is a personal perspective, but I say

replace the football with a golf ball and it is no longer the game of Football. Same with music and art. Take away

the required talent and skills, the melody, the celebration of life... replaced with no talent needed, no

more melody or interesting alignment of notes, a celebration of depravity and negativity... and the "Music"

is gone. The chemical make up has changed completely and it is no longer what it used to be.

 

Yes, pop music has always been close to empty headed, but at least it was MUSICAL in it's path.

Now the hits require the F word to be interesting. And much I hear is more like random production

experiments than well thought out compositions.

 

I guess I consider talent the people that still create music and not noise. Maybe one could even

guage music and talent by that which will play over MUZAK in the future. I can pretty much guarantee

rap will not be on that menu. One was that one famouse song from 5 years ago? Oh that's right

they don't play it anymore because it was worthless and disposable. Yet new radio stations pop up all the

time play all the older songs (the ones that were musical) because people don't want to hear worthless

and disposable after the age of 14.

 

Why does this fit THIS thread? Giving the untalented tools to be amazing without any effort ends up

making pathetic music.

[veracohr]

as for music today, call me hipster but I get fantastic music off music blogs and I don't have to listen to gagarhiannabritney if I have to.

 

 

I wish I could be that hip. I know that blogs are a big thing and a lot of people follow them with fervor, but I have yet to meet one that I didn't feel was a complete waste of both my time and the writer's. To me the whole blog concept reeks of the arrogant delusion that other people want to hear what I have to say.