VPS Avenger 2.1 [RELEASED - FAQ in OP]

[bilrobins]

Hey guys, following your comments I purchased VPS Avenger 2. I was a little worried for the first hour or so, as I did wonder if I'd bought into a fancy rompler ... but no, it is indeed a fantastic synth. Really impressed and having a lot of fun with it.

The only slightly odd 'glitch' I notice is that when I start/stop playback in Ableton (latest 12) the reported Ableton CPU goes up super high (like 200+ percent) for a second or so then falls back down over about 5 seconds. It doesn't seem to affect the sound but it is a little odd.

Otherwise, great. I'm getting some lovely (and different) sounds out of Avenger super fast.

CHEERS

[Jac459]

Hey guys, following your comments I purchased VPS Avenger 2. I was a little worried for the first hour or so, as I did wonder if I'd bought into a fancy rompler ... but no, it is indeed a fantastic synth. Really impressed and having a lot of fun with it.

The only slightly odd 'glitch' I notice is that when I start/stop playback in Ableton (latest 12) the reported Ableton CPU goes up super high (like 200+ percent) for a second or so then falls back down over about 5 seconds. It doesn't seem to affect the sound but it is a little odd.

Otherwise, great. I'm getting some lovely (and different) sounds out of Avenger super fast.

CHEERS

Good that you like it!
The CPU behaviour is odd indeed. All CPU spikes disappeared for me after v2.05.
I am on Bitwig, Apple silicon. Do you mind sharing the preset you are using? I can test for you.

[ChanceB]

Hey guys, following your comments I purchased VPS Avenger 2. I was a little worried for the first hour or so, as I did wonder if I'd bought into a fancy rompler ... but no, it is indeed a fantastic synth. Really impressed and having a lot of fun with it.

The only slightly odd 'glitch' I notice is that when I start/stop playback in Ableton (latest 12) the reported Ableton CPU goes up super high (like 200+ percent) for a second or so then falls back down over about 5 seconds. It doesn't seem to affect the sound but it is a little odd.

Otherwise, great. I'm getting some lovely (and different) sounds out of Avenger super fast.

CHEERS

Good that you like it!
The CPU behaviour is odd indeed. All CPU spikes disappeared for me after v2.05.
I am on Bitwig, Apple silicon. Do you mind sharing the preset you are using? I can test for you.

While you checking can you check the atmosphere patches in the factory 2 bank? some are extremely broken for me in both Bitwig and FL Studio,causing system audio to shut off and even crashing the audio engine in Fl Studio. I’ve tried both vst and component versions.im on an m1 Mac

[DoktorTenma]

While you checking can you check the atmosphere patches in the factory 2 bank? some are extremely broken for me in both Bitwig and FL Studio,causing system audio to shut off and even crashing the audio engine in Fl Studio. I’ve tried both vst and component versions.im on an m1 Mac

I reported this bug to them on December 5th and got a response on January 31st that they could reproduce this and were working on a fix. As of version 2.1.1 this has not yet been fixed.

It is easily reproduced on both my M1 and M1 Max systems, but not on my Ryzen 7 Windows 10 system, by trying to play the AT Fantasy World patch. So two of my three available systems are affected by this bug.

[ChanceB]

While you checking can you check the atmosphere patches in the factory 2 bank? some are extremely broken for me in both Bitwig and FL Studio,causing system audio to shut off and even crashing the audio engine in Fl Studio. I’ve tried both vst and component versions.im on an m1 Mac

I reported this bug to them on December 5th and got a response on January 31st that they could reproduce this and were working on a fix. As of version 2.1.1 this has not yet been fixed.

It is easily reproduced on both my M1 and M1 Max systems, but not on my Ryzen 7 Windows 10 system, by trying to play the AT Fantasy World patch. So two of my three available systems are affected by this bug.

“could reproduce this and were working on a fix“
Good to hear,I guess I won’t start uninstalling and reinstalling anything trying to fix it

[Jac459]

While you checking can you check the atmosphere patches in the factory 2 bank? some are extremely broken for me in both Bitwig and FL Studio,causing system audio to shut off and even crashing the audio engine in Fl Studio. I’ve tried both vst and component versions.im on an m1 Mac

I reported this bug to them on December 5th and got a response on January 31st that they could reproduce this and were working on a fix. As of version 2.1.1 this has not yet been fixed.

It is easily reproduced on both my M1 and M1 Max systems, but not on my Ryzen 7 Windows 10 system, by trying to play the AT Fantasy World patch. So two of my three available systems are affected by this bug.

Ok, I just tested.
I tried the 6 first patches and I had no issue, no spike. Even at the beginning.
The 6th is using a lot of CPU though, about 15% (but it is difficult to say as Bitwig CPU counter is not linear, you can have a sound taking 50% of CPU, and then you can have 8 instances of the same sound consuming.... 60%).

BUT Fantasy world is indeed totally destroying my session. Hard bug. Need to restart the engine.

[m-ac]

While you checking can you check the atmosphere patches in the factory 2 bank? some are extremely broken for me in both Bitwig and FL Studio,causing system audio to shut off and even crashing the audio engine in Fl Studio. I’ve tried both vst and component versions.im on an m1 Mac

I reported this bug to them on December 5th and got a response on January 31st that they could reproduce this and were working on a fix. As of version 2.1.1 this has not yet been fixed.

It is easily reproduced on both my M1 and M1 Max systems, but not on my Ryzen 7 Windows 10 system, by trying to play the AT Fantasy World patch. So two of my three available systems are affected by this bug.

Don't hold your breath, the spikes have been happening from the very first version on mac. You'll just have to work around them if you want to use avenger else you'll drive yourself insane. Also yes, I get particularly bad spikes going up to 100% (but hovering around 50-70%) on fantasy and metaphor in the atmosphere category. It's not just your daw, I'm on logic. It's also not a silicon issue, I've had the same on i9 and xeon.

[m-ac]

While you checking can you check the atmosphere patches in the factory 2 bank? some are extremely broken for me in both Bitwig and FL Studio,causing system audio to shut off and even crashing the audio engine in Fl Studio. I’ve tried both vst and component versions.im on an m1 Mac

I reported this bug to them on December 5th and got a response on January 31st that they could reproduce this and were working on a fix. As of version 2.1.1 this has not yet been fixed.

It is easily reproduced on both my M1 and M1 Max systems, but not on my Ryzen 7 Windows 10 system, by trying to play the AT Fantasy World patch. So two of my three available systems are affected by this bug.

Ok, I just tested.
I tried the 6 first patches and I had no issue, no spike. Even at the beginning.
The 6th is using a lot of CPU though, about 15% (but it is difficult to say as Bitwig CPU counter is not linear, you can have a sound taking 50% of CPU, and then you can have 8 instances of the same sound consuming.... 60%).

BUT Fantasy world is indeed totally destroying my session. Hard bug. Need to restart the engine.

I've no idea how you seem to have this holy grail avenger setup. Maybe you and ChanceB could list all your bitwig project settings and use the exact same empty project in bitwig with a single middle C key sustain and compare your results here? Also it would be interesting to hear what audio device you're using as that seems to be the only possible variable?

[Jac459]

While you checking can you check the atmosphere patches in the factory 2 bank? some are extremely broken for me in both Bitwig and FL Studio,causing system audio to shut off and even crashing the audio engine in Fl Studio. I’ve tried both vst and component versions.im on an m1 Mac

I reported this bug to them on December 5th and got a response on January 31st that they could reproduce this and were working on a fix. As of version 2.1.1 this has not yet been fixed.

It is easily reproduced on both my M1 and M1 Max systems, but not on my Ryzen 7 Windows 10 system, by trying to play the AT Fantasy World patch. So two of my three available systems are affected by this bug.

Ok, I just tested.
I tried the 6 first patches and I had no issue, no spike. Even at the beginning.
The 6th is using a lot of CPU though, about 15% (but it is difficult to say as Bitwig CPU counter is not linear, you can have a sound taking 50% of CPU, and then you can have 8 instances of the same sound consuming.... 60%).

BUT Fantasy world is indeed totally destroying my session. Hard bug. Need to restart the engine.

I've no idea how you seem to have this holy grail avenger setup. Maybe you and ChanceB could list all your bitwig project settings and use the exact same empty project in bitwig with a single middle C key sustain and compare your results here? Also it would be interesting to hear what audio device you're using as that seems to be the only possible variable?

Yes, with pleasure of course.
In the past I already shared a detail of my project with the list of all synths and effects.
I also did some comparison between synths.
So, I am happy to help.

That being said, I am not sure my setup is holy grail in the sense that Fantasy world wasn't working at all for me. I understand it worked for others.

Also, as you asked about my project settings, I checked and I was at 2048kb block size (because I added the avenger session on my current project which is at mastering stage).

When I come back to default (256kb) on a new project.... I do have spike (basically the CPU usage doubling from 8-9% to 18%. ==> very sorry to give you false hope.
BUT, I went further and started to add sessions until the spikes reach 100% and beyond and... I have no cracks.
Finally, I have a subtle crack sometimes at 16 sessions of 4 notes chord of AT Metaphore.
That's way after the CPU graph shows 100%...

That is weird.

But while the example of Fantasy is clearly a bug (can't even play one note with an m2 pro), I am not sure it isn't normal that the CPU is in pain with the AT metaphor 64 instances. There is a lot of oscillators, spectral processing, reverbs and all...

[m-ac]

Good man! What audio device are you using?

chanceB, can you do a direct comparison?

[noiseboyuk]

FWIW I tried that Fantasy World patch on my W11 Ryzen 7900 Cubase 13 256 RME Babyface - overall PC use is 8%. I then tried it on the M2 Macbook Air (same DAW and buffer size Core Audio), overall use was 14% (around 8% with nothing played).

[Jac459]

Good man! What audio device are you using?

chanceB, can you do a direct comparison?

A FIIO DAC. I have no more hardware if it is your question.

[Jac459]

FWIW I tried that Fantasy World patch on my W11 Ryzen 7900 Cubase 13 256 RME Babyface - overall PC use is 8%. I then tried it on the M2 Macbook Air (same DAW and buffer size Core Audio), overall use was 14% (around 8% with nothing played).

Well now it is working for me too (but broke after 3 instances).

And and and... No more spike with the previous AT doing spikes...



I love in IT when something is not deterministic. That means that you are in deep shit...

Anyway, more seriously I have no practical problems so ...

[ChanceB]

Good man! What audio device are you using?

chanceB, can you do a direct comparison?

MacBook Air M1,latest Sonoma Os, no external device connected ,Bitwig 5.2 ,Avenger 2.1.0, 256 block buffer ,44100 sample rate. Started a completely empty project with Fantasy World playing a 2 bar C3 looping in the clip launcher. According to Avenger it’s using 17% cpu with which jumps up to 30% when the loop restarts. According to Bitwig it’s using an 1.15 ms load average and 3.5 ms load max out of a 5.805 ms deadline. All this while not putting out any sound on the first try. If I change the preset to another and back I get very short audible spikes all the way to 100% but can get the sound to come back for a bit before breaking up and killing the sound,but it doesn’t seem to crash the audio engine. If I stop the transport and restart it I also get the spikes but that happens on most presets ,which I can deal with. It’s mostly the Atmos patches that seem to be the problem here . I’ve been trying to pick them apart to figure out what is causing this,I’m assuming it’s the spectral oscillators. Deleting the oscillator named layer seems to greatly increase performance and changing samples in that oscillator also seems to help. I will continue trying to figure this out later today when I have time

[scoplunk]

I feel like I must be missing something. We have parallel filters now. I want to run filter 1 and filter 2 in parallel, but that's not what's happening. I always seem to have an unfiltered version of the sound going at the same time and I can't figure out how to turn it off. Why would I even want an unfiltered version running in parallel? I could simply open up an LPF and run it beside another filter, if that's the sound I'm after. I'm sure I'm just missing something. How do I make this work like any normal parallel filter routing?