Good deal? M-Audio Venom

Johnny Sniper · Post by **Johnny Sniper** » Sat Dec 01, 2012 7:31 pm

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/venom

Only $199 as opposed to $320-$400 on other sites.

Kinda iffy about the Venom because I heard you can't access all the parameters on the front panel

kimu · Post by **kimu** » Sat Dec 01, 2012 9:50 pm

leave it on the shelf.
i tried one at the shop some months ago... poor quality and really bad sounds.
and at that time it was priced about 1.000 euro...

Johnny Sniper · Post by **Johnny Sniper** » Sat Dec 01, 2012 11:01 pm

kimu wrote:leave it on the shelf.
i tried one at the shop some months ago... poor quality and really bad sounds.
and at that time it was priced about 1.000 euro...

I've never played one for myself, though I have heard a few demos. It definitely has that 'plastic' sound, even when in unison it doesn't sound quite 'thick' to me. I think I might pass on this to save for an R3, Gaia, or Ultranova.

kimu · Post by **kimu** » Sat Dec 01, 2012 11:29 pm

Johnny Sniper wrote: I think I might pass on this to save for an R3, Gaia, or Ultranova.

i would go for ultranova. Gaia is quite toyish and the R3 is well packed in feature but a bit odd to program. imo of course.
ultranova sounds good (even if the oscillators alone without anything else are not so good) and it's more friendly to program and play live

xp50player · Post by **xp50player** » Wed Dec 05, 2012 5:54 pm

I ordered one. I wasn't in the market for an analog modeling synth, mostly because the cheaper ones have mini keybeds, which I hate, but this is a demonstration of the price elasticity of demand. It looks like fun for $199, and does a lot, if you look past the brand name.

NuSkoolTone · Post by **NuSkoolTone** » Wed Dec 05, 2012 7:17 pm

HELL YEAH it's a great deal. I played it and remembered liking it but felt it was overpriced at $600 originally. After double checking with some YouTube videos to re-aquiant myself with the sound, I ordered one. It has it's own character that I haven't yet found on the Kronos (or at least easily) and it's just got that NASTY edge covered.

Worst case scenario? I sample all the waveforms and make an EXi for the Kronos, use it as an extra controller, give it to my kid, resell it, who cares? At such a low investment it's really hard to go wrong IMO!

MoonMusic · Post by **MoonMusic** » Tue Dec 25, 2012 1:00 am

I got one but never use the sounds...

....I wanted a portable solution for Protools on my MB Pro and this was the answer....The sounds are OK but I prefer my plug in synths more.....moon

Triton76 · Post by **Triton76** » Mon Jan 14, 2013 2:36 pm

I bought one for $199 and I'm totally happy with it.
It is a sample playback 3 osc per patch or 4 part multitimbral synth.
It has 808 / 909 type drums only. FX are weak except maybe delay.
definitely great for bass or leads. Pads not so much but I'm working on it. I like the editor but it's my first time using a pc editor so I can't compare to anything.

Triton76 · Post by **Triton76** » Mon Jan 14, 2013 3:01 pm

front panel controls include filter section and adsr for amp and filter. FX sends but not fx selection but I'm using external anyway.
mono/poly and glide, unison, lfo rates but not destinations. no pitchbend range setting either. For this price nothing is close. Is there even another hardware keyboard synth for $199? It is an audio i/f with mixer section on the front panel w/ USB too

NuSkoolTone · Post by **NuSkoolTone** » Mon Jan 14, 2013 3:23 pm

I had one briefly and found it had cool sounds, but it relied too heavily on the bit decimator and distortion fx to get those sounds IMO. With some tweaking on the Kronos using the same methods I found I could get pretty close to that flavor. What's not mentioned anywhere except in the manual is that only half the presets were actually writable. For me that was the deal breaker so I sent it back.