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-- I bought me Vanguard for birthday!
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I bought me Vanguard for birthday!

An early birthday gift for myself, hehe.
I can honestly say it's worth those ninety bucks. Anybody else here uses it?

i tried the demo.. thought it sounded absolutly horrible..

it's good for some things.. but phat arps and leads definitly isn't one of them..

"comparable to a virus" HA!

Hahaha who says comparable to Virus? No way in hell.

quote:

Originally posted by RiCo Hahaha who says comparable to Virus? No way in hell.

it was hyped as that even before it came out.. and is also why the "Virus Dream Bank" came out...

Ha that's nuts.

I like it, but I'll probably ditch it pretty soon.

quote:

Originally posted by RiCo Ha that's nuts. I like it, but I'll probably ditch it pretty soon.

it's quite capable if u use it right.. only if it's backed up by a lot of other synths so u can't hear how crappy it is - just like the alphazone demo they have on the refx.net website

Yeah I really liked that Alphazone but there's no way it was Vanguard by itself.

haha.. no way in hell.. it says right above the download link "the lead was done with vanguard" nothing else.. and if u listen closely to the lead.. it's rather obvious that it was done with vanguard..

never the less, it's powerful in the right hands.. there are better synths out there, but none at that price..

Bah, i love vanguard, i dont understand what the problem is with it, then again i produce electro but it seems so well oriented towards tranc i cant understand how people dont like it. Wack some effects on it n stuff, its a quality synth and real easy to use. Which is a definte plus point, less time getting to the sound you want is always a good thing. Like zeta+ is good but over complex and i feel it cramps creativity. Vanguard + fruity blood overdrive, you know it makes sense!

quote:

Originally posted by Tom_cowan Bah, i love vanguard, i dont understand what the problem is with it, then again i produce electro but it seems so well oriented towards tranc i cant understand how people dont like it. Wack some effects on it n stuff, its a quality synth and real easy to use. Which is a definte plus point, less time getting to the sound you want is always a good thing. Like zeta+ is good but over complex and i feel it cramps creativity. Vanguard + fruity blood overdrive, you know it makes sense!

i don't think that this is such a quality synth. its sound is very digital and lacks warmth. the oscs are aliased and it's not as crisp as the top VST plugs.. and when we compare it to a virus, then it looks much more horrible. it's nowhere near the virus sound/quality..

just my 2 cent..

cYrus

Agreed, it's just a bad synth with great default patches for Trance. I think Manuel could make any vst sound just as good or better than Vanguard if he was to make a bank of patches.

The best sounding vsti (native) is Z3ta+, especially with the 2x oversampling.

I wouldnt say it was just the patches, the filters i really like, the band pass ones i like a lot, i dunno, iv found if you layer a few vanguards you can get a nice sound, course you have to eq hell out of them coz they do tend to get very muddy(and the aliasing can be a problem but for electro it kind of suits it). The zeta is a really good synth, its awesome for producing dirt. But like the way theyve put together the vanguard in that its got a very basic layout but most things you'd ever want to do with it are acounted for. Dont get me wrong, it aint no virus by any means, but neithers the zeta by any means.

See I don't like the filters at all. I find the synth grainy and muddy as hell. I think it comes down to specific styles. I can see Vanguard being use for more digitally inclined electronica music. But for progressive and chill style trance tracks that demand warm and smooth lead sounds and pads, the Vanguard doesn't cut it.

The same with Z3ta. For hardtrance/techno it's a dream, but for lighter stuff it doesn't fit so well.

That's the beauty of the virus, it can sound dirty, hard, warm or smooth. That's why it's so a highly recommended and widely used hardware synth.

quote:

Originally posted by trancenrg69 See I don't like the filters at all. I find the synth grainy and muddy as hell. I think it comes down to specific styles. I can see Vanguard being use for more digitally inclined electronica music. But for progressive and chill style trance tracks that demand warm and smooth lead sounds and pads, the Vanguard doesn't cut it. The same with Z3ta. For hardtrance/techno it's a dream, but for lighter stuff it doesn't fit so well. That's the beauty of the virus, it can sound dirty, hard, warm or smooth. That's why it's so a highly recommended and widely used hardware synth.

Totally agree.

I pulled out my Nord Rack 2 an hour ago and started playing. That synth has no effects, but sounds so sweet. Anyway, because of that, my card is $90 bucks richer again and the NL2 is getting some mad loving. I think the purpose of this was to not substitue my hardies for my softies. Lesson learned...NEVER AGAIN!

the vanguard has an impressive filter indeed, a very clean -24db filter is good, but the v station one is far more stable than my vanguard...

though the vanguard bangs out some quality patches, the v station has the fatness and is more stable.

U know, I bought V-Station a while ago and NEVER used it. I installed it but I haven't tried yet. I have so many plugins that I forget about them and mainly use the same ones. I love the Korg Legacy plugins...so far they have impressed me the most. I give them a 20 out of 10...that's quality right there.

There are one or two really phat pad sounds with the vanguard, but yeah, overall I found it someone disappointing.

It sounds way too digital...like my E-MU Xtreme Lead-1...extremely clean, piercing and no phatness whatsoever. I recorded a melody of a song I heard the other day and I don't know who produced it. I'll post it once I find where to host my audio files.

quote:

Originally posted by RiCo Yeah I really liked that Alphazone but there's no way it was Vanguard by itself.

From what I can tell after listening the full mix, the bass, lead, pads and arps are all made with vanguard.

V station sound nice.. Quite like it.

quote:

Agreed, it's just a bad synth with great default patches for Trance.

what? the presets are rubbish and single minded. if you want the most out of vanguard you have to program it. ill upload a hard house riff to my soundclick page which has a hoover lead consisting of a single vanguard and floops internal effects. its a brilliant synth. it wont flatter you like a virus will but hey, you get what you pay for. i can afford 90 dollars. i cant afford the 2000 dollars for a virus.

the reason why vanguard sounds grainy and muddy is because it aliases ALOT. without going into a huge explanation of what aliasing is, for a 44,000hz sample rate, the highest frequency you can generate is 22,000hz (nyquest theory). any frequency above that is cutoff and added to the bottom. i.e. vanguard generates a tone that spans 20 to 22,500 hz. that 500 hz at the top clips off and gets added to 0 hz so you have some more bass end frequency. this is the reason why it sounds gritty but muddy cuz its got excessive clipping right at the top end and loads of aliased bass that shouldnt technically be there. i like this however because it gives vanguard a defining characteristic, and i have no other synth in my arsenal that does this or sounds quite like it. in that respect its unique and i love it.

you cannot use it in the same way as a virus for the reasons explained above. because vanguard aliases so much it sounds really 'wide.' virus sounds wide in a different way. it achieves this through the number os simultaneous oscillators and filters on each voice and the virus c has double the polyphony of vanguard anyway. this is why i use vanguard for pads and leads mostly because it has this quality of sounding everywhere at once. the downside is that you have alot of unnecessary frequencies which muddy the bass and sub end and overbear high end sounds like hats. this is one reason why the bandpassed filters when opened more than half way sometimes completely cut out my hihats in alot of my tunes. this is more bad production from me though cuz i feel like i can compensate for it.

i would actually say its my most used synth. i use it in all my productions and every new tune i write, i find something better about it.

there will be soon a new vanguard update with 2x oversampling. i hope that will be the end of the digital sound :\

I love Vanguard. Most value for your money in a synth. cmon. $90. Give it up!

As a side-note, it appears Manual Schleis is working on a second bank for Vanguard. It actually sounds quite decent. Not decent enough for me to part with my Virus (ha!), but still... not bad at all.

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