M-Audio Venoms Selling Dirt Cheap

[happyrat1]

I realize the editor is buggy and the synth has been discontinued as well as official software support, but I'm seeing this thing on sale for black Friday in Canada for $299. Besides, if they sold enough of them it wouldn't surprise me to see aftermarket support from an outfit like Soundtower.com.

http://www.tomleemusic.ca/main/homekeyboards.cfm?details=1&id=127&inv=152692

I'm almost tempted to pick one up at that price if only as a collector's item that will doubtless become a retro craze item in high demand

I really don't have the space for it, but the price seems almost too tempting to pass up.

Anyone out there own one of these and care to comment?

Gary

 

[Beemerduck]

I have one...


I haven't had it too long so haven't really good my head around it totally, but it sounds like nothing else I have.. Very dirty and cutting sound.

 

[happyrat1]

I picked one up after Xmas for $275 total taxes inc.

Then again for a while there Amazon.com was selling them for $168 but the slimeballs wouldn't ship to Canada at that price.

Even so, I'm happy with mine and I agree, very good sounds and arpeggiators for house/techno/rave style music.

For $275 I don't feel cheated but M-Audio's support is the absolute WORST I have ever encountered with any synth.

I've literally been trying for almost two months to find out the MIDI Bank Numbers so I can complete an INS file to fully exploit the synth in Cakewalk.

I've been stonewalled and downright ignored by CSRs for weeks trying to find out 8 simple 1 Byte numbers.

God help me if I end up having to ever do a real RMA on this thing.

 

[Beemerduck]

I have read the support is shocking, but I got mine new for £154! Which is about 230$ so can't complain.

The USB is one of the reasons I bought it.

 

[happyrat1]

Well enjoy it in good health. if I ever manage to pry loose the Bank Numbers out of M-Audio I will end up posting the Cakewalk INS file for it to the community.

So far there mainly seems to be two boards supporting it.

The official board which is total crap.

http://community.m-audio.com/m-audio

And a user founded listserv on Yahoo! Groups which is slow but alive.

http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/venomsynth/

And mentioning for it's own sake, there's a user group website which has not seen any fresh activity since August last year.

http://www.venomsynth.com/

 

[Beemerduck]

I found one that supports the Vyzex software, again like you say most aren't very busy.