RS042 M-Audio Venom: The Bad Guy

video upload by rejected synths

"It one of storytelling's oldest tricks, the bad guy that turn out to be the good guy. From Dickens’ Ebeneezer Scrooge to Jane Austen‘s Mr Darcy, from J.K Rowling‘s Snape to (who ever came up with him!?) Jonny Lawrence from Corbra Kai, the tough guys aren‘t as tough in the end and often the bad reputation they carry isn‘t really their own fault.

So, will a synth that is both notorious for being little more than a dub step noise machine and a cheaply built and quickly abandoned piece of glossy white plastic actually turn out to be the hero of the story?

It very much depends on who tells the story here, as M-Audio‘s Venom clearly has it‘s strengths if you can overlook the questionable design decisions made during it‘s inception. Like the hard to read grey on grey lettering or the fact that M-Audio thinks it totally ok for a stand alone hardware synth to heavily rely on a software editor that requires a PCor Mac to be able to utilize most of its extensive set synth engine features. Even the Virtual Analog Synthesizer claim that is prominently featured on the synth itself, it a bit of a hoax, as the Venom basically is just a souped up Rompler running on Amtel‘s Dream series ICs that were also found in PC sound cards and Karaoke Machines in the late 90s and early 2000s.

If you ignore these shortcomings and manage to get the editor running, you might be surprised of what the Venom can actually do. Apart from all the obvious dirty and distorted stuff, a lot can be achieved with the synth engine. Also as it was designed as an all in one solution for music beginners, you can even use it to record and process other instruments and even your own voice (vocoder anyone?).

Last but not least, the Venom might be pretty much the only synth whose price tag doesn‘t seem to have skyrocketed during the pandemic, here in Europe, you can still regularity find one for around 100€!

Curious? Then go ahead and press play!"

0:00 Intro
0:46 Introduction
1:29 The ugly parts
2:10 The bad parts
3:12 The good parts
4:35 Controls and connectivity
6:07 'Sick and Nasty' Patches
8:40 'Mad FX' Patches
9:29 'Whirling Pad' Patches
13:19 'Clean Keys' Patches
14:54 'Stained Keys' Patches
18:12 'Amazing Arp' Patches
20:46 'Traditional' Patch
21:13 Some Drumkits
22:39 Multi Mode Demo
25:31 Conclusion
26:10 Outro

RS042.1 M-Audio Venom: 'No Talking Edition'


"This is a shorter 'No Talking' edit of my video about the M-Audio Venom for those who prefer 'pure' demos without comments."