Building an entire track using just one synth

Let’s use Vengeance-Sound’s VPS Avenger mega-instrument to sketch out a complete track…

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With up to eight oscillators, tons of modulation and even a drum machine, it’s possible to create entire tracks using just a single instance of Avenger. After laying down a two-bar-long F1 note to trigger the synth, we activate the synth’s Drums module and select a vintage 909 kit and pattern.

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Next, we activate a sawtooth oscillator, then sequence it using a swinging two-octave arpeggiator riff. Using the oscillator’s Chorder feature, we can stack four voices in a minor chord shape, giving us a groovy techno-style chord sequence.

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Time for some low end. We select a dubby sub bass wavetable in another oscillator slot, then use the synth’s step sequencer to program a 16th-note pattern that underpins the drums and chord line.

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To create a pumping pad, we load up a chord wavetable in a third oscillator, then use a sine LFO to wobble this oscillator’s dedicated filter for some resonant drifting. By routing this signal to its own FX Bus, we can douse it in ambient reverb independently of all the other oscillators.

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For our fifth and final track element, we shape the amplitude of a white noise oscillator to create a splashing techy ‘crash cymbal’ effect. Once routed to another separate FX Bus, the signal is widened using the synth’s Dimension Expander effect.

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Now that our five elements are working together, we can refine the mix within the synth by balancing the mixer’s faders. A 20Hz high-pass filter, gentle bus compression and multiband limiter provide ‘mastering’ polish. Alternatively, each signal can be routed out to multiple DAW outputs.