AZS Visions DSI Pro-2 Review: Still Leads Monos in 2026

It was 2 a.m. and we were deep into an ambient track, the DSI Pro-2 already patched through two send buses, when we hit the wall every monosynth owner knows: everything we’d built from scratch for the past hour sounded like us, and we needed something else.

That’s when we loaded AZS Visions, the 64-preset bank from Aiyn Zahev Sounds distributed via Resonance Sound. It costs $16.95 against a synthesizer worth close to $2,000. That ratio alone makes it interesting.

This review is for DSI Pro-2 owners who want third-party presets built with actual craft, not filler. If you don’t own a Pro-2, there’s nothing here for you. If you do, keep reading.

What Loading It Actually Looks Like

The download gives you a MIDI SysEx file, a patch list PDF, and a 1080p desktop wallpaper. That’s the full package.

SysEx delivery means you’re loading via your DAW’s MIDI capabilities or a dedicated SysEx utility like MIDI-OX on Windows or SysEx Librarian on Mac. If you’ve never done this before, expect a 10-15 minute learning curve.

Once it’s in, Visions sits in User Bank 3. Your existing banks stay untouched. That’s a satisfying design choice. Nothing gets overwritten.

First patch we landed on was a pad. Wide, slow attack, plenty of movement. Our first instinct was to reach for the modwheel, and Aiyn Zahev had already put something there. That’s a good sign immediately.

Getting It Into a Real Workflow

Here’s where we spent most of our time: actually using these patches across sessions.

The workflow friction is hardware-specific, not a flaw in the preset bank itself. Every patch change on the Pro-2 involves bank and program scrolling. There’s no plugin window, no browser, no favouriting system. You’re using a hardware synth, which means you’re living by its UI.

We kept the patch list PDF open on a second screen and worked top-to-bottom across sessions. It’s an annoying way to audition 64 sounds, but that’s the instrument, not Visions.

What we found is that the patches split roughly into thirds. About 20 are strong leads and pads we’d call “session-ready.” Another 20 are workhorses: basses, sequences, and textural beds that need minor filter tweaking to fit a specific track. The remaining 24 are more experimental, which we’ll get into.

One specific moment: we dropped “Broken Circuit” (a rhythmic sequence patch) directly into a 124 BPM techno arrangement and it locked immediately. No filter adjustment, no EQ on the bus. It sat in the mix like it was written for that track.

What It's Genuinely Good At

The pads are the headline strength. We ran three of them through a long hall reverb with a 2.4-second decay and none of them turned to mush. They have enough high-mid presence, around 3-5kHz, to stay defined under wet processing. That’s real engineering in the patch design.

The basses are tight. We’re talking clean sub behaviour below 80Hz without the flabby low-mid buildup that often plagues monosynth patches not built for full-range playback. Gain staging is clearly a priority for Aiyn Zahev: we gain-staged our interface input and didn’t need to compensate on the channel strip.

We love the dark ambient beds. Two or three of these patches could anchor a whole film score cue without alteration. Pull one up, play a minor chord, add some reverb tail, done.

The modwheel assignments are consistent across almost every patch. That’s a workflow win. You learn one performance gesture and it applies across the bank.

The Rough Edges

The experimental patches are a mixed result. Some are clever. A few are genuinely odd in a productive way. But about 8 of the 24 experimental sounds feel incomplete, like they were interesting at the end of a long design session but didn’t get a final pass.

We wish there was audio demos on the product page. Buying a preset bank for a $2,000 synthesizer without hearing a single example first is frustrating. The lack of demos is the biggest barrier to recommending this without caveats.

No quick-start guide either. SysEx loading isn’t hard, but for producers who bought the Pro-2 as their first hardware synth, a single-page walkthrough would matter.

At 64 patches, you’ll identify your 20 favourites within a week. After that, the bank doesn’t grow. Compare this to software synth expansions which often run 100-200 presets at similar price points. The per-patch value is still strong, but the number is lean.

Who This Is Really For

• ✅ Buy if you own a DSI Pro-2 and want a starting point for electronic, ambient, or experimental production without spending a week building patches from scratch.
• ✅ Buy if you work in dark electronic or cinematic electronic genres. The pads and beds are brill

  

  iant for those contexts.

• ✅ Buy if you're playing the Pro-2 live and need performance-ready patches with consistent modwheel behaviour.
• ❌ Skip if you don't own a DSI Pro-2. This file does nothing for any other instrument.
• ❌ Skip if you're an advanced sound designer who builds from init. This bank won't teach you new technique.
• ❌ Skip if you need a large library. 64 patches will feel thin within a month if you're a heavy user.

Score Breakdown

Category	Score	Notes
Sound Quality	4.0/5	Pads and basses are the high points; a handful of experimental patches don't land
Value for Money	4.5/5	$16.95 for 64 patches on a $2,000 synth is genuinely hard to argue against
Ease of Use	3.0/5	SysEx loading works fine but no guide, no demos, and no browser makes auditioning slow
Features	3.5/5	Consistent modwheel assignments are great; patch count is lean
CPU Efficiency	N/A	Hardware synth, not applicable
Overall	4.1/5	Solid, honest preset bank. Not transformative, but worth every dollar of its asking price

Alternatives to Consider

If you want to explore what Aiyn Zahev does across other synth platforms, the AZS Collider EDM for Spire collection covers similar electronic territory inside a software instrument. If the dark, evolving pad aesthetic from Visions is what hooked you, AZS Transitions Vol. 2 for Diva delivers a comparable feel inside U-He Diva, which gives you a software option when the Pro-2 isn’t in the signal chain.

For other Pro-2 sound sources, the hardware’s own factory presets are worth a proper deep-dive before buying anything. The Pro-2 ships with patches that demonstrate the full architecture across all four filters. best synth preset banks for electronic producers covers the wider landscape if you’re building a library across multiple instruments.

There are no other third-party banks specifically built for the DSI Pro-2 at this scale. That’s actually part of why Visions carries weight. It was the first. Nothing has arrived to challenge it since.

Final Word

Visions is a $16.95 answer to a specific, real problem: you spent $2,000 on one of the best monosynths Dave Smith ever built, and you want to hear what it sounds like in someone else’s hands before you’ve mastered your own.

Aiyn Zahev’s hands turn out to be very good. The pads alone are worth the price. The basses are clean and usable. The performance assignment is consistent. You’ll have 20 patches you love, 20 that need work, and 24 that you’ll pull out twice a year when a track needs something odd.

Buy it if you own a Pro-2. Full stop. Skip it if you’re hoping it’ll help you understand the instrument better, because patches don’t teach architecture.

At $16.95, the real question was never whether it’s worth it.

It is.