Arturia synth development.

[zerocrossing]

It seems to me like Arturia wrote some decent emulations, got the licenses to use the names of those synths, and then stopped. I'm not saying they sound bad, but when put up to the latest offering by newer developers, they just plain and simply do not hold up. The only really nice things I can say about them is that they barely touch a modern CPU and they have some cool additions, like modulation matrices, etc. I really do like that aspect of their instruments. I never understand a developer who limits software in a way that made sense in the original hardware, but makes no sense in software. For example, something like Roland's SH2 plug in won't do last note priority mode, though it sounds great.

Meanwhile, speaking of matrices, they're releasing some really nice sounding hardware synths. I'd conclude that they're abandoning software development, except they did just come out with the brilliant sounding Synclavier V, and although the rest of the line was more or less ignored, they did do some work on the Mini V. Mostly now their plug ins just take longer to load due to ridiculously large graphics. Even with updated Mini V, the CPU use is still tiny. The point of this thread is to see who would be up for a real overhaul of all the Arturia synths where they got total engine redo with an i7 3.4 ghz as the min-spec machine. I personally would love it.

[chk071]

I'd be damned if they don't do this at some point. At some time, a new synth using the same old modelling technology simply won't stand up, and justify the price, when compared to other synths, anymore. Arturia already cut down the prices by a big amount. Until then, i guess there's no alternative to buying from other vendors, unless you're ok with the Arturia way of course, small CPU footprint being one advantage.

I recently bought Monark used for the second time. Mighty impressive sound, and also some mighty beef and bang for a soft synth (honestly, didn't yet come by another soft synth, which can get that snappy...), and very good sound when modulating at audio rate also. I don't expect the "next generation" of Arturia synths to be THAT good, but, 90-95 % of that would already be great.

[AnX]

...snappy...

Seriously tho, as long as they keep making killer analog hardware, who cares about the outdated software...?

[robotmonkey]

There's maybe two Arturia synths that are interesting to me: the Synclaviar, which is brilliant indeed, and Prophet V, an emulation of two synths I might like to have. The former one does sound great, most likely because they had access to originals' software code. The latter one I never quite liked when I tried it - it just does not sound right neither as Prophet 5 nor VS emulation.

To me all the Arturia synths have kind of plastic-y sound to them that makes them all sound the same. Recently I had an opportunity to get Analog Lab 2 for 15$ and I trialled it. Not that I would care about thousands of synth presets anyway but I thought that if I do not find it useful I could give it to my brother who is mostly a preset user. Went through a lot of patches and was not impressed enough to spend 15$.

[chk071]

...snappy...

Seriously tho, as long as they keep making killer analog hardware, who cares about the outdated software...?

Well, seems like they more and more orientate themselves in that direction anyway.

What's so funny about "snappy" though? Don't tell me you share the Teksonik way of not being able to comprehend what that means.

Think i really should do a video about it... even Nick Batt talks about snappiness in his synth reviews a lot... also german Musotalk vlog, and... basically everyone really.

[rod_zero]

They are probably making much more money in HW land right now. And they are bringing interesting producto IMHO, maybe their efforts are better spend there.

There is one product arturia could release that would be interesting: something along the line of Roland Plug out stuff, they already made the origin so maybe a version 2 which can use patches done in their plug ins.

Also they could do something like spark but more synth oriented, just expand on their controllers idea and include a huge number of knobs and buttons that map perfectly to the synths.

[Dasheesh]

Never liked arturia, never will. I think they all sound the same, I think they half ass a lot of the software, and I honestly put them on the third shelf their with tone 2. Cutting corners where ever possible to get away with it. Filters all sound the same to me. A buddy of mine likes say they have more bugs than an elephant carcass.

[fmr]

Another Arturia bashing thread (out of nowhere). WE can't get enough of them

[Robmobius]

Not a fan of their synths, never really was.

Although, I do like the Synclavier.

I guess they were alright back in the day, when there was nothing else but personally I think most of the synths today flatten them.

[zerocrossing]

Another Arturia bashing thread (out of nowhere). WE can't get enough of them

I didn't mean this to be a bashing thread. I happen to disagree that they all sound the same. That's purely ignorant. I happen to think that Prophet V is a mediocre 5 and VS emulation, but when you put it in 5VS mode, there's some very cool stuff that can happen. Though, I wish they didn't bandlimit the digital waveforms. Aliasing is part of the character! Make it an option. I've made some great pads with Mini V using the formant filter.

If they just plain and simply sucked, I wouldn't have bothered writing this thread. What I think is that each one of them has some cool function and they can actually sound pretty good. I think they could benefit from some internal oversampling and some basic tweaks here and there. I think with what they offer, they don't even really need to be as detailed as a Monark or Legend. You can hear their emulations getting better as they went on. They just never went back to the originals to bring them up to speed, and now even the "new" ones could use a dusting off. I'd also appreciate if they get someone (hell, I'd do it) to optimize their graphics and give all the UIs a unifying framework. Things like using a different graphic for every key on the keyboard is just rookie work.

[AnX]

Another Arturia bashing thread (out of nowhere). WE can't get enough of them

Not at all. Iove the hardware, as i said in my post.

[pdxindy]

I'm very much looking forward to trying a MatrixBrute. It is one of the more innovative hardware synths I have seen. I have to try it in person to tell whether I love the sound, though some of the audio demos are impressive.

[Zookes]

Enjoying Spark very much. I do like the sounds.
Using instead Geforce and others like D16 for vintage emulation otherwise.

I do not use hardware, so do not know or care.

[sacer]

i started with ni and arturia many years ago and the prophet from arturia sounded bether than ni pro 53. But when i now reprogramm my miniv patches in the legend, i will not use miniv anymore.
Most of their softsynths are more than 10 years old and nobody was talking 10 years ago that they are close to the originals.
There was the gforce minimonsta and the wow timewarp 2600 much more closer. When I baught diva on release it become my standard synth, but also fxpansion and xils lab are doing great job. Maybe when xavier left arturia they reduced their effort for softsynths.
Also if I see the 10 years old gui, i have problems to read the values and I haven't updated my collection v4 because I don't use them often. So why should I update 100€ for a bether gui, when the legend for same money sounds 1000 * more briliant.
I think they should have updated not only the GUI, browser and filter in miniv, they have to update the engine / soundquality also. Tone2 and Waves also updated saurus and element whit a competive analog sound qualitiy.
They could have modern their effects like chorus, filter, delay with modules available in the market, serum and lots of other synths use also modules from other companies. And if arturia doesn't have the knowledge anymore they should buy in, to rework their synths, I think lots of old arturia customers would have updated if it would sound like an up to date emulation. So compared to the competition, they are out of the software market.

[Robmobius]

Another Arturia bashing thread (out of nowhere). WE can't get enough of them

I'd like to get my hands on some of their hardware stuff, so it's not entirely negative.