# Alternatives to Pigments



## HBIII (Dec 22, 2021)

Anyone have any recommendations synths similar to pigments that are not as CPU intensive? I even got a new macbook pro with the m1 pro chip and 32gb of ram and pigments still just eats my cpu alive. So I am going to have to find something else... maybe phase plant?


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## doctoremmet (Dec 22, 2021)

Phase Plant frankly plays in an even higher league (sonically and in terms of options) than Pigments. It is a very user friendly synth and I can use it without too much CPU strain. But then again, I’m also not experiencing a lot of issues with Pigments either, so YMMV. Anyway, check out Phase Plant, currently on sale (for instance over at Time + Space).


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## Pier (Dec 23, 2021)

@HBIII what type of sounds do you want to make?

PhasePlant would cover most of what Pigments does (and more) but the granular engine is very primitive in comparison and it doesn't have an additive oscillator.

If you're mostly interested in VA sounds in an easy-to-use package, Hive from U-He is also very efficient and sounds great.

You could also give Vital a try. I mean, it's free, you have nothing to lose.

Although I'm surprised to hear you're having issues with Pigments on an M1 chip. Are you using the latest version? I read that they introduced native M1 support very recently.


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## HBIII (Dec 24, 2021)

Yes, I'm using the latest version of everything and everything running m1 native.

I think I will take a look at phase plant, thanks everyone!


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## HBIII (Dec 31, 2021)

Well, I am trying my darnedest to do as much as possible ITB, but it just never works out. I ended up going ahead and ordering a waldorf iridium. Kind of like a hardware version of pigments. Now I have no cpu problems whatsoever lol.


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