# Is Arturia relevant anymore



## synthpunk (Nov 26, 2016)

I still use sem - V a lot and like CS 80 V the new Synclavier seems good as well but wonder if old code is catching up with them? When the collection is on sale it does seem like a good deal still


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## CACKLAND (Nov 26, 2016)

Arturia Collection is a great collection of Synths, think there is always a place for them


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## Parsifal666 (Nov 26, 2016)

I still use and like the Oberheim, Jupiter, MiniV, and ARP. I mostly just hate the workflow...and opt to use Diva, Saurus.


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## lux (Nov 26, 2016)

Yup, Arturia collection is an inspiration tool here, definitely relevant. Also, I can stack quite a few of them, still having a cool warm sound, without killing my cpu.

What I like of Arturia synths is that they don't sound doped or overpunchy to me.


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## mac (Nov 26, 2016)

They sounded brilliant years ago, and still do now. I'm not keen on editing them either via their emulated interface, but the sounds more than match Diva for me.


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## Astronaut FX (Nov 26, 2016)

I feel like Arturia is extremely relevant, both on the software and hardware front. The MiniBrute synth a few years back launched the industry back into producing affordable, fully analog synths. The BeastStep Pro is one of the most fully featured, versatile controllers on the market, and they are now poised to release what is likely to be an amazing, yet affordable analog drum machines. 

Arturia is perhaps more relevant than most give them credit.


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## Wes Antczak (Nov 26, 2016)

As far as the plugins, as long as people are using them and making music with them they are relevant. It should also be noted that they do seem to be keeping them updated. They have done numerous updates over the years and I'm not talking about just the gui. I've read that they have been reworking the filters, for example, to make them even better. Then of course we have the family of Brutes, including the MatrixBrute.


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## Polarity (Nov 26, 2016)

I have friends who say that Arturia improved the filters with the latest versions...
To me when I got (the free for one day) MiniMoogV and tried to use it its filters sound like crap compared to Creamware's MiniMax I have. Then I got Monark and Diva... and was another story!
A week ago my friend said that MiniV filters are much better than before, the same with CS80V...
about which I asked him because I was interested in getting it (to couple with the MemoryMoon ME80) after I played a bit with a trial version I had on HD since an age.
I'll probably use the actual 50% sale for getting the Analog Lab and the full CS80V.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Nov 26, 2016)

I just wrote the manual for MatrixBrute, their new hardware synth. It's pretty awesome.


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## kavinsky (Nov 26, 2016)

No, the code is definitely rotten by now. I wouldnt use it.
Have you checked the shelf life on the box?


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## Brobdingnagian (Nov 26, 2016)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> I just wrote the manual for MatrixBrute, their new hardware synth. It's pretty awesome.



Fantastic, Nick. Looking forward to possibly getting one of these....but hoping it is released sooner than later. They seem to be running quite a bit tardy on the promised delivery date, _nicht wahr_? Actually, being <<une équipe française>>, I should say n'est-ce pas...


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## Nick Batzdorf (Nov 26, 2016)

I was just contracted for this one project, Brobdingnagian, so I don't know when it's going to ship (in fact I didn't know it hadn't!). Great instrument, though, and it's prompted me to see what I can do with software to duplicate the experience.


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## synthpunk (Nov 26, 2016)

Good to see you still doing things like that Nick

Kavinsky I know what you're saying but I hear and use other things out there that sound fresher



Nick Batzdorf said:


> I was just contracted for this one project, Brobdingnagian, so I don't know when it's going to ship (in fact I didn't know it hadn't!). Great instrument, though, and it's prompted me to see what I can do with software to duplicate the experience.[/QUOT


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## dogdad (Dec 3, 2016)

I love them! I'm a big fan of Arturia's harware synths too. I feel that they are unmatched for value. Amazing quality synths for a very, very fair price, especially when on sale. Just last week I obtained an upgrade from Arturia to V Collection 5 for $99. That has to be the deal of the year! I also own other soft synths, including Diva which I also love but Arturia's plugins sound natural (true to the hardware) and are very, very light on CPU. Plus the newly upgraded interfaces are a significant improvement and make working with them a real joy.


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## EvilDragon (Dec 4, 2016)

IMHO no, Arturia is not relevant anymore. They need to find a proper UI/UX designer because even with their refreshed HiDPI GUIs, they're a hot mess as far as I'm concerned. And they really, really need to upgrade their DSP tech for their analog emulations.


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## Living Fossil (Dec 4, 2016)

The (hardware) Matrix 12 and Jupiter 8 were my favorite synths i've worked with, also really liked the (real) Prophet VS. By listening to the Arturia counterparts i was quite astonished that everything what makes the real synths special was not there in the software...
It was like the Beatles without John. And without Paul. And without George. And without Ringo.
But i guess the Synclavier might be a much better emulation.


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## chrysshawk (Dec 4, 2016)

EvilDragon said:


> IMHO no, Arturia is not relevant anymore. They need to find a proper UI/UX designer because even with their refreshed HiDPI GUIs, they're a hot mess as far as I'm concerned. And they really, really need to upgrade their DSP tech for their analog emulations.


This.


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## dgburns (Dec 4, 2016)

EvilDragon said:


> IMHO no, Arturia is not relevant anymore. They need to find a proper UI/UX designer because even with their refreshed HiDPI GUIs, they're a hot mess as far as I'm concerned. And they really, really need to upgrade their DSP tech for their analog emulations.



Well, point me to where one can get all those old keyboards as in the Vcollection 5 then, and for that price....

(granted I would be happy to see U-he offer up their expertise in the sound department)


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## EvilDragon (Dec 4, 2016)

I'd rather choose quality over quantity, myself (which, automatically, will require larger funds, but quality is something that should be worth some extra dough). So, Arturia's piano scratched right off that list, I go with Pianoteq. That one also sorts rhodes, clavinet, wurli for me. CS-80? Memorymoon. Minimoog? Monark, Diva, Legend. Diva for other analog poly sounds as well. Can't wait for u-he do to a Prophet 5 emulation (Urs hinted at it...).


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## dgburns (Dec 4, 2016)

EvilDragon said:


> I'd rather choose quality over quantity, myself (which, automatically, will require larger funds, but quality is something that should be worth some extra dough). So, Arturia's piano scratched right off that list, I go with Pianoteq. That one also sorts rhodes, clavinet, wurli for me. CS-80? Memorymoon. Minimoog? Monark, Diva, Legend. Diva for other analog poly sounds as well. Can't wait for u-he do to a Prophet 5 emulation (Urs hinted at it...).



It's the old question about "the klang". 

-edit-

or should I have said "klangtreue", or maybe "klangvollste", not sure.

No doubt the Arturia stuff doesn't quite sound as good as the hardware, but imho, it brings something to the table that I can consider in the work I do because of the recall factor. I'm no Junkie XL, I'm just not gonna go out and buy all that hardware, even if I wanted to make room for it. Some hardware, yes, but I'd go to newer designs first, like club of the knobs etc.

I'll take a look at your suggestions though.


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## lux (Dec 4, 2016)

I think it depends mostly from what's the starting point. Probably if I had to consider Arturia from the "emulation" point of view it would fall short.

But that's exactly the point, at least in my case. I always approached to the V Collection as somethng unrelated with the originals (except from the overall kind of produced sounds) and find it has an own tone and sense. Also the rich amount of presets to use as inspiration/starting point is quite fun.

Also, I personally like Arturia's overall richness of tones and the relatively small cpu footprint. I've used U-He Ace a couple times on electronic productions but, despite the overall fun, I find its sonic emphasis being less suited to my taste and usage.

Tried Diva and my computer took human shape for a minute just to slap me in the face. On a completely personal standpoint having a dedicated computer for a virtual synth is a no no, as it gets too much in competition with the hardware root. I mean, Minilogue (just to mention one) has a great sound and features with such a small price tag. But you could name others like DS Tetra, Mini/Microbrute, Bass Station...and so on. And they do not ask for password, no BSOD, no updates, no optimization necessary...

Its always personal, our workflow and inspiration roots probably dictate our choices more than one thousand technical specifications.


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## EvilDragon (Dec 4, 2016)

This is why Diva has Quality parameter, and you can set it separately for live usage and offline/render... It is entirely manageable on most modern CPUs.


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## Parsifal666 (Dec 4, 2016)

I run Diva on draft all the time and practically never have a problem, either sound or CPU wise. And I'm on a laptop.


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## synthpunk (Dec 4, 2016)

Four instances of Diva always open here and never too much of a problem

Howard has told me you really don't need the higher resolution modes of Diva until you get into high resonance filter


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## Wes Antczak (Dec 4, 2016)

Yes, it works fine on my current system, whereas on my older system not so much. And as EvilDragon said, there IS always the option to run in draft mode and then render in higher quality if you need it.


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## lux (Dec 5, 2016)

probably putting two concepts together in a same post I gave the wrong impression that I'm using Arturia's 'cause Diva doesn't work on my system. Thus transforming this thread in a "hey, Diva works" debate. My fault.

I mentioned Diva because it chimes up (expecially on this forum) often, which is pretty much understandable as Urs' creations are spot on. But in my creative workflow (I tend to stack lot of stuff) I find more inspirative and manageable computer-wise using Arturia, Tone2, AAS Ultra-analog 2 and a good bunch of Kontakt based synths. When it comes to more simplistic approaches I find myself using often the Poly KB II, which is another good CPU hog, but I pretty much like its tone.

At the end it's just a matter of being inspired by something


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## Parsifal666 (Dec 5, 2016)

lux said:


> probably putting two concepts together in a same post I gave the wrong impression that I'm using Arturia's 'cause Diva doesn't work on my system. Thus transforming this thread in a "hey, Diva works" debate. My fault.
> 
> I mentioned Diva because it chimes up (expecially on this forum) often, which is pretty much understandable as Urs' creations are spot on. But in my creative workflow (I tend to stack lot of stuff) I find more inspirative and manageable computer-wise using Arturia, Tone2, AAS Ultra-analog 2 and a good bunch of Kontakt based synths. When it comes to more simplistic approaches I find myself using often the Poly KB II, which is another good CPU hog, but I pretty much like its tone.
> 
> At the end it's just a matter of being inspired by something



Heck, there ain't nothing wrong with working with what inspires you! It might be just that Diva is a pretty popular and widely used synth here (as it is on other forums like KVR). I still have my Arturia Jupiter, CS80, ARP 2600, Mini V, Dubstep Spark, Vintage Drums, and use them (strangely more than even synths like Reaktor!). But for me the Arturian (sounds like a Star Trek character lol!) workflow is just way too strange, tiny, inconsistent...the sound itself can be quite good though. I won't be selling my Arturia stuff any time soon, put it that way.


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## synthpunk (Dec 5, 2016)

I love that Arturian Ale!

Now if they do a Rhodes Chroma model I would definitely be into that


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## kurtvanzo (Dec 7, 2016)

After using the Arturia Synths in demo mode, I'm finding more than a few patches for the Synclavier, Prophet, and CS-80 that have a high level of noise by today's standards. Not all the patches, but as I go through basses it becomes obvious on some patches. I really like the interface and organization of sounds, and they all work well in Komplete Kontrol, but the noise would be an issue in a softer piece. Anyone know clean versions of these synths? Wish memorymoon had more than just the CS-80 in 64bit. Has anyone else done a Synclavier or Prophet?


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## Wes Antczak (Dec 8, 2016)

A Chroma model would be most interesting!

As for the noise issues, I'm wondering whether that's a factor of the demo or perhaps just sloppy programming? So far, I haven't really noticed any issues with noise. The 3D rendering IS a bit sloppy though. It seems that Yannick (or whoever did the rendering) maybe forgot to take into account the differences in gamma between Mac vs. PC? I'm on a PC and especially some of the keys remain a little on the "blown out" side. Maybe it's a problem with my monitor?


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## EvilDragon (Dec 8, 2016)

Wes Antczak said:


> A Chroma model would be most interesting!



But not by Arturia.


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## KEnK (Dec 9, 2016)

I'm an old school guy- Came up in the First Synth Era B.C.
I don't gravitate towards presets, and most often don't even check them out.
I'm not using a lot of synth tones these days, but when I do I still reach for the arturias.
I like the ultra analog too- It's probably a work flow thing.
I just rarely get what I'm looking for from the current favs.
Never warmed up to Omnisphere for example. 
Sacrilege, I know.
But that's me.

k


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## kavinsky (Dec 11, 2016)

EvilDragon said:


> But not by Arturia.


all of your latest posts here are arturia bashing, what's the reason may I ask?


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## EvilDragon (Dec 11, 2016)

Because there are other devs that do analog emulation much much MUCH better. Because their GUIs simply aren't that good from UI and UX perspective. Because their marketing buzzwords don't really live up to their statement (TAE? Yeah, right.) Etc.


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## Parsifal666 (Dec 11, 2016)

EvilDragon said:


> Because there are other devs that do analog emulation much much MUCH better. Because their GUIs simply aren't that good from UI and UX perspective. Because their marketing buzzwords don't really live up to their statement (TAE? Yeah, right.) Etc.



I think that's pretty much indisputable. I do like how he doesn't attempt to write "completely unusable", because that is something the Arturia line isn't. As I wrote earlier, Diva and Bazille (sometimes Monark) are my first grabs for the analogue (or whatevah ya wanna call it) thing, but I won't be selling my Arturia Jupiter, ARP 2600, CS80, or Mini V anytime soon. They are still being used in my music, mostly to augment other tracks.

The guis are a huge gripe for me as well. In all these years, they couldn't have done better?


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## EvilDragon (Dec 11, 2016)

I never said their products are unusable. Just that they could be much, much better than what they are, in various ways.


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## Parsifal666 (Dec 11, 2016)

I noted that. Makes your argument even more valid.


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## kavinsky (Dec 11, 2016)

To me they all sound very different.
Diva has a very distinct voice and sometimes I'd reach for Arturia mini, it behaves in a lot more predictable way.
Yeah, the filters may not be screaming "analog" but I find it almost irrelevant in practical use.
Something a little more sterile just works better in some situations.
I would never part with arturia simply because I know exactly how it sounds and some of their offerings have no alternative on the market(cs80, p5).

I think its time for a blind test though.


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## waltercruz (Dec 11, 2016)

Polarity said:


> I have friends who say that Arturia improved the filters with the latest versions...


the only updated filter on the lastest version is Mini-V, and they haven't used a 0df filter.


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## kurtvanzo (Dec 11, 2016)

Great to see the different points of view. I actually like the newer gui, at least it's sizable and easy to navigate, from a simple user perspective, it works better than some others. But the sound, especially where high frequency noise comes through clearly on the patches, means it will be eventually replaced by something cleaner. The low end also doesn't resonate the way U-he synths do. But I can understand using them until replacements pop up. Also those who don't need the low end, or filter it out for a mix. I'll try to find matching patches (difficult) and post comparisons.


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## dpasdernick (Dec 26, 2016)

Am I missing something regarding the Arturia interfaces? I have the Jupiter 8 and the interface looks like a real Jupiter 8. That's not Arturia's fault and I think Roland knew a thing or two about laying out a synth interface back in the day. The extras like the sound map thingy and the effects are just little bonuses. The complete collection is always on my wish list but, alas, had always been trumped by other 'need to haves' like real hardware and mortgages etc... one day I will get them all... love the new Synclavier too.


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## ryanstrong (Dec 26, 2016)

I WISHED Arturia sounded nice but they just do not compare at all to more relevant synths like Diva.

The quality of Arturia just sounds flat and "digital" to me.


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## IFM (Dec 27, 2016)

I kind of like the V-Collection and a lot of it sounds great once you really sit down with it. Yes there are some weak spots but I don't think it is rubbish at all.


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## willf_music (Dec 27, 2016)

dpasdernick said:


> Am I missing something regarding the Arturia interfaces? I have the Jupiter 8 and the interface looks like a real Jupiter 8. That's not Arturia's fault and I think Roland knew a thing or two about laying out a synth interface back in the day. The extras like the sound map thingy and the effects are just little bonuses. The complete collection is always on my wish list but, alas, had always been trumped by other 'need to haves' like real hardware and mortgages etc... one day I will get them all... love the new Synclavier too.



Arturia is still relevant. They have just shifted their focus.

They are making amazingly capable and well thought out hardware. Minibrute, microbrute, matrixbrute, beatstep and drumbrute are all well thought out and competitively priced products. And furthermore, all eurorack compatible.

However, as far as VST synths and such go, they have probably neglected those things because it is more expensive to develop those things compared to the potential market. The V-Collection is still wonderful to use. However, when you have other synths that can emulate those same filter networks and offer other capabilities (because they are not necessarily tied to copying a classic synth [diva is one of these]) well then you are going to have most people go to getting those newer softsynths.


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## IFM (Dec 30, 2016)

This thread turned me on to Diva...oh my where have you been all my life?


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## ryanstrong (Dec 30, 2016)

IFM said:


> This thread turned me on to Diva...oh my where have you been all my life?


It's the best VI synth to model analog sounds. Omnisphere and Diva is all I need.


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## IFM (Dec 31, 2016)

It says Diva is a CPU hog but really I found LPX to handle it quite well. Extremely happy with it.


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## synthpunk (Jan 1, 2017)

Been said many times, when it first came out 5 years ago without a doubt and if you have an old machine yes, but through many updates and using multi-core & draft mode on a fairly new and robust machine you should be fine in most cases.



IFM said:


> It says Diva is a CPU hog but really I found LPX to handle it quite well. Extremely happy with it.


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## audioverge (Feb 4, 2017)

I still Use them a lot!Had some of their products for years now.


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## JPQ (Jul 28, 2017)

Emulation way they are poor and i have some serious things with demoversions even. but thier timbre maybe work some uses. like some special colours in my palette when i paint they have own unique reason use them.


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Jul 28, 2017)

My Matrixbrute sure seems very relevant to me!


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