# Arturia V collection 9 out now



## flampton

Here is the quick synopsis - I posted the further specifications later in this thread

V Collection 9 now includes 32 instruments: more than just synths and keyboards, the suite now features 2 Augmented Series titles
4 new instruments: Korg MS-20 V, SQ80 V, Augmented STRINGS, and Augmented VOICES
Prophet-5 V & Prophet-VS V: now 2 individual instruments that were previously a combined hybrid instrument, totally rebuilt from scratch with next-gen modelling
CS-80 V rebuild: a brand new sound engine with totally rebuilt DSP modelling, advanced modulation, voice dispersion, and a modernised advanced panel.
Piano V rebuild: a brand new physical modelling instrument, now featuring 12 piano models, from Japanese Grand to Piano Bar Upright, and advanced sound design controls.
Thousands of new expertly-crafted presets: presets for every instrument, 14 new sound banks, and a huge range of styles -exclusively available for V Collection 9 owners.
Performance and workflow updates: improved loading times, refreshed GUIs, expanded user playlist functionality, and more.


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## tressie5

I see they're coming out with their version of Korg's MS-20. Now Cherry Audio and Korg themselves will have serious competition.


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## vitocorleone123

tressie5 said:


> I see they're coming out with their version of Korg's MS-20. Now Cherry Audio and Korg themselves will have serious competition.


I dunno. I seem to like Arturia synths when I first use them and then I find them… lacking, over time.

But sometimes they’re the only option for an emulation.


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## dunamisstudio

well I hope the upgrade is really cheap, cause that's only four new synths for me. I have version 8. Good thing I passed on the Korg collection.


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## rrichard63

dunamisstudio said:


> well I hope the upgrade is really cheap, cause that's only four new synths for me.


Four completely new instruments plus four others that are substantially different from their predecessors: CS-80, Prophet 5, Prophet VS and Piano.


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## rsg22

Looking forward to MS-20 and Augmented Voices. Also didn't expect the Piano V rewrite...


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## Wes Antczak

dunamisstudio said:


> well I hope the upgrade is really cheap, cause that's only four new synths for me. I have version 8. Good thing I passed on the Korg collection.


If you plan on upgrading make sure to be aware of the dates. Arturia has a very narrow window on how long the pricing lasts.


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## doctoremmet

Interesting… I have V8 and the Ensoniq. Kind of curious about the actual upgrade pricing offer. Also surprised to see the Augmented series is going to be included. A Piano V update may prove to be the most interesting part, if it truly brings the modelling one step closer to Modartt levels.


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## Nimrod7

Ah nice! Thanks!

It will be nice to release a "Complète" package, including all their instruments and effects in a single pack. I was hoping for that!


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## Markrs

doctoremmet said:


> A Piano V update may prove to be the most interesting part, if it truly brings the modelling one step closer to Modartt levels.


That is what I noticed as well in the update. I think Pianoteq is great and I would love to Arturia to offer something of that level of quality.

If this was the case then it really adds to owning Analog Labs as you get lots of the Piano presets and as I don't tend to go deep to mess around with Piano voicing, I doubt I would miss having the full version.


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## Wes Antczak

I'm excited by the new additions... It's interesting that the Augmented series is also included. I thought it was going to be a completely separate product line.

It will also be interesting to see Arturia's take on the MS20. (I have two as hardware, the Mini and the Tabletop module) I'm also glad that the Prophet V and Prophet VS are getting updates, that and the CS-80. The CS-80 should sound much better if the Jupiter is any indication. All in all it looks like it will be a great update.

I have the SQ80 V btw, and I think they did an outstanding job of it. It seems like the current development team is really on the ball.


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## doctoremmet

Wes Antczak said:


> I have the SQ80 V btw, and I think they did an outstanding job of it. It seems like the current development team is really on the ball.


It does sound particularly nice, doesn’t it. I have to concur with your assessment.


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## davidson

Only two new instruments for me, and only one of which I'd be remotely interested in. Might be a pass until 10 unless they're more realistic with their upgrade prices than they've been in previous years.


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## Wes Antczak

I think in the recent past the initial upgrade price was $99 (for e.g two minutes before it went up). But I anticipate that this year that special price might be closer to $149 as the collection grows. I guess we will soon see. I also hope they take into account those of use who purchased things separately before they were added into the collection. (like the SQ V)


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## Wes Antczak

I have to wonder about the MS20 V though, since Korg already has their own plugin? Won't there be some sort of copyright issue?

The Korg plugin used to be kind of on the mediocre side in terms of the graphics and the way it was set up, but it has been vastly improved in the 2.30 version. It's now a proper single window and everything is highly visible and a pleasure to use. There are also two effects slots. It pretty much _is_ like having an MS20 inside your computer/DAW. The key to a good MS20 will be that screaming filter.


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## Braveheart

Wes Antczak said:


> I think in the recent past the initial upgrade price was $99 (for e.g two minutes before it went up). But I anticipate that this year that special price might be closer to $149 as the collection grows. I guess we will soon see. I also hope they take into account those of use who purchased things separately before they were added into the collection. (like the SQ V)


Initial upgrade price is usually 199$, then later on it drops to 99$.


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## Wes Antczak

Braveheart said:


> Initial upgrade price is usually 199$, then later on it drops to 99$


Hmm, based on past experience, at the very beginning there is a special upgrade price (with as I said a VERY small window of opportunity), which then goes up as you mentioned, and later on drops down once more. I really do not expect it to be as low as $99 this time out. I guess we shall soon see.


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## YaniDee

The link above doesn't show the v9 collection at all..it only shows the Fx2 and preamps collections. When I search for v9, it shows the product, but clicking the icon brings me back to the link above..


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## doctoremmet

YaniDee said:


> The link above doesn't show the v9 collection at all..it only shows the Fx2 and preamps collections. When I search for v9, it shows the product, but clicking the icon brings me back to the link above..


Apparently they fixed the glitch then.


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## vitocorleone123

doctoremmet said:


> Apparently they fixed the glitch then.


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## Braveheart

Wes Antczak said:


> Hmm, based on past experience, at the very beginning there is a special upgrade price (with as I said a VERY small window of opportunity), which then goes up as you mentioned, and later on drops down once more. I really do not expect it to be as low as $99 this time out. I guess we shall soon see.


Yes, it 199$ at intro on every version for many years. And every time, people complain that it’s too expensive.


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## flampton

YaniDee said:


> The link above doesn't show the v9 collection at all..it only shows the Fx2 and preamps collections. When I search for v9, it shows the product, but clicking the icon brings me back to the link above..


Here is what was on the page:

V Collection 9 now includes 32 instruments: more than just synths and keyboards, the suite now features 2 Augmented Series titles
4 new instruments: Korg MS-20 V, SQ80 V, Augmented STRINGS, and Augmented VOICES
Prophet-5 V & Prophet-VS V: now 2 individual instruments that were previously a combined hybrid instrument, totally rebuilt from scratch with next-gen modelling
CS-80 V rebuild: a brand new sound engine with totally rebuilt DSP modelling, advanced modulation, voice dispersion, and a modernised advanced panel.
Piano V rebuild: a brand new physical modelling instrument, now featuring 12 piano models, from Japanese Grand to Piano Bar Upright, and advanced sound design controls.
Thousands of new expertly-crafted presets: presets for every instrument, 14 new sound banks, and a huge range of styles -exclusively available for V Collection 9 owners.
Performance and workflow updates: improved loading times, refreshed GUIs, expanded user playlist functionality, and more.

and the tab:

SPECIFICATION
14 exclusive sound banks for new V Collection 9 instruments
● 14,000 high-quality and innovative presets.
● Analog Lab V: every preset of V Collection 9 can be browsed and edited from a single
interface.
● All instruments share a common interface for browsing, editing (save, import, export, and
more).
● New in-app tutorials for easily understanding every instrument.
● High resolution graphic interfaces, compatible with large displays.
● Easy MIDI mapping to any keyboard controller.
● Arturia’s proprietary technologies, TAE® and Phi®, ensure that each instrument sounds
and behaves exactly as you need it to.
● Easy installation and updates with Arturia Software Center
● 32GB free hard disk space
● OpenGL 2.0 compatible GPU

PLATFORMS SPECIFICATIONS
Windows:
■ Win 8.1+ (64bit)
■ 4 GB RAM
■ 4 cores CPU, 3.4 GHz (4.0 GHz Turbo-boost)
■ 32GB free hard disk space
■ OpenGL 2.0 compatible GPU
Required configuration:
Works in Standalone, VST, AAX, Audio Unit, NKS* (64-bit DAWs only).
* NKS compatibility unavailable for Analog Lab
Apple:
■ Mac OS 10.13+
■ 4 GB RAM
■ 4 cores CPU, 3.4 GHz (4.0 GHz Turbo-boost) or M1 CPU
■ 32GB free hard disk space
■ OpenGL 2.0 compatible GPU

NEW INSTRUMENTS
Korg MS-20 V - Primal black monolith, with an elemental analog sound and a semi-modular architecture, reawakened.
SQ80 V - Hybrid lo-fi crosswave synth fusing thousands of digital waveforms combinations with crunchy analog filters.
Augmented STRINGS - Innovative instrument combining sampled strings with state-of-the-art synthesis and deep morphing controls.
Augmented VOICES - Blending the human voice with multiple synth engines and expressive controls for evocative hybrid sound.
REBUILT INSTRUMENTS
CS-80 V - Massive expression, stirring cinematic sound, and cutting-edge features for an instrument that breathes character, rebuilt from scratch.
Prophet-5 V - Coveted king of analog sound design, tastefully enhanced and faithfully rebuilt as a standalone plugin for producers.
Prophet-VS V - A unique wavetable-based synth, renowned for razor-sharp digital precision and sci-fi sounds galore, reborn as a standalone instrument.
Piano V- Next-gen physical modelling piano, with 12 beautiful models ranging from vintage grand to modern cinematic, re-engineered in absolute detail.
14 exclusive sound banks : An exclusively-crafted selection of presets demonstrating the sonic prowess of each of V Collection 9’s new titles.


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## YaniDee

flampton said:


> Here is what was on the page:
> 
> V Collection 9 now includes 32 instruments: more than just synths and keyboards, the suite now features 2 Augmented Series titles


Thank you..


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## charlieclouser

Interested to see that they've now separated the Prophet V and VS, and re-engineered each of them. The older version of the Prophet V could import actual SysEx files from a Prophet VS hardware synth, and this is important to me as I have two of the OG units. 

If they have re-introduced this ability I will be all over it, and continue my testing and comparison of the virtual to the real thing. In the past this comparison led me to keep the hardware, so we shall see if the re-engineered version has enough mojo to make me change my mind.

The older version did import the SysEx just fine, and nothing got messed up about the parameters, but the virtual version had a static, inorganic feel compared to the liquid and lifelike feel of the hardware. It was as if there was a chorus or ensemble effect always in place on the hardware (even when I bypassed those effects) that gave it some sense of life, while the virtual version just went "bzzzzzzzz" in a flat and static manner.

Fingers crossed!

I also have two hardware MS-20's, one ancient original and one of the full-sized "kit" re-issues, (and I have the Korg Collection version) so I'll be comparing those as well.


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## José Herring

Does anybody have both the Arturia prohets and the Repro versions? I'm curious how they compare.


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## bvaughn0402

charlieclouser said:


> Interested to see that they've now separated the Prophet V and VS, and re-engineered each of them. The older version of the Prophet V could import actual SysEx files from a Prophet VS hardware synth, and this is important to me as I have two of the OG units.
> 
> If they have re-introduced this ability I will be all over it, and continue my testing and comparison of the virtual to the real thing. In the past this comparison led me to keep the hardware, so we shall see if the re-engineered version has enough mojo to make me change my mind.
> 
> The older version did import the SysEx just fine, and nothing got messed up about the parameters, but the virtual version had a static, inorganic feel compared to the liquid and lifelike feel of the hardware. It was as if there was a chorus or ensemble effect always in place on the hardware (even when I bypassed those effects) that gave it some sense of life, while the virtual version just went "bzzzzzzzz" in a flat and static manner.
> 
> Fingers crossed!
> 
> I also have two hardware MS-20's, one ancient original and one of the full-sized "kit" re-issues, (and I have the Korg Collection version) so I'll be comparing those as well.


Well, when you need a good home for those, just let me know! 

And sadly I'm still waiting for Arturia (or anyone) to do a decent Arp Pro Soloist ... :(


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## charlieclouser

José Herring said:


> Does anybody have both the Arturia prohets and the Repro versions? I'm curious how they compare.


I do. RePro kills 'em.

But that's the "pre re-engineered" older version, so we shall see about this next revision.


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## gsilbers

Hoopefully it sounds better. I really dont like the curent ones. Very "softsynthy" sound. Specially vs Uhe stuff. Maybe the buchla. But other emulation.. meh. 
Pigments on the other hand.. one of my favs. 
Lets see if they get these new updates right.


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## José Herring

charlieclouser said:


> I do. RePro kills 'em.
> 
> But that's the "pre re-engineered" older version, so we shall see about this next revision.


Thanks man. I'll hold out but, I'm missing a prophet emulation from my arsenal and I'll be getting either the RePro or the newer Arturia if it holds up.



gsilbers said:


> Hoopefully it sounds better. I really dont like the curent ones. Very "softsynthy" sound. Specially vs Uhe stuff. Maybe the buchla. But other emulation.. meh.
> Pigments on the other hand.. one of my favs.
> Lets see if they get these new updates right.


Yes, I spent a little time listening to the demos of the current arturia version and thought the same thing. Sounds very Not-Analog imo.


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## Guido Pannekoek

Arturia V-Collection 9 leak: all that's new - gearnews.com


Arturia V-Collection 9 has 4 new instruments , 4 fully rebuilt ones, 14 sound banks with 1000s of new presets, and workflow enhancements.




www.gearnews.com













Arturia V-Collection 9, Download | Reverb


Arturia V-Collection 9, Download V Collection 9 is a premium suite of reference-grade software instruments for producers, music makers, and sound designers. From classic keyboard emulations to state-of-the-art synth engines, physically-modelled pianos to evocative hybrid strings, this curated 32...




reverb.com


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## zadillo

My upgrade price is $149 since I already bought the SQ-80 V when it was introduced


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## Vem von Helst

My upgrade price is 199€.


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## mallux

Vem von Helst said:


> My upgrade price is 199€.


Me too... @Braveheart called it. Too rich for me, I only bought VC8 in March, can't afford to splurge another 199, I don't care how good the new piano is


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## doctoremmet

zadillo said:


> My upgrade price is $149 since I already bought the SQ-80 V when it was introduced


Same. Would likely have gone ahead with a €99 upgrade. Now I’ll just watch out for the inevitable flash sale or Black Friday. Looking forward to Piano V and Prophet tests!


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## Laddy

I'm still at V5, and upgrade price is 299. Guess it's more than fair, but I think I will wait until it's down to 199, or maybe 149.


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## Markrs




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## vitocorleone123

Supposedly it's out now for purchase, but I can't get the site to load to even look.


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## Markrs

Looks like Analog Labs V has been updated (for free) with the new synths (Time stamped the video below)


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## rsg22

vitocorleone123 said:


> Supposedly it's out now for purchase, but I can't get the site to load to even look.


They must be getting hammered. Just took me 5 minutes to login to see my offer


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## doctoremmet

Also, @Databroth is doing a livestream right now


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## Markrs




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## udizisser

Markrs said:


>



Thanks for sharing my video. I'm happy to answer questions about VC9 if anyone interested. join my Discord.. https://discord.gg/Jn9Kj73S


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## Markrs

I like the look of the full version of Augmented Strings and Voices and it is clearly a new direction for Arturia.


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## method1

Once again Arturia has perfectly modelled the 504 gateway timeout (server could not be reached).


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## carlc

Looks like I'll need to wait a bit and try again later...


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## carlc

Braveheart said:


> Yes, it 199$ at intro on every version for many years. And every time, people complain that it’s too expensive.


If you're willing to lag one version behind, you can often grab the upgrade for $99 just before the next version is released. I upgraded from V6 to V7 in Nov 2020 for $99, right before v8 was released. That worked out fine for me since I was happy with v7.


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## gamma-ut

method1 said:


> Once again Arturia has perfectly modelled the 504 gateway timeout (server could not be reached).


Launch-day hug of death confirmed.


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## davidson

Arturia's web team need a kick up the arse, server management is child's play nowadays.


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## carlc

davidson said:


> Arturia's web team need a kick up the arse, server management is child's play nowadays.


Maybe they are going for a vintage server emulation, meticulously modeled on the classic server hardware used by the IT pioneers of the 60s and 70s.


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## puremusic

Looks like my upgrade price is $299, that's from Collection 5. This is the first time I've really wanted to upgrade.


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## Marcus Millfield

This collection... I had v8, sold it because I hate using softsynths, but now looking at it again because it's a diverse collection of sounds. Sucks.


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## Markrs

I heard on KVR that if you upgrade from say v8 to v9 you can sell the v8 even though you only paid the upgrade price. I only just remembered this because suddenly there are a few v8 for sale on KVR and knobcloud for the same price as the upgrade, which would make the upgrade free (as long as you can sell your V collection of course).


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## davidson

Markrs said:


> I heard on KVR that if you upgrade from say v8 to v9 you can sell the v8 even though you only paid the upgrade price. I only just remembered this because suddenly there are a few v8 for sale on KVR and knobcloud for the same price as the upgrade, which would make the upgrade free (as long as you can sell your V collection of course).


Usually when you upgrade, the new version is tied to the previous and that version becomes NFR. I've got like half a dozen previous versions in my account that can't be sold 

EDIT: Just bought the upgrade, V8 can no longer be sold.


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## Markrs

davidson said:


> Usually when you upgrade, the new version is tied to the previous and that version becomes NFR. I've got like half a dozen previous versions in my account that can't be sold


I didn't make sense that you could sell it. But the immediate selling of v8 as soon as v9 is out is very strange.


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## gsilbers

Anyone compared yet?


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## Mike Stone

Where does it say on Arturia's website, that CS-80, Prophet 5 and Prophet VS use a rewritten sound engine (regarding the OP)?

I went through Arturia's website, and afaik the only specified improvements are added modulation, keyboard and effects view panels (used in all recent Arturia synths/updates). I can't find anything about a "rewritten sound engine", except for Piano V3.

Am I missing something? Thanks.


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## doctoremmet

flampton said:


> CS-80 V rebuild: a brand new sound engine with totally rebuilt DSP modelling, advanced modulation, voice dispersion, and a modernised advanced panel


It was there in the original post of this thread. So either they (the reseller that “leaked” the V9 announcement inadvertently) made it up, or it is some standard marketing text Arturia provided to their resellers?


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## Mike Stone

That could be the case. I would love an updated CS-80 V, with an improved sound engine. So far, it doesn't seem like that's the case, but mostly a facelift (and some additional modulation settings).


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## doctoremmet

What I do remember from the Jupiter V getting bumped from V3 to V4 is a distinct and very noticeable increase in sound quality, and I think CS80 is now also V4. So “a priori” I do expect Arturia to have done the same thing and improve the sound quality. Whether or not that involved an “entire rebuild from the ground up” is another matter.


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## Mike Stone

doctoremmet said:


> What I do remember from the Jupiter V getting bumped from V3 to V4 is a distinct and very noticeable increase in sound quality, and I think CS80 is now also V4. So “a priori” I do expect Arturia to have done the same thing and improve the sound quality. Whether or not that involved an “entire rebuild from the ground up” is another matter.


Absolutely, Jupiter 8 V4 was a big improvement over V3. Let's hope that's the case with CS80 too. 

Having said that, Arturia's product page for Jup-8 V4 mentions "new sound engine", but not in the CS80 V4 one...


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## doctoremmet

Mike Stone said:


> Absolutely, Jupiter 8 V4 was a big improvement over V3. Let's hope that's the case with CS80 too.


We’ll hear it soon enough


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## flampton

Mike Stone said:


> Where does it say on Arturia's website, that CS-80, Prophet 5 and Prophet VS use a rewritten sound engine (regarding the OP)?
> 
> I went through Arturia's website, and afaik the only specified improvements are added modulation, keyboard and effects view panels (used in all recent Arturia synths/updates). I can't find anything about a "rewritten sound engine", except for Piano V3.
> 
> Am I missing something? Thanks.


I checked Sweetwater to see if this is standard Arturia speak, and so

CS-80 V: rebuilt​Taking cues from the newly-developed technologies for the V Collection 9, Arturia engineers applied their expertise to the reevaluation of the CS-80 V. This blade-running powerhouse has been gifted a new sound engine, bolstered by rebuilt DSP modeling, bringing with it advanced modulation options, vocal dispersion, and an updated advanced panel. Dive deeper into the classic polysynth made famous by the likes of Vangelis, Rick Wakeman, Stevie Wonder, Michael McDonald, Brian Eno, and countless others.


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## doctoremmet

I would love for @Simeon to do a deep dive into these modelled pianos. Where are we in terms of Pianoteq levels of “quality”?

The very first notes played in this video immediately scream “modelled” to me. Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing. But I can’t say it sounds any more “real” than it used to. Shame they didn’t use a proper pianist for this video.


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## Monkberry

Upgrade price was higher than I expected at $149 but I went for it anyway. I actually updated my V8 first, then purchased V9 and the download and install went quick and painless. Briefly checked out a couple of the new additions. The MS20 seems to be capable of some nice low end punch. Back to exploring the updates and other new synths.


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## doctoremmet

Monkberry said:


> Upgrade price was higher than I expected at $149 but I went for it anyway. I actually updated my V8 first, then purchased V9 and the download and install went quick and painless. Briefly checked out a couple of the new additions. The MS20 seems to be capable of some nice low end punch. Back to exploring the updates and other new synths.


Cool! Enjoy your new musical instruments.


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## flampton

I'm sitting at $299 dollars for upgrade with owning V7. This is tough. I better hear that the 'new' Prophets are terrible


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## davidson

flampton said:


> I'm sitting at $299 dollars for upgrade with owning V7. This is tough. I better hear that the 'new' Prophets are terrible


Pretty sure that's the same price as someone who's on V4 in another forum. Not the best pricing scale then.


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## Braveheart

flampton said:


> I'm sitting at $299 dollars for upgrade with owning V7. This is tough. I better hear that the 'new' Prophets are terrible


Wait for the 99$ upgrade sale later on.


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## AndrewS

Since I was probably going to pick up the full version of Augmented Strings, $199 to upgrade from V8 and get both Augmented Strings and Voices at full price, plus the rest of the updated plugins for $1 more seems like an ok deal to me.


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## Simeon

doctoremmet said:


> I would love for @Simeon to do a deep dive into these modelled pianos. Where are we in terms of Pianoteq levels of “quality”?
> 
> The very first notes played in this video immediately scream “modelled” to me. Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing. But I can’t say it sounds any more “real” than it used to. Shame they didn’t use a proper pianist for this video.



I have V9 locked and loaded here.
The floodgate opened on Monday, and I cannot wait to share the bounty with everyone.


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## chrisav

Oof, upgrade price at EUR299 for me (I'm still on V6), so that might mean the inevitable Black Friday discount won't drop to the usual EUR99 I suppose? Not sure if I'll bite then, but I've still got some months left to deliberate haha

For anyone who's upgraded earlier, when the plugins get updated to new engines (like the Jupiter was previously, and the Prophet is now in V9), does that mess with any old projects you've got so you need to reload patches? And are all the presets kept between versions (not that I would ever use presets though, no sir never not me)?


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## Mike Stone

flampton said:


> I checked Sweetwater to see if this is standard Arturia speak, and so
> 
> CS-80 V: rebuilt​Taking cues from the newly-developed technologies for the V Collection 9, Arturia engineers applied their expertise to the reevaluation of the CS-80 V. This blade-running powerhouse has been gifted a new sound engine, bolstered by rebuilt DSP modeling, bringing with it advanced modulation options, vocal dispersion, and an updated advanced panel. Dive deeper into the classic polysynth made famous by the likes of Vangelis, Rick Wakeman, Stevie Wonder, Michael McDonald, Brian Eno, and countless others.


Thanks, I just saw the youtube-video, where the "rebuilt engine" is also mentioned. The sound character seemed very similar to the previous version though, IMO.

Having said that, Augmented Strings is a brilliant concept, Arturia hit home run with this one. Looking forward to Augmented Brass..


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## doctoremmet

Simeon said:


> I have V9 locked and loaded here.
> The floodgate opened on Monday, and I cannot wait to share the bounty with everyone.


My wish was a rhetorical one haha. I knew you’d likely already be testing it. I really need you to go down to the Higgs-Boson elementary particles level of the new Piano V iteration my friend! If it can’t do “real” that well, maybe the metal and glass piano models have improved?  

I like how Venus Theory / Cameron uses Piano V as a basis for sound design, pads and all kinds of things, from subtle reverb experiments to complete and utter mayhem.


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## cqd

I really think they're shooting themselves in the foot since they upped their upgrade price..
Wonder how the new prophet stacks up against repro..


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## gamma-ut

chrisav said:


> For anyone who's upgraded earlier, when the plugins get updated to new engines (like the Jupiter was previously, and the Prophet is now in V9), does that mess with any old projects you've got so you need to reload patches? And are all the presets kept between versions (not that I would ever use presets though, no sir never not me)?


Generally, it's like Kontakt or how Kontakt used to be: the new one has a higher number so you keep the old version if you need compatibility (up to the point a system update breaks it or you decide to go all-in on the newer one). However, there doesn't seem to be a number associated with the two new Prophets so it's possible that assumption fails this time around.

The presets often get entirely overhauled. Factory presets from the hardware might stay but you find other presets from the older instruments don't get ported to the new engine.


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## Benbln

Even though I've always been happy with Arturia products, the update doesn't appeal to me in such a way that I have to have it immediately.


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## KEM

$50 to upgrade my CS-80 to v4, not bad so I went ahead and upgraded, excited to play around with this new version and see if there’s an substantial difference


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## Wes Antczak

$149 for me as I thought it might be. I'm okay with the price given the quantity of new additions and rebuilds. I'm glad that they are updating some of the older instruments.


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## timbit2006

Monkberry said:


> Upgrade price was higher than I expected at $149 but I went for it anyway. I actually updated my V8 first, then purchased V9 and the download and install went quick and painless. Briefly checked out a couple of the new additions. The MS20 seems to be capable of some nice low end punch. Back to exploring the updates and other new synths.


I'm a bit confused here, so your upgrade price from V8 to V9 was 149? Mine is showing as 199.

The CS80 is one of my favourite synths to use, it will be tough to hold off on upgrading. I'm also interested to compare the MS20 to my MS20Mini.


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## Benbln

timbit2006 said:


> I'm a bit confused here, so your upgrade price from V8 to V9 was 149? Mine is showing as 199.
> 
> The CS80 is one of my favourite synths to use, it will be tough to hold off on upgrading. I'm also interested to compare the MS20 to my MS20Mini.


My price is also at 149. I did buy the SQ80 before so maybe that is the difference?!


----------



## timbit2006

Benbln said:


> My price is also at 149. I did buy the SQ80 before so maybe that is the difference?!


Oh right! I completely forgot about those being released. I guess the V9 upgrade is worth it for sure then. I'll add it to the list of the 10000 things I seemingly need before I can be happy with the sounds I'm getting.


----------



## Monkberry

Yes, I bought the SQ80V when it was released.


----------



## Wes Antczak

I wonder if the filter on the MS20 V "howls" as it does in the real thing and for the most part also in the Korg emu. That is one area in which Cherry Audio (imho) dropped the ball.


----------



## doctoremmet

Benbln said:


> My price is also at 149. I did buy the SQ80 before so maybe that is the difference?!


Same for me and I also already have the Ensoniq in my account.


----------



## timbit2006

Wes Antczak said:


> I wonder if the filter on the MS20 V "howls" as it does in the real thing and for the most part also in the Korg emu. That is one area in which Cherry Audio (imho) dropped the ball.


yeah the ms20 is a tough filter to emulate. I wonder if you can get the vocal effects out of it as well.
To anyone that has it, does it come with the famous thunderstorm preset?


----------



## kgdrum

Like many others here I am being offered the $149 upgrade,if I remember correctly I upgraded to V-8 during a $99 upgrade sale a few months ago & Arturia threw in the SQ-80 as a free bonus.
As always I will wait for the next $99 sale! 👍


----------



## carlc

I upgraded to v7 just before the V8 release, and my upgrade "special offer" is $299. It doesn't feel very special to me :-(


----------



## dyross

IMO the sound in this video sounds horrible, and worse than my experience with V2:



Makes me wonder if there's a recording / mixing issue on the video, rather than an issue in the instrument itself.


----------



## Marko Cifer

Did a round of testing earlier.

I'm just not feeling the updated Prophet-5 (IMO Repro is just too much of a beast, still), the updated Prophet VS felt better and was fun to play but wasn't quite my cup of tea, the updated CS-80 to me felt more like a feature overhaul than a sound one in terms of how Jup-8 was supercharged in its update IMO. The Korg I really liked for low-end growling (similar function to what the OP-Xa is for me - yes, they renamed it), I really like constantly demoing the SQ80 and am still salty I couldn't grab it on intro at the time. The two Augmented products do seem very much right up my alley too. Can't really comment on the Piano update, didn't use it before, I doubt I'd use it now.

So it's very much a mixed bag for me, and going from V7 ( + Jup-8 update + the synth formerly known as OB-Xa) to V9 for 300€ is sort of tempting for the elements I do like quite a bit (like the Juno from V8), but for now, I feel like I can wait until the first sale.

Really interested in what people think once they get to demo the new stuff or grab it. Especially for the Prophets, and especially from people who can go into more specifics on the quality of these updates besides "eh, didn't grab me personally, really". Then again, this stuff is just personal taste and some stuff just works for you and some doesn't, but I do want to read some more in-depth opinions.


----------



## Rudianos

V8 to V9 for $149 for me. Is that normal pricing? I have the S80 already as well, that should lower it more?


----------



## rsg22

Rudianos said:


> V8 to V9 for $149 for me. Is that normal pricing? I have the S80 already as well, that should lower it more?


I believe that's correct. If you didn't have the SQ80 already it would be $199


----------



## Scottyb

It's weird, my upgrade price from 8 is $399.00 and it's listed as a crossgrade, which seems odd. : / Looks like a nice upgrade though!


----------



## eNGee

Fantastic upgrade! I love it 
The new Augmented instruments are killers!


----------



## José Herring

Wes Antczak said:


> I wonder if the filter on the MS20 V "howls" as it does in the real thing and for the most part also in the Korg emu. That is one area in which Cherry Audio (imho) dropped the ball.


I just watched a vid of the new synths in V version 9 and the MS20 was probably the most impressive one. Deep, good filters, growling. It was nice. The Prophet V though man, I just felt like they just can't get that one right yet which was mainly what I was looking for. 

I hope that people that get these post lots of demos. 

Also, it was my overriding conclusion that the digital synth emulations were really the strong part of the package. I think that alone is worth getting.


----------



## doctoremmet

José Herring said:


> Also, it was my overriding conclusion that the digital synth emulations were really the strong part of the package. I think that alone is worth getting.


DX7, Emulator, SQ80, CZ. All brilliant.


----------



## robgb

Upgrade from Piano V2 to V3 is $49. Am wondering if it's worth it. It's already one of my favorite piano VSTs.


----------



## seadragon

When does the $99 upgrade option typically appear? I currently have V-Collection 8 with $199 upgrade price. I didn’t get any notification from Arturia about this release.


----------



## doctoremmet

seadragon said:


> When does the $99 upgrade option typically appear? I currently have V-Collection 8 with. $199 upgrade price. I didn’t get any notification from Arturia about this release.


Around Black Friday


----------



## seadragon

Thanks... Well I just pulled the trigger and bought the upgrade for $199. Now a dumb question, but do I uninstall the v8 collection? The v9 shows up as a new product in my Arturia Software Center. And the v8 shows as "update available".


----------



## Release

seadragon said:


> Thanks... Well I just pulled the trigger and bought the upgrade for $199. Now a dumb question, but do I uninstall the v8 collection? The v9 shows up as a new product in my Arturia Software Center. And the v8 shows as "update available"


V9 only installs the new stuff. All the older one have updates so update those as well and you’re good.


----------



## seadragon

Release said:


> V9 only installs the new stuff. All the older one have updates so update those as well and you’re good.



Awesome… thanks very much!


----------



## KerrySmith

In lieu of immediate purchase, I updated my v8 software, because when they roll out a new Collection update, they update the Analog Lab instrument, with patches from the new instruments. 

So I loaded some of the (effectively teaser) presets from the MS-20, and it's everything I remember the real MS-20 I had access to for years, being. and then some. Granted, you don't have full access to all of the controls in the Analog Lab versions, but it was enough to convince me (and I have had the Korg MS-20 plug for over a decade). I'll probably be buying the upgrade tomorrow.


----------



## tressie5

Arturia's MS-20 is interesting. I've never played the original, so I can't compare them. What's interesting are the sounds of this demo - rough, gnarly, unrefined, a little hard to tame. I'm guessing the hardware version is like that? I was able to make a silky smooth pad, though. Really impressive filters as is the reverb. The arpeggiator is usable, I suppose.


----------



## Rocaille

The demos I heard quickly of the Arturia MS-20 sounded very close to the hardware one I have. Which is cool of course.


----------



## lychee

For me Piano V3 (like Pianotek for that matter) sounds like the real thing, after there will always be purists to criticize, but if it doesn't sound exactly like a Steinway, a Yamaha or whatever, at worst it sounds like a piano with it own sound.

Thank's @Simeon for the test:


----------



## Per Boysen

Regarding V 9, has anyone been able to direct where the samples of Augmented Strings will be stored? I'd like to avoid stuffing my system drive.


----------



## charlieclouser

Just got v9 and the Arturia MS-20 is great! Gnarly. I have an original hardware MS-20+MS-50, and the full-size re-issue kit - and I like Arturia better than any of them. Polyphony, sequencer, fx, workflow, sound. It's a winner for sure.

The new Prophet-VS sounds great, but still does not import SysEx files from the hardware like one of the previous versions of Prophet-V used to do. Very annoying. But I'm going to manually recreate the ancient NIN patches in my hardware units one parameter at a time (ugh) and then I will report how close it gets. The older Prophet-V was but a pale simulation of the hardware. Now they need to re-engineer the Matrix-12v like they did with the CS-80 and Prophets!

Not to derail, but G-Force Oddity2 is on sale for $30 at audioplugin.deals. It's awesome as is their OB-8voice.


----------



## Nimrod7

charlieclouser said:


> The new Prophet-VS sounds great, but still does not import SysEx files from the hardware like one of the previous versions of Prophet-V used to do. Very annoying. But I'm going to manually recreate the ancient NIN patches in my hardware units one parameter at a time (ugh) and then I will report how close it gets.


I am wondering if the Prophet-VS patch format is human readable. The idea that runs in my head is that it might worth writing a converter, assuming that 1:1 parameter mapping sounds the same.


----------



## charlieclouser

Nimrod7 said:


> I am wondering if the Prophet-VS patch format is human readable. The idea that runs in my head is that it might worth writing a converter, assuming that 1:1 parameter mapping sounds the same.


Parsing SysEx files sounds does not seem like fun... but there really aren't all that many parameters anyway. I've done it before to convert some of my Xpander patches over to Arturia Matrix-12v, and it was relatively painless, but kinda slow. Just gotta sit down and roll through 'em one by one on the hardware. On the Matrix-12v the parameters did not match up exactly, but I got dang close. 

I only have a handful of patches that are worth doing that for, and it's mostly just so I can compare the hard to the soft, not to try and recreate critical performance patches or anything.

Thing is, with the natural wobble of the Oberheim hardware, the software needed twice the voices stacked in unison mode to get close to the thickness of the hardware. Now that the re-engineered Arturia synths have those voice-calibration controls, I have high hopes for a re-engineered Matrix-12v and OB-XAv.


----------



## NuNativs

My inner nostalgia has me wanting them to take on the Kawai K4.


----------



## dunamisstudio

charlieclouser said:


> Just got v9 and the Arturia MS-20 is great! Gnarly. I have an original hardware MS-20+MS-50, and the full-size re-issue kit - and I like Arturia better than any of them. Polyphony, sequencer, fx, workflow, sound. It's a winner for sure.
> 
> The new Prophet-VS sounds great, but still does not import SysEx files from the hardware like one of the previous versions of Prophet-V used to do. Very annoying. But I'm going to manually recreate the ancient NIN patches in my hardware units one parameter at a time (ugh) and then I will report how close it gets. The older Prophet-V was but a pale simulation of the hardware. Now they need to re-engineer the Matrix-12v like they did with the CS-80 and Prophets!
> 
> Not to derail, but G-Force Oddity2 is on sale for $30 at audioplugin.deals. It's awesome as is their OB-8voice.


So would you say it's worth getting to be close enough? For me, Repro costs almost as much as my V9 upgrade price.


----------



## charlieclouser

dunamisstudio said:


> So would you say it's worth getting to be close enough? For me, Repro costs almost as much as my V9 upgrade price.


Tough call. I have RePro but rarely use it. MS-20 has more possibilities for gnarly-ness, with dual filters, feedback routing, etc. And it sounds great, but the Mk1 filter mode (the gnarly one) is such a CPU hog that the plugin throws a warning when you switch from Mk2 to Mk1 with unison or poly turned on! And that Mk1 filter mode with unison on maxes out the last core on my ancient Xeon 12-core 2.7ghz Mac Pro cylinder at anything below 256 buffer. So they ain't lying...


----------



## KerrySmith

charlieclouser said:


> Just got v9 and the Arturia MS-20 is great! Gnarly. I have an original hardware MS-20+MS-50, and the full-size re-issue kit - and I like Arturia better than any of them. Polyphony, sequencer, fx, workflow, sound. It's a winner for sure.
> 
> The new Prophet-VS sounds great, but still does not import SysEx files from the hardware like one of the previous versions of Prophet-V used to do. Very annoying.


Curious. Did you previously import the hardware SysEx into the prior version of the Prophet-V, save them, and the new one won't open or see those patches from the earlier version?


----------



## KerrySmith

charlieclouser said:


> Just got v9 and the Arturia MS-20 is great! Gnarly. I have an original hardware MS-20+MS-50, and the full-size re-issue kit - and I like Arturia better than any of them. Polyphony, sequencer, fx, workflow, sound. It's a winner for sure.


and yes, I think this is my favorite "MS-20" as well. Has everything I want, without the recall pita.


----------



## charlieclouser

KerrySmith said:


> Curious. Did you previously import the hardware SysEx into the prior version of the Prophet-V, save them, and the new one won't open or see those patches from the earlier version?


I did. At one point I had all of my old VS patches in Prophet-V, and I sure as hell didn't delete them. I still have the Prophet-V banks created from that SysEx, in a format with the suffix " .provbank " but those don't import into the current ProphetVS-V.

And ya know what's truly fucked? The older Prophet-V3 (the one with the dual engines from the previous version V-Collection) is now DEAUTHORIZED on my rig. And there appears to be no way to get that synth functioning again, even though I already own it! I do have a bootable clone of an older version of my boot drive, and I'm going to check and see if it contains a version of Prophet-V that is old enough to import SysEx or at least read those " .provbank " files that I made from the SysEx dumps. But I can only imaging that those old " .provbank " files won't read in the current ProphetVS-V.

I even have the original CD-ROMs of the very first version of Prophet-V. I suppose I could attempt to install that on a spare machine and see if I can get the patches back, but I can imagine that it's phone-home-ware and won't install anymore. Also I can't really remember which version of Prophet-V could import SysEx, and at which version it stopped being able to do so. They never warned us that this would happen, they just quietly removed the feature in some update of Prophet-V, and that patch format became incompatible.

Not like I really give a shit, because I have two hardware Prophet VS units, and I can manually rebuild the five patches that matter in a half hour, but if I ever see those French fuckers in person at some NAMM show, I'll give 'em an earful.


----------



## KerrySmith

charlieclouser said:


> I did. At one point I had all of my old VS patches in Prophet-V, and I sure as hell didn't delete them. I still have the Prophet-V banks created from that SysEx, in a format with the suffix " .provbank " but those don't import into the current ProphetVS-V.
> 
> And ya know what's truly fucked? The older Prophet-V3 (the one with the dual engines from the previous version V-Collection) is now DEAUTHORIZED on my rig. And there appears to be no way to get that synth again functioning again, even though I already own it! I do have a bootable clone of an older version of my boot drive, and I'm going to check and see if it contains a version of Prophet-V that is old enough to import SysEx or at least read those " .provbank " files that I made from the SysEx dumps. But I can only imaging that those old " .provbank " files won't read in the current ProphetVS-V.
> 
> I even have the original CD-ROMs of the very first version of Prophet-V. I suppose I could attempt to install that on a spare machine and see if I can get the patches back, but I can imagine that it's phone-home-ware and won't install anymore. Also I can't really remember which version of Prophet-V could import SysEx, and at which version it stopped being able to do so. They never warned us that this would happen, they just quietly removed the feature in some update of Prophet-V, and that patch format became incompatible.
> 
> Not like I really give a shit, because I have two hardware Prophet VS units, and I can manually rebuild the five patches that matter in a half hour, but if I ever see those French fuckers in person at some NAMM show, I'll give 'em an earful.


Oh please give them one for me, as well. I'm still fairly cross at them about the original "Analog Laboratory" patched not working in "Analog Lab". I lost some pretty good Minneapolis Funk sounds in that debacle. 

But they might respond to a call or email from you...


----------



## charlieclouser

KerrySmith said:


> But they might respond to a call or email from you...


I kinda don't think that they would care what I think....

Anyway, I just tried booting from my older Yosemite boot drive clone, and it had Logic v10.2.4 and Prophet-V v3.3.1 on it. I was able to launch that version of Prophet-V and lo and behold - there were all my NIN patches converted from the SysEx files I had dumped from my hardware units. They sounded like they're supposed to (which is to say, basically correct but nowhere near as lively and juicy as the hardware).

I tried using Export Bank for those, and it created files with the suffix " .prox", so maybe those other files with the suffix " .provbank " were Prophet-V banks from an even earlier version? Dunno.

And guess what? Yup. Just like the " .provbank" files, those " .prox " exported banks do not import into the current ProphetVS-V. And since Prophet-V (the old dual-engine version) has now been deprecated and is no longer for sale, there's no way to get those old banks to play. Other than using an ancient boot drive of course. Or simply by NOT buying V-Collection v9. Or v8. Or v7. Or v6. Or however far back the versions on my Yosemite boot drive clone were....

But.... HOLD THE PHONE. On the new ProphetVS-V....

*SysEx Import WORKS NOW.*

You MUST have the dumps from the hardware in a file with the suffix " .syx " and fortunately I never throw away a file, so I had those files right at hand. You can create .syx files using the trusty and crusty SysExLibrarian software, which is freeware, runs on Monterey, and is available here:






snoize: SysEx Librarian







www.snoize.com





*- - EDIT - - *

Although ProphetVS-V does import .syx files created by dumping patches from the hardware, it *DOES NOT* manage dependencies between those patches and the User Waves in the VS hardware. So if you have patches that use waves 0-31, they will not sound correct when imported into ProphetVS-V. This is a pretty huge issue.

While you *can* dump the User Waves from the hardware via MIDI, there is no way to import those .syx or .mid files into ProphetVS-V - it can only import WAV files, truncated to 128 samples of 12-bit words. So you'll need a utility that can fetch the User Waves from the hardware as SysEx, and then save them as WAV files, and that doesn't seem to exist. While the hardware can *accept* MIDI Sample Dump Standard (.sds), there seems to be no way to *initiate* a dump from the hardware. I'm playing around with Awave Studio in hopes that I can get it to request a dump of a User Wave from the hardware. So far, no luck. Older software like VS Wave Wrangler seems to be gone from the internet.

So it's taking a bit of tomfoolery to comb through all of the patches on my hardware, combine them into a single bank with correct dependencies and the corresponding User Waves, and get that into ProphetVS-V. 

The good news is that when the correct waves are all present, ProphetVS-V does sound freakishly close to the hardware - much better than the older Prophet-V engine, which is encouraging. My hardware (keyboard and rack) both still work and still have their patches stored, but they both feel physically fragile. All editing is done with a single data entry slider which gets a workout, and even though I have four spare sliders, two spare joysticks, a pair of replacement OLED displays, and a whole bag of replacement buttons... I can't help but treat the hardware gingerly...

So, yes, it sucks that the patch banks from Arturia's older Prophet-V do not seem to load into ProphetVS-V, but at least old hardware heads like me who have 30-year-old presets can get them into the latest version, with the caveats mentioned above.

I did it, and it works. I'm listening to Pretty Hate Machine and Downward Spiral era VS patches right now in ProphetVS-V. I will drag out the hardware and do some critical listening later (initial results are encouraging).

So, thank you Arturia. And fuck you Arturia. In equal measure.


----------



## KerrySmith

charlieclouser said:


> I kinda don't think that they would care what I think....
> 
> Anyway, I just tried booting from my older Yosemite boot drive clone, and it had Logic v10.2.4 and Prophet-V v3.3.1 on it. I was able to launch that version of Prophet-V and lo and behold - there were all my NIN patches converted from the SysEx files I had dumped from my hardware units. They sounded like they're supposed to (which is to say, basically correct but nowhere near as lively and juicy as the hardware).
> 
> I tried using Export Bank for those, and it created files with the suffix " .prox", so maybe those other files with the suffix " .provbank " were Prophet-V banks from an even earlier version? Dunno.
> 
> And guess what? Yup. Just like the " .provbank" files, those " .prox " exported banks do not import into the current ProphetVS-V. And since Prophet-V (the old dual-engine version) has now been deprecated and is no longer for sale, there's no way to get those old banks to play. Other than using an ancient boot drive of course. Or simply by NOT buying V-Collection v9. Or v8. Or v7. Or v6. Or however far back the versions on my Yosemite boot drive clone were....
> 
> But.... HOLD THE PHONE. On the new ProphetVS-V....
> 
> *SysEx Import WORKS NOW.*
> 
> You MUST have the dumps from the hardware in a file with the suffix " .syx " and fortunately I never throw away a file, so I had those files right at hand. You can create .syx files using the trusty and crusty SysExLibrarian software, which is freeware, runs on Monterey, and is available here:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> snoize: SysEx Librarian
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.snoize.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> So, yes, it sucks that the patch banks from Arturia's older Prophet-V do not seem to load into ProphetVS-V, but at least old hardware heads like me who have 30-year-old presets can get them into the latest version.
> 
> I did it, and it works. I'm listening to Pretty Hate Machine and Downward Spiral era VS patches right now in ProphetVS-V. I will drag out the hardware and do some critical listening later.
> 
> So, thank you Arturia. And fuck you Arturia. In equal measure.


Frackin' awesome. I'm glad you were able to look a little deeper. Those sounds were part of why I had been psyched for the original VS-V.


----------



## charlieclouser

KerrySmith said:


> Frackin' awesome. I'm glad you were able to look a little deeper. Those sounds were part of why I had been psyched for the original VS-V.


Yeah that was a huge sigh of relief! It's funny, my NIN patch bank from my hardware is about one-third patches created by the randomizer on the hardware (some are playable as musical sounds, many are just wacko noise), about one-third tweaks of factory favorites (the Happiness In Slavery solo sound seems to be based on Volkanik for instance), and about one-third totally original programming. So it's not a goldmine or anything, but it's nice to have them in my current rig just for the sake of continuity and nostalgia.

Another pleasant surprise is that ProphetVS-V can import user samples into the waveforms (!!!). There is a tutorial in the plugin that describes how they will be truncated to 12-bit, 128 samples long. Somewhere I have a massive library of single-cycle waveforms for the Piston Honda that may be in the correct format, and of course you could grab waveforms from all sorts of places and just manually edit them down to size. I'll try it out later tonight. The hardware could also dump the user waves as SysEx, and I actually have a bunch of .syx files of user wave sets from the hardware, but so far no luck getting them to import into ProphetVS-V. 

Also interesting is that ProphetVS-V comes with an absolute boatload of waveforms, far beyond what would fit into the 32 user slots in the hardware. On the hardware, waveforms 0-31 could be loaded + saved via SysEx, and you could use external software like VS WaveWrangler to dump waves into those locations. If you didn't have such software, you could still create user waves by creating a mix of any four of the factory waves using the joystick and then "print" that to a user location - I think that's how it worked.

All this also makes me wonder if perhaps the Prophet5-V (the new one), Matrix-12v, and other V-Collection synths might be able to take patch dumps from their hardware counterparts, as long as the dumps are in .syx format. I couldn't find any mention of SysEx import in the documentation for ProphetVS-V, so who knows? You'd think they'd make a bigger deal out of it.

But you better believe I'll be dragging out the Xpander to find out!


----------



## biomuse

NuNativs said:


> My inner nostalgia has me wanting them to take on the Kawai K4.





Kawai K4 Emulation – nilsschneider.de


----------



## Wes Antczak

For those of us not as familiar with the Prophet VS, Espen Kraft posted a video recently on YT that talks about it. In Arturia Software Center, btw, I noticed that I can go back into my previous V Collections and re-download earlier versions of the individual synths. Though I haven't tried to actually do so. There is also the blue activate button.

(I started out on version 2. I may try to reinstall a prior version over the weekend and see how it goes. It looks like it may work since it appears that prior versions are still available in the product download archives via my account.)


----------



## Rocaille




----------



## Fleer

Read somewhere that Arturia could be using the Pianoteq engine for its Piano V3.


----------



## lychee

Fleer said:


> Read somewhere that Arturia could be using the Pianoteq engine for its Piano V3.


But where is it somewhere? 😅


----------



## Markrs

What is interesting is that those with probably much better ears than my own think the Arturia Piano V3 now sounds better than Pianoteq. 

I should have these updates via Analog Labs (though limited customisable), but when the next big sale on V collection arrives I might pick it up.






Arturia Piano V3 released


This is modeled piano, similar to Pianoteq. https://www.arturia.com/products/analog-classics/piano-v/overview v3 has a completely rewritten engine. As usual, Simeon already published video with its review:




forum.pianoworld.com


----------



## Fleer

lychee said:


> But where is it somewhere? 😅











Arturia V Collection 9 komt...


^ Klinkt goed. Zo rond 1:30 is de grand piano goed te beoordelen zonder teveel reverb. Benieuwd of deze beter dan Pianoteq wordt gevonden. Denk dat gesamplede piano VST's uiteindelijk nog steeds mooier zijn. de engine komt van pianoteq voor piano v, dus pianoteq dsp, wellicht wat aangepast of...




www.synthforum.nl


----------



## Markrs

Fleer said:


> Arturia V Collection 9 komt...
> 
> 
> ^ Klinkt goed. Zo rond 1:30 is de grand piano goed te beoordelen zonder teveel reverb. Benieuwd of deze beter dan Pianoteq wordt gevonden. Denk dat gesamplede piano VST's uiteindelijk nog steeds mooier zijn. de engine komt van pianoteq voor piano v, dus pianoteq dsp, wellicht wat aangepast of...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.synthforum.nl


Hard to know of that is true, I had a good search and couldn’t find anywhere where the engine behind Arturia Piano is Pianoteq is mentioned. Certainly others have commented that the quality is at similar if not higher level.


----------



## Fleer

Markrs said:


> Hard to know of that is true, I had a good search and couldn’t find anywhere where the engine behind Arturia Piano is Pianoteq is mentioned. Certainly others have commented that the quality is at similar if not higher level.


Couldn’t find any other reference either so I’m not sure at all. Pianoteq still rules in my book (but I’m a Pro user with all instruments).


----------



## jamwerks

Pretty hard to find a reason not to by V9. Great Job Arturia!


----------



## waltercruz

Fleer said:


> Read somewhere that Arturia could be using the Pianoteq engine for its Piano V3.


There's some references to Pianoteq in the binary files of Arturia Piano V2.

By example, opening /Library/Arturia/Piano V2/resources/libmdengine.dylib with a hexeditor






It's present on /Library/Arturia/Piano V3/resources/libmdengine.dylib too.







So, it's pure especulation, but with some proof to it too: there's some references to Pianoteq in Arturia PIano V binaries.


----------



## Fleer

Wow, quite the find!
So the MS-20 collab with Korg might not be an unicum.
Then again, as these references seem to hint at Pianoteq 2, maybe the guys from Modartt shared an old version.


----------



## Double Helix

waltercruz said:


> There's some references to Pianoteq in the binary files of Arturia Piano V2.
> 
> . . .So, it's pure especulation, but with some proof to it too: there's some references to Pianoteq in Arturia PIano V binaries.


Great find, @waltercruz !
Being that Arturia (Grenoble) and Modartt (Ramonville Saint Agne) are both based in France, perhaps it's not that surprising that there would be some "cross-pollination."


----------



## Markrs

waltercruz said:


> There's some references to Pianoteq in the binary files of Arturia Piano V2.
> 
> By example, opening /Library/Arturia/Piano V2/resources/libmdengine.dylib with a hexeditor
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> It's present on /Library/Arturia/Piano V3/resources/libmdengine.dylib too.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> So, it's pure especulation, but with some proof to it too: there's some references to Pianoteq in Arturia PIano V binaries.


Weird that it actually says “this is an instrument from Pianoteq 2.x” and “This is an instrument imported from Pianoteq version 2 pleyel”

”ptq” is also used through out as well from the look of it, which logically refers to Pianoteq.

Hard not to come to the conclusion that they licensed the IP from older versions of Pianoteq maybe with some customisations of the sound for the V collection.


----------



## EanS

This V3 version of Piano is really playable compared to V2. The somewhat called "metallic sound" can be tamed on the hammer hardness, full customizable, 3 band eq to cut frequencies. I have no idea about Pianos, Pianos are like Reverbs, you just get them by the bunch. 😂

As a curiosity there are only 3 cats that did the Presets, Joshua Fielstra (music for Alita, Underwater, Momma), Jerry Kovarsky (one of the OG composers/demonstrators for Yamaha) and Jonathan Leonard, (composer Keyboard player and tinkerer from Portland)
​


----------



## seadragon

I now have Pianoteq Studio bundle, Keyscape and v-collection 9. Sometimes too much choice is a bad thing. LOL


----------



## waltercruz

Markrs said:


> Weird that it actually says “this is an instrument from Pianoteq 2.x” and “This is an instrument imported from Pianoteq version 2 pleyel”
> 
> ”ptq” is also used through out as well from the look of it, which logically refers to Pianoteq.
> 
> Hard not to come to the conclusion that they licensed the IP from older versions of Pianoteq maybe with some customisations of the sound for the V collection.


There's some references to MDRT like MDRT_DENORMALS_ARE_ZERO or MDRT_COPY_PARTS_ATOMIC that are very likely an acronym to moddart (almost like a namespace for some functions, very common on code).


----------



## waltercruz

BTW, I haven't test yet but I'm curious about Piano V3, there's a C7 model now, right?


----------



## EanS

waltercruz said:


> BTW, I haven't test yet but I'm curious about Piano V3, there's a C7 model now, right?


Probably the Japanese Grand?


----------



## Simeon

waltercruz said:


> There's some references to Pianoteq in the binary files of Arturia Piano V2.
> 
> By example, opening /Library/Arturia/Piano V2/resources/libmdengine.dylib with a hexeditor
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> It's present on /Library/Arturia/Piano V3/resources/libmdengine.dylib too.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> So, it's pure especulation, but with some proof to it too: there's some references to Pianoteq in Arturia PIano V binaries.


Amazing find!
I have been getting so many comments wanting to know which was better, Piano V3 or Pianoteq, and now I can say - Yes! 😂 It is fascinating, to say the least.

I think Arturia has done a nice job in how they are presenting the interface and getting under the hood, not making it too deep or complicated, but rather creating a more accessible approach.

Now I am wanting to pull them up side by side to see what might happen using similar piano models.

Thanks, @waltercruz for this amazing discovery.


----------



## rsg22

Simeon said:


> Now I am wanting to pull them up side by side to see what might happen using similar piano models.


If you did a video on this that would be amazing. I really enjoyed your new Piano V video and agree with you about the Arturia uprights - they're quite nice.


----------



## chintimin

I personally am really loving the open-string resonance modeling. Play a chord REALLY quietly on your left hand, let it die out, hold it, then start playing with your right, and hear the chord reappear in the resonance on the lower strings. FUN. piano v3 sounds great.


----------



## MattCreamerAudio

I had no idea that the Korg MS 20 V would allow you to sidechain audio to it. I sent my microphone to it and not like a Vocoder, either. My synth was basically talking to me, with full inflection.

I was trying to do a review video for it, but I got completely sucked in to messing with this one feature. Check it out!


----------



## Studio E

I honestly just don't feel like I can say enough good about this package as a whole. No, I am not in love with every part of it, but the things I really like, I REALLY like. Do I like their OB-Xa compared to Obsession? Not really. Does their Prophet V compare to Repro as far as mojo and girth? Nope. But, as much as Repro is stellar, it can really be a little bit too big, and often. I'm playing the Arturia Prophet-5 this morning and I am really really liking it. I was never into it before, but now it just seems to have that, to me, dust-on-the-circuits sort of vibe to it, like it's a bit old, and the corners are rounded off. It makes me want to write with it, and play it, just for fun. I definitely did not feel that way back on version 5 of the V-Collection. 

I know that some people are put off by the upgrade prices, but man, I've just never been one to barter about pricing. It's either worth it or not, and having come from the days paying $1100 for my first "synth" with maybe 8Mb of Rom samples, no filter, and maybe 128 different samples to play with, this seems like I'm living in synth paradise. I do truly believe that it all falls short of hardware but it's getting so close that I can't imagine really caring at all. I also feel like the Augmented series is extremely cool and it seems like something that other companies would release for $100 - $200 bucks as a stand alone item.

I've never played a real MS-20, but this emulation is a monster of it's own regardless. 

My biggest takeaway, is that maybe 5 years ago, I felt like at whatever cost the V-collection was, it was super cool to have an idea of what all of this stuff was, and to be able to interact with it in a similar way to the hardware, and be able to reproduce a flavor that leans toward the original thing. It was like eating at a buffet, where you might not think it's all that good, but there's lots of it. Well now I feel like there is some super serious quality surfacing in many of these instruments, in a very real way. It's now at a level of being awe inspiring AND feels very true, not like a cheap imitation.

I wish this company all the success they can handle. 5 years ago, V-Collection was something that was in my drop-downs in Cubase, but it NEVER saw use. I always reached for something else from Rob Papen or U-he or Specrtasonics. Now I seriously can't wait to use a LOT of this stuff in my next feature. It's also well-rounded enough now, that it can really just about make a perfect gigging package for a lot of keyboard players. 

I dunno, I probably come off like a fanboy but I always like to really pile on the praise when I feel like someone is doing something right, and boy are they. I'll be stoked for V-10!


----------



## EanS

Did anyone notice the book Coltrane and the Jazz Revolution of 1960 on top of the Classical Upright? 😎







(btw, I fired up Komplete Kontrol so faster knobs assignment controller and loaded the Piano but it sounded weird, like all magic was gone, ew. minutes later I found out I've loaded V2...)


----------



## c0nsilience

Regarding pricing: price is what you pay, value is what you get.


----------



## robgb

I downloaded the demo of Piano V3 and I actually prefer the sound of the V2 version. Just saved myself $49.


----------



## RogiervG

I am awaiting for things like
SY99
D50 (the classic)
JD900 (but with a jd800 like interface)
K2000/2500/2600
and others to hit the v collection. not going to upgrade to 9


----------



## muziksculp

I'm not a fan of Arturia's Virtual Synths. I stopped upgrading my Arturia V Collection at version 6. Never felt satisfied with the sound of their virtual synths. Nothing I heard tempts me to upgrade. I just don't like the way they sound. 

For those who upgraded to ver 9, do you still feel it was worth it ? I haven't really heard anything that would change my mind about any of their virtual synths. No matter what version they release. Sorry. Yeah.. They have nice GUI's but the sound is meh.


----------



## Fleer

Well, I get you. Had the same feeling at V4 so I didn’t upgrade until recently to V8. 
V8 was quite fantastic already, particularly both Rolands. Plus the Buchla, Synthi, Emulator, OB-Xa, CZ, CMI and Synclavier: all new to me and pretty, pretty good. 
But now Vangelis died and V9 brought the upgraded CS-80, simply perfect. Same goes for the new Prophet VS (and the P5). Finally, I just love Augmented Strings (and Voices) in their advanced guise, fully tweakable. Not into the MS-20 (as I have the Korg emu) nor the SQ-80 (as the Prophet VS does hybrid digital-analog with CEM filter so much better). 
Yep, finally I’m in love again with the Arturia V Collection. Even got me a MiniFuse, the only portable interface with an extra USB port for my iLok. Well done!


----------



## muziksculp

Fleer said:


> Well, I get you. Had the same feeling at V4 so I didn’t upgrade until recently to V8.
> V8 was quite fantastic already, particularly both Rolands. Plus the Buchla, Synthi, Emulator, OB-Xa, CZ, CMI and Synclavier: all new to me and pretty, pretty good.
> But now Vangelis died and V9 brought the upgraded CS-80, simply perfect. Same goes for the new Prophet VS (and the P5). Finally, I just love Augmented Strings (and Voices) in their advanced guise, fully tweakable. Not into the MS-20 (as I have the Korg emu) nor the SQ-80 (as the Prophet VS does hybrid digital-analog with CEM filter so much better).
> Yep, finally I’m in love again with the Arturia V Collection. Even got me a MiniFuse, the only portable interface with an extra USB port for my iLok. Well done!


So, I guess you would recommend that I upgrade to ver. 9, from verr. 6. 

I wonder how much better it is than ver. 6 ? 

Thanks.


----------



## Fleer

I don’t exactly know what you would be getting from v6 but it’ll be a feast alright 
Maybe the best way to check is by upgrading your Analog Lab to version 5.5 as it’s free and will allow you to test the new and upgraded synths.


----------



## flampton

muziksculp said:


> So, I guess you would recommend that I upgrade to ver. 9, from verr. 6.
> 
> I wonder how much better it is than ver. 6 ?
> 
> Thanks.


You can demo them through their software center, 20 minutes per session, no saving


----------



## muziksculp

flampton said:


> You can demo them through their software center, 20 minutes per session, no saving


Thanks. 

Have you upgraded to ver. 9 ? How do you like the collection so far ? 

My upgrade from v6 to v9 is $299. so, I'm being super careful. Demoing them is a good way to make sure I don't have any regrets. Honestly, I don't have a need to add more synths, I think I already have a lot of options, both software, and hardware synths. I also have a hard time choosing which synths I should use for specific tasks, they are all very versatile and sound very good. I have favorites but in general they all can be put to make some great music.


----------



## Fleer

muziksculp said:


> Thanks.
> 
> Have you upgraded to ver. 9 ? How do you like the collection so far ?
> 
> My upgrade from v6 to v9 is $299. so, I'm being super careful. Demoing them is a good way to make sure I don't have any regrets. Honestly, I don't have a need to add more synths, I think I already have a lot of options, both software, and hardware synths. I also have a hard time choosing which synths I should use for specific tasks, they are all very versatile and sound very good. I have favorites but in general they all can be put to make some great music.


That upgrade price could come down to $199 by Black Friday. On the other hand, upgrading today from v7 to v9 is $299 too (but $199 from v8) so you’re getting the better deal compared to v7 owners.


----------



## Fleer

flampton said:


> You can demo them through their software center, 20 minutes per session, no saving


A interesting thing about Analog Lab V 5.5 (which you can upgrade to for free if you have an older version) is the layering capability between two instruments, particularly the new Augmented Strings and updated Piano V.


----------



## muziksculp

Hi,

OK, Since I'm still using V-Collection 6. I decided to just upgrade the *CS 80-V* to the latest version which was $49. and the* Prophet 5 V* to the latest version for $49.

For a total of $98, I think I now have a nice upgraded Arturia V Collection, instead of investing $299 for the full Upgrade from V6 to V9. Especially since these were the two instruments I feel I would use when needed. Not the other new stuff they released.

I had purchased their SQ-80 V a while back. Which is a very cool sounding synth.

Cheers,
Muziksculp


----------



## Fleer

Good choice. The only one I didn’t get, apart from the MS-20, is the SQ80, as I figured the new Prophet VS would cover that hybrid digital-analog (CEM) sound.


----------



## muziksculp

Thanks.  

I was a bit undecided if I should also get the Prophet VS, which would cost me another $49. for the upgrade. I decided to go with the Prophet V instead. 

How do you like the Prophet VS ?


----------



## Fleer

Very much, actually. I think I made the right choice going for the Prophet VS instead of the SQ80. Same CEM filter but 12-bit DAC instead of 8-bit. On the other hand, if you prefer a more gritty sound the SQ80 would suit better.


----------



## muziksculp

Fleer said:


> Very much, actually. I think I made the right choice going for the Prophet VS instead of the SQ80. Same CEM filter but 12-bit DAC instead of 8-bit. On the other hand, if you prefer a more gritty sound the SQ80 would suit better.


I'm a big fan of the sound of the real (HW) Prophet VS Synth. I listened to some of the audio clips of the Arturia version, but wasn't blown away, I think it sound good, but the real thing sounds amazing ! I wonder if it is just a matter of programming, and musicianship.


----------



## Fleer

I didn’t like the combi-version in the V Collection 8 but this one is spot-on. At least that’s how it sounds to me. Same goes for the CS-80.


----------



## Fleer

This is the Prophet VS sound I was going after (and Arturia’s new version nails it):


----------



## waltercruz

muziksculp said:


> I'm a big fan of the sound of the real (HW) Prophet VS Synth. I listened to some of the audio clips of the Arturia version, but wasn't blown away, I think it sound good, but the real thing sounds amazing ! I wonder if it is just a matter of programming, and musicianship.


Charlie Clouser (ex-NIN) got a very good impression from Prophet-VS, as he reported on gearspace - the Arturia version can load the original Sysex, and they sound very good. Quoting him:

"... and the results are quite good. The re-engineered VS plugin sounds extremely close to my two hardware Prophet VS units, so much so that I think any differences are a matter of aging hardware and calibration issues. It's wild to hear patches that are thirty-plus years old, and which I know very well, coming out of a software plugin and sounding like they should."


----------



## muziksculp

waltercruz said:


> Charlie Clouser (ex-NIN) got a very good impression from Prophet-VS, as he reported on gearspace - the Arturia version can load the original Sysex, and they sound very good. Quoting him:
> 
> "... and the results are quite good. The re-engineered VS plugin sounds extremely close to my two hardware Prophet VS units, so much so that I think any differences are a matter of aging hardware and calibration issues. It's wild to hear patches that are thirty-plus years old, and which I know very well, coming out of a software plugin and sounding like they should."


Thanks for the feedback. 

Now I have to deal with additional GAS for the Arturia Prophet-VS


----------



## dunamisstudio

waltercruz said:


> Charlie Clouser (ex-NIN) got a very good impression from Prophet-VS, as he reported on gearspace - the Arturia version can load the original Sysex, and they sound very good. Quoting him:
> 
> "... and the results are quite good. The re-engineered VS plugin sounds extremely close to my two hardware Prophet VS units, so much so that I think any differences are a matter of aging hardware and calibration issues. It's wild to hear patches that are thirty-plus years old, and which I know very well, coming out of a software plugin and sounding like they should."


Forget Gearspace, he talked about the Prophet VS on this very thread:



charlieclouser said:


> I kinda don't think that they would care what I think....
> 
> Anyway, I just tried booting from my older Yosemite boot drive clone, and it had Logic v10.2.4 and Prophet-V v3.3.1 on it. I was able to launch that version of Prophet-V and lo and behold - there were all my NIN patches converted from the SysEx files I had dumped from my hardware units. They sounded like they're supposed to (which is to say, basically correct but nowhere near as lively and juicy as the hardware).
> 
> I tried using Export Bank for those, and it created files with the suffix " .prox", so maybe those other files with the suffix " .provbank " were Prophet-V banks from an even earlier version? Dunno.
> 
> And guess what? Yup. Just like the " .provbank" files, those " .prox " exported banks do not import into the current ProphetVS-V. And since Prophet-V (the old dual-engine version) has now been deprecated and is no longer for sale, there's no way to get those old banks to play. Other than using an ancient boot drive of course. Or simply by NOT buying V-Collection v9. Or v8. Or v7. Or v6. Or however far back the versions on my Yosemite boot drive clone were....
> 
> But.... HOLD THE PHONE. On the new ProphetVS-V....
> 
> *SysEx Import WORKS NOW.*
> 
> You MUST have the dumps from the hardware in a file with the suffix " .syx " and fortunately I never throw away a file, so I had those files right at hand. You can create .syx files using the trusty and crusty SysExLibrarian software, which is freeware, runs on Monterey, and is available here:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> snoize: SysEx Librarian
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.snoize.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *- - EDIT - - *
> 
> Although ProphetVS-V does import .syx files created by dumping patches from the hardware, it *DOES NOT* manage dependencies between those patches and the User Waves in the VS hardware. So if you have patches that use waves 0-31, they will not sound correct when imported into ProphetVS-V. This is a pretty huge issue.
> 
> While you *can* dump the User Waves from the hardware via MIDI, there is no way to import those .syx or .mid files into ProphetVS-V - it can only import WAV files, truncated to 128 samples of 12-bit words. So you'll need a utility that can fetch the User Waves from the hardware as SysEx, and then save them as WAV files, and that doesn't seem to exist. While the hardware can *accept* MIDI Sample Dump Standard (.sds), there seems to be no way to *initiate* a dump from the hardware. I'm playing around with Awave Studio in hopes that I can get it to request a dump of a User Wave from the hardware. So far, no luck. Older software like VS Wave Wrangler seems to be gone from the internet.
> 
> So it's taking a bit of tomfoolery to comb through all of the patches on my hardware, combine them into a single bank with correct dependencies and the corresponding User Waves, and get that into ProphetVS-V.
> 
> The good news is that when the correct waves are all present, ProphetVS-V does sound freakishly close to the hardware - much better than the older Prophet-V engine, which is encouraging. My hardware (keyboard and rack) both still work and still have their patches stored, but they both feel physically fragile. All editing is done with a single data entry slider which gets a workout, and even though I have four spare sliders, two spare joysticks, a pair of replacement OLED displays, and a whole bag of replacement buttons... I can't help but treat the hardware gingerly...
> 
> So, yes, it sucks that the patch banks from Arturia's older Prophet-V do not seem to load into ProphetVS-V, but at least old hardware heads like me who have 30-year-old presets can get them into the latest version, with the caveats mentioned above.
> 
> I did it, and it works. I'm listening to Pretty Hate Machine and Downward Spiral era VS patches right now in ProphetVS-V. I will drag out the hardware and do some critical listening later (initial results are encouraging).
> 
> So, thank you Arturia. And fuck you Arturia. In equal measure.


----------



## Wes Antczak

muziksculp said:


> Thanks for the feedback.
> 
> Now I have to deal with additional GAS for the Arturia Prophet-VS


Careful with that GAS... a couple more instances and you would have been better off just upgrading.


----------



## charlieclouser

dunamisstudio said:


> Forget Gearspace, he talked about the Prophet VS on this very thread:


I'm finding some issues with patches imported from the hardware into Arturia's latest version, but nothing a bit of tweaking can't fix.

For those who don't have the hardware and are just wondering if the new version of Arturia ProphetVS-V sounds decent: it does.

For those who are interested in converting patches from the hardware, whether you actually have the hardware or just have a stack of SysEx files gathered from the web:

• The files must be in the .syx format, which can be created by the free Mac app SysEx Librarian from Snoize:






snoize: SysEx Librarian







www.snoize.com





• If you only have .mid files (Standard MIDI Files) of Prophet-VS SysEx dumps, you can use SysEx Librarian to open them and then save them in .syx format.

• Even if you don't have the hardware, the excellent Vector Surgeon app can open .syx files for both the Presets and the User Waves, and will allow you to perform librarian functions to re-arrange banks of both Presets and User Waves, perform full editing of Presets, draw / import / export User Waves, and best of all - the Presets Bank view shows what four waves are used by each Preset, with the User Waves highlighted in red. Invaluable for when you're trying to get User Waves into Arturia so that Presets that use them will sound correct.

The author of Vector Surgeon has the hardware, and actually consulted with Arturia during the dev cycle for the new version of ProphetVS-V, but he gives the software away as donation-ware, so if you grab it and use it, consider throwing some bucks his way via PayPal. (There's a link on the software's page.) I got ahold of him and asked if he could add a command to export User Waves as WAV files, and *he did that overnight (!!!)*, so I threw him a bunch of cash - as it turns out, more than he's made in the entire history of giving away Vector Surgeon and hoping for donations! (You'd think that folks who have the cash to own a hardware VS and keep it working would have a few $$$ to spare for the software that is a full editor-librarian-wave exporter, but I guess people are cheap.) Anyway, here's the page for Vector Surgeon, download links at the very bottom:



Vector Surgeon 1.1 Read Me



• Arturia can import Presets in .syx format, and it mostly does a decent job. Some things are still borked though, and may need some fiddling to get things to sound exact:

• The little quick-edit knobs at the bottom of Arturia's UI, labelled Brightness (filter cutoff), Timbre (filter resonance), Time (amp envelope times), and Movement (chorus rate and depth), will often need to be adjusted. Since they operate as offsets from the value stored in the Preset, you'd think these would default to some constant value - but they don't. You're gonna have to do it by ear.

• The envelopes in the Prophet VS are of the complex looping type, and are in the Points + Rates + Levels format. On the hardware, the five Points are numbered 0-4, while Arturia numbers them 1-5. Fantastic. Even worse, Arturia sometimes seems to put the values from hardware Point 1 into software Point 1, instead of Point 2 where it belongs. But not always! (I haven't gotten to the bottom of this yet...) So, once more, you'll be comparing the software against the hardware to get things to line up, and possibly manually editing values in the software to match what's on the hardware.

• User Waves are another painful adventure. Arturia can only import WAV files, not .syx or .mid files for the User Waves. And the hardware cannot send MIDI Sample Dumps of the User Waves, it can only send SysEx. So you must use Vector Surgeon to grab the User Waves via SysEx, then use its Export Wave command, one User Wave at a time, to save them out as WAV files to your computer. THEN they can be imported, one at a time or a whole folder at a time, into Arturia. You will want to massage the file names before importing so you're not looking at "wave0.wav" and "wave22.wav" etc.

• Now comes the (not) fun part: If a Preset depends on a User Wave, when that Preset is imported into Arturia, the oscillators that should call User Wave 22 or whatever will now be reset to call ROM Wave 32 (sine wave). No wonder they don't sound right! So you'll have to edit each oscillator that calls a User Wave, for every single patch, and get them to call the correct User Wave that you've exported from Vector Surgeon, renamed, and finally imported into Arturia. It's a super hassle, but if you're old-school and accustomed to dealing with patch librarians that DON'T intelligently manage dependencies, then you'll just groan and get down to it. If this all sounds confusing, good luck! Sucks. But it is what it is...

It's enough to make a guy not sell his hardware! But in the end, *it is possible* to get 30-year-old patches into Arturia and to get them to sound pretty damn accurate to the hardware - but if your patches depend on User Waves it's by no means automatic or a one-step process. For simple banks of presets that don't depend on User Waves you can happily load-n-go for the most part.

And, to be fair, the fact that Arturia can import SysEx at all is a modern-day miracle. So I have to give them *major kudos for that*, warts and all. (Now let Matrix-12v import Xpander patches please!!!)

The agony I've described above really only occurs when we're talking about custom patches that just have to sound a certain way, with all the weird modulations precisely in place, and for which one has the sonic signature permanently burned into your memory....

In any case, ProphetVS-V is a really nice upgrade to the older Prophet-V, can sound quite good, and in general is a really interesting synth, capable of evolving tones with complex looping envelopes, great for ambient and soundscape stuff. And it can also bring the pain in a gnarly way, with digital cyber-blasts, glitchy noises, hard-sounding percussive plucks, and monster unison sounds. The gritty two-note digital bass sound and high glitches at the start of NIN's "Suck", the percussive synth arpeggio in the pre-chorus of "Sin", the syncopated synth part after the guitar solo about three minutes into "Closer", and the crazy synth solo in the live versions of "Happiness In Slavery" .... those are all Prophet-VS. Good stuff.


----------



## tressie5

CS-80 gives me goosebumps. I could be wrong (wouldn't be the first time), but it seems like Arturia went out of their way to make their emulation sound like a Vangelis tweak from Blade Runner. _Tres kewl._


----------



## waltercruz

charlieclouser said:


> • The envelopes in the Prophet VS are of the complex looping type, and are in the Points + Rates + Levels format. On the hardware, the five Points are numbered 0-4, while Arturia numbers them 1-5. Fantastic. Even worse, Arturia sometimes seems to put the values from hardware Point 1 into software Point 1, instead of Point 2 where it belongs. But not always! (I haven't gotten to the bottom of this yet...) So, once more, you'll be comparing the software against the hardware to get things to line up, and possibly manually editing values in the software to match what's on the hardware.


Being a bit optimistic, it seems more that it's the import process that is not 100%, so it should be an easy fix on Arturia side (but it's totally a guess  )


----------



## charlieclouser

waltercruz said:


> Being a bit optimistic, it seems more that it's the import process that is not 100%, so it should be an easy fix on Arturia side (but it's totally a guess  )


It's weird, some patches come through the process sounding dead-on, others are like, "What the heck happened to the envelopes?!?!"

And some waveforms, and not just the user ones, sound exactly the same when you listen to them by themselves inside an initialized patch, but an actual patch that uses four of them and has unison sounds a bit different.... like the metallic grind and sheen gets reduced.... still trying to get to the bottom of that.

- - - EDIT - - -

Got to the bottom of the thing in the second paragraph above. It's the oscillator mix envelope, and the confusion between Points 0-4 on the hardware being Points 1-5 on the software. Some mix envelopes will definitely need to be edited to make them sound correct... but weirdly others sound fine after import with no editing. It really depends on the patch and what waves it uses.

And as you'd expect, the hardware filters have just a leeeeeetle bit more grunt / grind / nastiness / howl. On most patches it ain't no thang, but on others where the resonance of the filter needs to interact "just so" with some weird waveforms to create an almost chord-like sound on a sustain phase, it can be tricky to get it in the zone, and in a couple of cases I still can't get it to be exactly-exact. But you'd only notice when A/B-ing against the hardware, and even then it's not like "that one's great, that one sucks" - it's more like "I can still hear a tiny difference, which one's the software and which is the hardware again?"

I have a few patches that use a complex filter envelope to do a little rhythmic "beeuuuwww-wup-wup-wwwooowww" thing when you hold down a note, and that's another situation where the software's filter, filter EG depth, and resonance, don't quite nail the hardware. It's mostly down to the slightly more "howly" tone of the hardware's filter - and my keyboard and rack VS's sound a little different from each other too, so it might be down to 35-year-old chips. That's one situation where that hardware filter's gnarly-ness does contribute a noticeable thing to the sound. Not like it matters or anyone will care, at this level it's strictly tweaker shit. And of course the hardware couldn't sync its envelopes to anything, so rhythmic stuff was a crap shoot, while on the software you can sync all kinds of thing to DAW host tempo, so that's a trade-off I'm pretty okay with.

Nobody in their right mind would go this deep or give this many fucks - but I think we've established long ago that I'm no longer in my right mind, yeah?

Still amazed that I'm hearing these old patches coming out of software. Crazy times we live in.


----------



## flampton

muziksculp said:


> Thanks.
> 
> Have you upgraded to ver. 9 ? How do you like the collection so far ?
> 
> My upgrade from v6 to v9 is $299. so, I'm being super careful. Demoing them is a good way to make sure I don't have any regrets. Honestly, I don't have a need to add more synths, I think I already have a lot of options, both software, and hardware synths. I also have a hard time choosing which synths I should use for specific tasks, they are all very versatile and sound very good. I have favorites but in general they all can be put to make some great music.


I have not upgraded yet. Since I'm on V7 it is the same as you $299. My current thoughts are to upgrade later this year, hopefully for less. Maybe I'll go your path and grab a single model first. Did the two synths you purchased lower your overall upgrade price for V9?

Other reasons I'm waiting is money is allocated for-
Modo Bass 2 upgrade(sometime this May, or June, or July, haha)
Komplete 13U upgrade(Summer of Sound is coming!)
Plus Plasmonic has blown me away so that requires $150 if I don't want to wait til the end of November




Fleer said:


> A interesting thing about Analog Lab V 5.5 (which you can upgrade to for free if you have an older version) is the layering capability between two instruments, particularly the new Augmented Strings and updated Piano V.


I pretty much only use the individual instruments, maybe I'll give Analog Lab a shot again. Has this layering always been available or this new for V5.5?


----------



## Fleer

flampton said:


> I have not upgraded yet. Since I'm on V7 it is the same as you $299. My current thoughts are to upgrade later this year, hopefully for less. Maybe I'll go your path and grab a single model first. Did the two synths you purchased lower your overall upgrade price for V9?
> 
> Other reasons I'm waiting is money is allocated for-
> Modo Bass 2 upgrade(sometime this May, or June, or July, haha)
> Komplete 13U upgrade(Summer of Sound is coming!)
> Plus Plasmonic has blown me away so that requires $150 if I don't want to wait til the end of November
> 
> 
> 
> I pretty much only use the individual instruments, maybe I'll give Analog Lab a shot again. Has this layering always been available or this new for V5.5?


I think it’s new, at least I didn’t see it before. And it seems ideal for strings and piano.


----------



## Fleer

Some good examples of splits (at 35:00) and layers (at 36:00) here:


----------



## muziksculp

Hi @Fleer ,

I forgot to let you know that I also went ahead, and purchased the Prophet-VS  

So, I think I'm done with satisfying my Arturia V9 Collection GAS needs. (Prophet V, CS80 V4, and Prophet VS). $49. X 3 = $147. still less than half the price of a full upgrade from V6 to V9 which is $299. 

Cheers,
Muziksculp


----------



## Fleer

Exactly what I would have done in your case  
Those are magnificent emulations indeed. And you can even load your own samples into that new VS!


----------



## muziksculp

Fleer said:


> Exactly what I would have done in your case
> Those are magnificent emulations indeed. And you can even load your own samples into that new VS!


Thanks 

You also helped me in deciding to get the VS. Oh, and I didn't know I can load my own samples into the VS.

I have to look into the user's manual. I'm very happy with my decision, and think it was worth every penny to get these new upgraded Arturia Synths. I think they have improved their tech. in making them sound much better, I was never happy with the sound of their synths in the past.


----------



## Fleer

Same here, actually quite amazed to see how much they evolved. 
Here’s an interesting page (and vid) on importing samples into the Prophet VS: https://support.arturia.com/hc/en-us/articles/4764403565468-Prophet-VS-V-General-Questions


----------



## muziksculp

Fleer said:


> Same here, actually quite amazed to see how much they evolved.
> Here’s an interesting page (and vid) on importing samples into the Prophet VS: https://support.arturia.com/hc/en-us/articles/4764403565468-Prophet-VS-V-General-Questions


THANKS


----------



## charlieclouser

Now I'm comparing Matrix-12v to my Oberheim Xpander, and although you can't import SysEx, and the Matrix-12V is still at v2 without the "re-engineering" that CS-80v4 and the Prophets have had, it's still possible to get the two to sound remarkably close to each other. Many parameters do not map 1:1 between hardware and software, but I've gotten some patches to be so exact that I genuinely can't hear any difference in a looping pattern alternating between the two.

But I am really only concentrating on the type of patches I used the Xpander for - big unison sounds that utilize those crazy filter types. Probably the more complex patches with tons of modular-style modulation routings won't be as close - but I never used the Xpander for that type of sound anyway. And manually copying a hardware patch by reading values off the hardware and entering them into the software is a chore, so I won't be attempting to copy those kind of patches.

I've been recording some A/B bits for both the Prophet-VS and Matrix-12v as I go, so once the big shootout is over I'll post them to this thread.


----------



## Fleer

Steve Porcaro on the new CS-80 V:


----------



## GregSilver

Note to myself: stop reading these VI-threads. Bought V9, wallet empty, user happy


----------



## Malieus

EXCITED! so glad they chose those to rebuild. I am excited to see how the fair to previous versions. the new korgM20 looks promising and the new augmented strings & voices sounds amazing! I'm not excited about that $199 upgrade price, $99 would have been greatly appreciated but i guess ill wait until black Friday or something. until then...it's demo time!


----------



## charlieclouser

Okay, here's some quick-n-dirty A/B comparisons for ya. The first one is between Arturia's new ProphetVS-V and my vintage Prophet-VS keyboard. I've converted a bunch of Patches and User Waves from the hardware into the plugin, using the SysEx import function on the plugin. Some of the individual voice panning controls seem to produce slightly different results between the two, and some of the envelopes have more / less "snap" on one vs the other. But it's very slight.

I used identical MIDI tracks to trigger them. Each phrase repeats twice, A-B-A-B. I level matched them by ear.

View attachment ProphetVS-V+Hardware.mp3


And here's the comparison between Arturia's Matrix-12v and my vintage Oberheim Xpander. These are big unison patches, so I disabled half of the voices / zones on the plugin so that it's a fair fight. Since there is no SysEx import on the plugin, I re-created the patches by eye and by ear. Some parameters do not line up 1:1 between the two, so it was a bit of a losing battle. But I got close enough for you to hear the character of the various filter types. The Oberheims were much harder to match because identical parameter values for things like kbd-tracking>cutoff and velocity>cutoff give different results between the two, so I had to get as close as I could by ear without losing my freaking mind. Also it was a bit of manual tweakery of the detune amounts for the zones on the software to try to get close to what the hardware does, and I could have continued down that rabbit hole but decided enough was enough. Plus, when you open up all 12 voices on the software it roars past the 6-voice hardware very quickly.

View attachment Matrix12v+Xpander.mp3


In all examples, A is always either hardware / software, and B is always the other one. See if you can guess!


----------



## KerrySmith

charlieclouser said:


> Okay, here's some quick-n-dirty A/B comparisons for ya. The first one is between Arturia's new ProphetVS-V and my vintage Prophet-VS keyboard. I've converted a bunch of Patches and User Waves from the hardware into the plugin, using the SysEx import function on the plugin.
> 
> I used identical MIDI tracks to trigger them. Each phrase repeats twice, A-B-A-B. I level matched them by ear.
> 
> View attachment ProphetVS-V+Hardware.mp3
> 
> 
> And here's the comparison between Arturia's Matrix-12v and my vintage Oberheim Xpander. These are big unison patches, so I disabled half of the voices / zones on the plugin so that it's a fair fight. Since there is no SysEx import on the plugin, I re-created the patches by eye and by ear. Some parameters do not line up 1:1 between the two, so it was a bit of a losing battle. But I got close enough for you to hear the character of the various filter types.
> 
> View attachment Matrix12v+Xpander.mp3
> 
> 
> In all examples, A is always either hardware / software, and B is always the other one. See if you can guess!


Yeow. I can't really tell at all on the Oberheims. For the VS, I can tell that phrases 1 & 3 are different, but not on phrases 2 & 4. I don't know which is which, except that maybe the "real VS" is the more left-heavy one (B) in Phrase 1.


----------



## Fleer

And there I was thinking A.


----------



## kaipiranha

I guess it's either A or B.


----------



## charlieclouser

kaipiranha said:


> I guess it's either A or B.


Correct!


----------



## Markrs

Straight up I can barely hear any difference even side by side, let alone in a full mix, and helps highlight just how good these software recreations are


----------



## Markrs

There is a good video out by Pete Calendra about programming patches for Augmented Strings and Augmented Voices:


----------



## arvfur

A is hardware


----------



## Denkii

The only difference that I find obvious is the reverb tail in the third example from the first of Charlie's examples. Also there is generally some slight difference in bass response.
But honestly...I'd be happy with both so whatever the software is, I'd pick that for economic reasons.


----------



## Zanshin

What's the best way to get the collection if I am somewhat patient. Black Friday? I have $399 as my crossgrade price currently. I have been watching for a cheap Pigments too, get that and wait for a better crossgrade sale?


----------



## Rudianos

Zanshin said:


> What's the best way to get the collection if I am somewhat patient. Black Friday? I have $399 as my crossgrade price currently. I have been watching for a cheap Pigments too, get that and wait for a better crossgrade sale?


yes that seems to be best black Friday or Holiday sale. 50% off I think according to Frogs ... pigments grabbed for 79 minus Best Service bucks


----------



## Pier

Markrs said:


> Straight up I can barely hear any difference even side by side, let alone in a full mix, and helps highlight just how good these software recreations are


Same. On my first listen they were 99% identical.

I'm sure if I listen to it a couple more times I will be able to discern more differences but this is super impressive.

Man that Matrix-12v sounds fantastic. Arturia is really getting serious!


----------



## charlieclouser

Okay, it's time.... LET THE TRUTH BE REVEALED!






In my A/B comparisons, the sources were.....

*A = Arturia
B = O.G. hardware. *

The first and third occurrences of every riff are the software, for both the Prophet-VS and the Xpander tests. The second and fourth occurrences are always the hardware.


----------



## zvenx

Interesting, in both I preferred A.
rsp


----------



## arvfur

I was totally wrong. And I own both a hardware VS and a Xpander! Scary but also kinda wonderful


----------



## Fleer

zvenx said:


> Interesting, in both I preferred A.
> rsp


Same here. Arturia rocks.


----------



## KerrySmith

charlieclouser said:


> Okay, it's time.... LET THE TRUTH BE REVEALED!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> In my A/B comparisons, the sources were.....
> 
> *A = Arturia
> B = O.G. hardware. *
> 
> The first and third occurrences of every riff are the software, for both the Prophet-VS and the Xpander tests. The second and fourth occurrences are always the hardware.


----------



## KerrySmith

KerrySmith said:


>



I'm still good with the Arturia ones. I probably won't miss the subtle differences in the hardware


----------



## Fleer

Another interesting vid (livestream) from Arturia, this time covering the Augmented series and … both new Prophets:


----------



## Fleer

I love the fact that Arturia’s new Prophet 5 V models the lush and organic sounding Rev 2 filter (SSM) by Dave Rossum, while U-he’s Repro 5 opted for the thinner sounding Rev 3 filter (CEM) from Curtis.


----------



## José Herring

I went directly to Charlie's post from a link. Before I read the reveal I thinkt in the first example B was hardware and in the second example A was hardware. Probaby screwed it up though because I liked both.

Both hardware and software to me have nearly identical sounds but the hardware has way more depth to the sound.
But, mostly I want to be a fly on the way when @charlieclouser is programming a synth but those sounds are wicked and badass and are the kind of sounds I want to make when I get to be a big boy synth programmer.


----------



## Pier

José Herring said:


> those sounds are wicked and badass and are the kind of sounds I want to make when I get to be a big boy synth programmer.


Same


----------



## charlieclouser

The similar thread where I posted the A-B-A-B audio tests over on GearSpace is hilarious - only two people dared to pick A or B, and only one of them got it right. But the arguing and claiming that "hardware just has more weight and depth" and "All A-B tests are bullshit" by posters who didn't even dare to commit to a pick is running to three pages of posts. And I posted uncompressed WAV files so nobody could say, "mp3 files are garbage, you should have posted WAVs". 

There were similar results over there to my posting A-B comparisons of my hardware Neve 1084 vs UAD vs Logic Vintage Console EQ, and my hardware Distressors vs UAD vs Arouser. Plenty of claiming and arguing, precious few actual picks.


----------



## Fleer

charlieclouser said:


> The similar thread where I posted the A-B-A-B audio tests over on GearSpace is hilarious - only two people dared to pick A or B, and only one of them got it right. But the arguing and claiming that "hardware just has more weight and depth" and "All A-B tests are bullshit" by posters who didn't even dare to commit to a pick is running to three pages of posts. And I posted uncompressed WAV files so nobody could say, "mp3 files are garbage, you should have posted WAVs".
> 
> There were similar results over there to my posting A-B comparisons of my hardware Neve 1084 vs UAD vs Logic Vintage Console EQ, and my hardware Distressors vs UAD vs Arouser. Plenty of claiming and arguing, precious few actual picks.


Much appreciated. 
I would love to hear your thoughts on the SQ-80 V, ‘cause it’s the only new one I didn’t get (apart from the MS-20 V, as I have and love the Korg Collection). 
My question is not about the accuracy of Arturia’s SQ80 emulation, but whether it’s a must-have now the new Prophet VS V is available. The latter seems to cover much of what the Ensoniq did, or am I wrong?


----------



## charlieclouser

Fleer said:


> Much appreciated.
> I would love to hear your thoughts on the SQ-80 V, ‘cause it’s the only new one I didn’t get (apart from the MS-20 V, as I have and love the Korg Collection).
> My question is not about the accuracy of Arturia’s SQ80 emulation, but whether it’s a must-have now the new Prophet VS V is available. The latter seems to cover much of what the Ensoniq did, or am I wrong?


I never had a real SQ-80 or ESQ-1. The only Ensoniq piece I ever had was the Mirage. So I can't speak to the authenticity of Arturia's emulation, and I certainly can't speak to the usefulness or interesting-ness of Ensoniq synths, since I gave them a hard pass back in the day. I played with a Fizmo for a day or two, but it didn't make any sounds that I wanted to use. I've had a fiddle with SQ-80v but so far no joy.


----------



## José Herring

charlieclouser said:


> The similar thread where I posted the A-B-A-B audio tests over on GearSpace is hilarious - only two people dared to pick A or B, and only one of them got it right. But the arguing and claiming that "hardware just has more weight and depth" and "All A-B tests are bullshit" by posters who didn't even dare to commit to a pick is running to three pages of posts. And I posted uncompressed WAV files so nobody could say, "mp3 files are garbage, you should have posted WAVs".
> 
> There were similar results over there to my posting A-B comparisons of my hardware Neve 1084 vs UAD vs Logic Vintage Console EQ, and my hardware Distressors vs UAD vs Arouser. Plenty of claiming and arguing, precious few actual picks.


I was happy to pick. I did finally find the results you posted and true to form my batting average for picking hardware vs. software in these kinds of blind test are a statistical dead heat.
But, I was hoping to be able to nail it because now I have to have Arturia V9. 
Curious though now that you've had some time with the new stuff, do you still lean towards the UHE emulations or are you happy with the Arturias?


----------



## charlieclouser

I don’t really look at the U-He stuff as emulations. Zebra and Hive are their own thing, and even Diva is flexible and modern enough that you’re never working within the limitations of a vintage design. It’s really only RePro that is anywhere close to a vintage layout, and I never liked the Prophet-5. I did have a Pro-One so I do use RePro for that, and it’s fine. I think in general U-He stuff sounds really really good, but in a modern way, and not vintage at all.


----------



## Fleer

Interesting you never liked the Prophet-5. It often seems this synth should not be criticized as it’s almost sacrosanct. Personally I’m not too fond of its sonic sonic signature. I do like its more modern Take 5 sibling as a modulation marvel.


----------



## davidson

Fleer said:


> Interesting you never liked the Prophet-5. It often seems this synth should not be criticized as it’s almost sacrosanct. Personally I’m not too fond of its sonic sonic signature. I do like its more modern Take 5 sibling as a modulation marvel.


I don't like the moog sound. That's the first time I've said it in public and it feels liberating.


----------



## charlieclouser

Fleer said:


> Interesting you never liked the Prophet-5. It often seems this synth should not be criticized as it’s almost sacrosanct. Personally I’m not too fond of its sonic sonic signature. I do like its more modern Take 5 sibling as a modulation marvel.


A buddy parked a Prophet-5 at my place in the eighties, and decades later I had a T-8 on loan (mostly for the poly-AT), but I just never got on with the sound, and they never made it onto any records that I did. I always associate the Prophet-5 with Bernie Worrell's work with Talking Heads. Cool, but not my thing. Sooooo many sync patches! When I had them in the room there was a narrow / thin / plastic / non-juicy aspect to the sound that rubbed me the wrong way, while the MKS-80 and Oberheims had more of what I liked. I had the same reaction when the Prophet-6 and OB-6 came out. The Prophet-6 gave me no chub. The OB-6, on the other hand, had that "spitty" quality to the oscillators and the nasty filters that I liked from days gone by. Glad I didn't bother to get one though, since the OB-x8 is coming. Might give that a try.


----------



## charlieclouser

davidson said:


> I don't like the moog sound. That's the first time I've said it in public and it feels liberating.


We're here for you man! This is a support group, like Synthesizers Anonymous™. Tell your truth, be free!

Seriously though, I only use Moog stuff for low-range sounds, only the MiniMoog, and fairly rarely at that. Kind of a one-trick pony, but it is a good trick when and if you need it. I guess if I needed a slippery G-Funk "worm" solo, I'd use the Mini, but that's not likely to happen!


----------



## tressie5

I wonder if Arturia, after releasing Korg's MS-20, will work on a DW8000? Like @charlieclouser and his experience with Prophet 5, I wasn't too enamored with my DW8000. I'd bought it, I believe, in 1987. I was actually more interested in getting a DX7, but since the Korg was cheaper...

Anyway, I thought the DW8000 was thin-sounding, the lack of reverb annoying, all the patches were too similar-sounding, and since I was new to programming, couldn't find a way to truncate the release. I mention this because now the DW8000 is considered a classic with emulations all over the place. I'd get it again if Arturia, or Korg, VST3'd it, but whoever does, I hope they make it thicker-sounding and full of additional niceties.


----------



## method1

charlieclouser said:


> The similar thread where I posted the A-B-A-B audio tests over on GearSpace is hilarious - only two people dared to pick A or B, and only one of them got it right. But the arguing and claiming that "hardware just has more weight and depth" and "All A-B tests are bullshit" by posters who didn't even dare to commit to a pick is running to three pages of posts. And I posted uncompressed WAV files so nobody could say, "mp3 files are garbage, you should have posted WAVs".
> 
> There were similar results over there to my posting A-B comparisons of my hardware Neve 1084 vs UAD vs Logic Vintage Console EQ, and my hardware Distressors vs UAD vs Arouser. Plenty of claiming and arguing, precious few actual picks.


This post has 3D weight and depth, must be the original post & not an emulation.


----------



## tressie5

I'm quite sure if I played some wave VSTi Moog or ARP patches to a "hardware-only, software is garbage" guy but told him they're from an actual Moog or ARP, he'd say they sound nice. Then, when I reveal the source, he'd say something like, "I had a head cold that day and my hearing was off" or "I knew they were fake but I just wanted you to feel good about them."


----------



## CATDAD

"I like playing/patching it live more" or "the physical object feels inspiring" or "I've been using this hardware so long that it's just easier for me to use" are real reasons for using hardware, and I don't know why people don't just say that instead of focusing on the sound element which becomes less relevant by the day. It's not even farfetched for someone to use both the hardware and software of the same synth/compressor/whatever, depending on what their project allows/demands or how they're feeling on a given day.


----------



## charlieclouser

CATDAD said:


> "I like playing/patching it live more" or "the physical object feels inspiring" or "I've been using this hardware so long that it's just easier for me to use" are real reasons for using hardware, and I don't know why people don't just say that instead of focusing on the sound element which becomes less relevant by the day. It's not even farfetched for someone to use both the hardware and software of the same synth/compressor/whatever, depending on what their project allows/demands or how they're feeling on a given day.


Yup. The "sunk cost fallacy" is in full effect over on the GearSpace thread. So much time and money invested to support the belief that "hardware is king on the basis of sound alone". Presented with evidence that this might not be the case, some will defend their position beyond all reason, even skipping past the actual audio A-B tests and claiming "those tests are always flawed" or some such. I always elaborate on how the workflow and ergonomics are very different, to give them an opportunity to hang their hat on that excuse, but it never seems to help. It's always, "software can never sound as good as hardware" no matter the evidence. Oh well.


----------



## EvilDragon

tressie5 said:


> I'd get it again if Arturia, or Korg, VST3'd it, but whoever does, I hope they make it thicker-sounding


Then it wouldn't sound like a DW8000.

Anyways DW8000 sounds great and not thin at all... One of the best filters out there.



They don't need to make it thicker-sounding. They need to make it correct-sounding.

BTW there's also an inspired-by plugin by Full Bucket. It's in the ballpark, the filter is not the same, but it does evoke similar emotions.


----------



## KerrySmith

charlieclouser said:


> A buddy parked a Prophet-5 at my place in the eighties, and decades later I had a T-8 on loan (mostly for the poly-AT), but I just never got on with the sound, and they never made it onto any records that I did. I always associate the Prophet-5 with Bernie Worrell's work with Talking Heads. Cool, but not my thing. Sooooo many sync patches! When I had them in the room there was a narrow / thin / plastic / non-juicy aspect to the sound that rubbed me the wrong way, while the MKS-80 and Oberheims had more of what I liked. I had the same reaction when the Prophet-6 and OB-6 came out. The Prophet-6 gave me no chub. The OB-6, on the other hand, had that "spitty" quality to the oscillators and the nasty filters that I liked from days gone by. Glad I didn't bother to get one though, since the OB-x8 is coming. Might give that a try.


I've felt the same way. As a (heavy) guitar player originally, I'm always drawn first to other sounds that can channel that same sort of immediacy, impact, heft, bite and rudeness, and frequency profile as a thick distorted guitar. The Prophet-5 always seemed to "polite" - like it always works "around" the other things in an arrangement, but couldn't manage the weight of being in front. and Moogs - I eventually learned to appreciate the usefulness of the sub stuff - as a felt-not-heard layer, and the throwback appeal of Dre lead sounds, but they also lack that midrange grunt and rudeness. Oberheims usually did the trick, a lot of Waldorfs, too, and I've always loved the MS-20 (and really the Arturia one now) for that snarl. The first Nords and Viruses had that kind of thing in the mids, although they usually did lack in incorporating the real lows into those kind of sounds.


----------



## muziksculp




----------



## rsg22

Only a few hours left on the intro deal. I have v8, even though everything in v9 sounds great I'm torn... I'm assuming the next upgrade deal probably won't come until black Friday...


----------



## tmhuud

LOVING this update!


----------



## easyrider

rsg22 said:


> Only a few hours left on the intro deal. I have v8, even though everything in v9 sounds great I'm torn... I'm assuming the next upgrade deal probably won't come until black Friday...


Is your upgrade price $199?


----------



## rsg22

easyrider said:


> Is your upgrade price $199?


No it was $149. I picked it up at the last minute.


----------



## rrichard63

rsg22 said:


> No it was $149. I picked it up at the last minute.


How did you qualify for $149? I have almost all of Arturia's software products, including V Collection 8, and only qualified for $199.


----------



## doctoremmet

rrichard63 said:


> How did you qualify for $149? I have almost all of Arturia's software products, including V Collection 8, and only qualified for $199.


This tier was for people with V8 who had already purchased the Ensoniq synth when it came out.


----------



## rsg22

doctoremmet said:


> This tier was for people with V8 who had already purchased the Ensoniq synth when it came out.


This. I bought SQ80 V before it was part of the collection (having worked at Ensoniq back in the day, I couldn't resist)


----------



## Fleer

rsg22 said:


> This. I bought SQ80 V before it was part of the collection (having worked at Ensoniq back in the day, I couldn't resist)


You’ll love V Collection 9. It’s a pretty good upgrade, with that rewritten CS-80, those wonderful Prophets and the new Augmented series.


----------



## Fleer

rsg22 said:


> This. I bought SQ80 V before it was part of the collection (having worked at Ensoniq back in the day, I couldn't resist)


What were your thoughts on the V version?


----------



## easyrider

I’ll wait until next sale at get it 99


----------



## easyrider

rsg22 said:


> This. I bought SQ80 V before it was part of the collection (having worked at Ensoniq back in the day, I couldn't resist)


So your upgrade was? 149 plus the cost of the SQ80 which was?


----------



## doctoremmet

easyrider said:


> So your upgrade was? 149 plus the cost of the SQ80 which was?










https://vi-control.net/community/threads/arturia-sq80-v-is-here.114439/


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## doctoremmet

Just gave the Prophet VS a spin. Great synth indeed. Never paid much attention to that one when it was still paired with the P5.


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## easyrider

doctoremmet said:


> https://vi-control.net/community/threads/arturia-sq80-v-is-here.114439/


So 199!


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## doctoremmet

easyrider said:


> So 199!


Yeah, so? The question was: how does the crossgrade price drop to €149. That’s how. I don’t quite get the triumphant ! in there, but enjoy the rush it apparently brings


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## easyrider

doctoremmet said:


> Yeah, so? The question was: how does the crossgrade price drop to €149. That’s how. I don’t quite get the triumphant ! in there, but enjoy the rush it apparently brings


Well technically the crossgrade price worked out at 199! Not 149!


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## doctoremmet

easyrider said:


> Well technically the crossgrade price worked out at 199! Not 149!


Erm… no. I bought SQ80 in september. So THIS crossgrade was still 149. For people who were on V8 AND had purchased an extra synth since. So those people had already paid an extra 49. So the crossgrade for those people was 149. So I ended up paying the exact same amount which makes a whole lot of sense and is to be expected. And apparently has filled you with joy and has taken away any remnant of FOMO that was still there 😂


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## easyrider

doctoremmet said:


> Erm… no. I bought SQ80 in september. So THIS crossgrade was still 149. For people who were on V8 AND had purchased an extra synth since. So those people had already paid an extra 49. So the crossgrade for those people was 149.


But in order to get to volume 9 from 8 you had to pay 199!


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## doctoremmet

easyrider said:


> But in order to get to volume 9 from 8 you had to pay 199!


Yeah? Of course I did. They don't give away free Ensoniq synths. What's your point?


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## easyrider

doctoremmet said:


> Yeah? Of course I did. They don't give away free Ensoniq synths. What's your point?


Dunno! 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂


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## Fleer

doctoremmet said:


> Yeah? Of course I did. They don't give away free Ensoniq synths.


I believe you can sell your SQ80 V now (as you’ve got another one in V Collection 9). I’ve seen some sold @kvr for $50 or more. This way your net upgrade cost to V Collection 9 would be $149 or less


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## kgdrum

easyrider said:


> Well technically the crossgrade price worked out at 199! Not 149!




Well for me I can also get V9 for $149 now.
iirc i was given the SQ80 when I upgraded to V8 during a sale during the holidays last year for $99.
I’m still going to wait for BF or the holidays to see if I can get this for $99 again but to be clear I didn’t pay for the SQ80 Arturia was giving it away for free to some people who were upgrading to V8 as a bonus.


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## easyrider

Fleer said:


> I believe you can sell your SQ80 V now (as you’ve got another one in V Collection 9). I’ve seen some sold @kvr for $50 or more. This way your net upgrade cost to V Collection 9 would be $149 or less


Now we talkin!👏


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## easyrider

Offer ended….


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## rsg22

Whew, glad we were able to work through those upgrade pricing tiers...



Fleer said:


> What were your thoughts on the V version?


I actually never played the original SQ-80, so it's nice to have Arturia's version (which sounds great in its own quirky grungy way) to cover some history I missed out on. I came along during the ASR-X/PARIS/Fizmo era (a.k.a. "the last hurrah"). I still have some old Ensoniq gear sitting around, some of which I use occasionally. Can't seem to part with it.


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## Fleer

rsg22 said:


> Whew, glad we were able to work through those upgrade pricing tiers...
> 
> 
> I actually never played the original SQ-80, so it's nice to have Arturia's version (which sounds great in its own quirky grungy way) to cover some history I missed out on. I came along during the ASR-X/PARIS/Fizmo era (a.k.a. "the last hurrah"). I still have some old Ensoniq gear sitting around, some of which I use occasionally. Can't seem to part with it.


Thanks. Let's hope they do a Fizmo V next


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## rsg22

Fleer said:


> Thanks. Let's hope they do a Fizmo V next


That would be great


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## zzz00m

easyrider said:


> Offer ended….


$299 to upgrade from VC8 now!


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## easyrider

zzz00m said:


> $299 to upgrade from VC8 now!


Yeah…I’ll wait until it’s 99


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## Fleer

easyrider said:


> Yeah…I’ll wait until it’s 1999


Heard that before


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## Fleer

As far as the SQ80 V is concerned, got to play a bit today, and I like it very much, particularly that analog filter emulation.


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## carlc

EDIT: My understanding was NOT correct and the complaint below is not valid. Please see my post below from June 8th for an explanation. Sorry for any confusion! 

*A minor complaint...* I upgraded to the latest version of Analog Lab V via the Arturia Software Center as I often do. I generally like to keep my software up to date. I also own V Collection but was not planning to upgrade to the latest version.

I was unpleasantly surprised when I realized that I lost access to multiple instruments (Piano, Prophet-5, Prophet-VS) within Analog Lab that I previously purchased as part of V Collection. If I try to open one of those from a preset within AL, I now get an error message stating that I "need to own the full version". There is no easy way I can see within the Arturia Software Center to go back to a prior version of AL V. I would need to go *way* back to AL 4. No thanks. 

I can open the instruments in standalone mode, but then I lose some functionality (e.g., multis within AL). I also prefer to browse and edit within AL where I have everything in one place. It would have been nice to at least get a warning when updating. I was just upset enough with Arturia that I decided to look up curse words in French. I'll probably upgrade eventually, so the problem is short-lived.


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## rrichard63

EDIT: see post #255 immediately below this one (thanks for the update @carlc).



carlc said:


> I was unpleasantly surprised when I realized that I lost access to multiple instruments (Piano, Prophet-5, Prophet-VS) within Analog Lab that I previously purchased as part of V Collection. If I try to open one of those from a preset within AL, I now get an error message stating that I "need to own the full version". There is no easy way I can see within the Arturia Software Center to go back to a prior version of AL V.


Thanks for the warning. I would have done the same thing.

Arturia could fix this problem if they wanted to. Either make it possible to roll back to any previous version, or (preferably) give you a warning message when you try to update to a version of Labs for which you do not own all of the underlying instruments.


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## carlc

Apologies everyone, the information I shared previously was incorrect. I will edit my prior posts to clarify. It turns out that for the updates to existing instruments, both the new and old versions are hidden inside Analog Lab. When selecting one of the older presets, even if you haven’t purchased the V Collection upgrade, you can still edit the advanced parameters (it will open up in the prior version of that instrument). It is only when you try to access one of the newer presets that requires an updated instrument that you get blocked. Based on that, I see no need to revert to an older version of AL. I retract my complaint.


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## Crowe

*Warning: This post is about Commercial Sound Design, EULAs and other annoying stuff.*

To begin with, are there any sound designers here using Arturia synths for their craft?

I'm so sorry to have to do this again, but it seems I've once again come across a EULA that's utterly unhelpful to me. And half of these synths don't actually feature one in the manual or on the site.

Some manuals feature a EULA part, others only a Software License agreement. Where there's a EULA, it states the following:

*5. In case a sound library is part of the purchased Product the following shall apply in addition to the EULA*

_The provided samples, instruments and presets can be used for commercial or non-commercial music and audio Productions without the prior permission from Arturia under the terms of this Agreement. The usage of this Product (in particular samples, *instruments *and presets) for the creation of a sound library or as a sound library for any kind of synthesizer, virtual instrument, sample library, sample-based Product or other musical instrument is strictly prohibited. Individual samples, sound sets or audio loops may not be distributed (commercially or otherwise) standalone. Furthermore these samples, sound sets or *audio *may not be repackaged in whole or in part as audio samples, sound libraries or sound effects._

Has anyone checked with Arturia what on earth this even means? What is a sound library here? Does this 'following' apply to the sound library, or to the whole application? Does 'instrument' refer to the product itself? Is Audio a recording, or whatever audio the synthesizer generates?

Note: To add to the confusion, this EULA is found in some of the _modeled synths _but the CMI and Mellotron, sampled instruments, don't feature this at all.

---

So, TL;DR: Has anyone here spoken to Arturia about what is allowed here? I don't want to repackage anything and am certainly not going to be using any sampled instruments for my work.

I've contacted Arturia but have yet to hear back.


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## Pier

My understanding is you can use synths to create samples using your own presets, but not with anything that has content rights (presets you haven't created, samples, wavetables, sequences, etc).


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## emptyvessel

what they're saying is - you can't play sounds from any of their instruments, record/bounce the results and then use that audio to create a sample pack. Neither can you modify their presets and make a preset pack of your own from that. You can make music with what you've bought and sell that.
It's a pretty common restriction which I'm not sure many people would bother to take any notice of.
It's just a whole lot of language which ends up probably being overly restrictive in order to protect them from people who will record loops of sequenced presets and sell it as "Sick l00p5 4 yr beatz volume 17 ZOMG!!"
IMO if you're using them for sound design for a film or other project it shouldn't be a big deal, music is absolutely fine, try and avoid using their presets to play a handful of notes, bounce the audio then use that as a sample you make a sampled instrument from. Because really you haven't added much/anything, you're just reselling their work.
I've had a few conversations with people over the years (my license agreement is similar) who want to, in some way, have a single played note be their "product". This becomes for me a grey area depending on your intention with the recording of the single note. There really is a lot of subtle nuance now to the ways in which you might use someone else's product to make something of your own which you want to monetise. You have put in work that you feel has made a valid thing you can think of as your creation but how would the creator of the product you used feel about how much you actually contributed. In cases where you used factory presets or "content" as the base for your creation I feel that it's a sliding scale where at one end someone lazily hits one note with that preset, drops it into a sampler and is done, does this 50 times with various presets and calls it their product. At the other end you put it through a devious chain of fx and processing you created and the results bear no resemblance to what you started with. If it were me and the preset you started with was mine I'd (probably) feel ok about that in the latter case but I'd still prefer you create the original sound. Or, you are, however much modified, just re-selling my creation.
Their language does suggest you aren't even allowed to use their instruments, the plugins themselves, to create your own samples to make into a sound fx library or sample-based pack of your own, I've had them confirm that when enquiries were made. I don't have any legal background and don't know if they can make that stick. If you buy a synthesiser, program a load of original presets then sell those or record them as a sound fx library of some sort that really should be fine IMO. When presets started to become common, the issue of suspicion you were making the patches yourself or just altering presets obviously started to crop up.
Avoid using preset factory content is my advice if you plan to use the results to create something to be sold as audio or wrapped into other presets because, to be blunt, if you want to call the end product yours it...you know, should be yours.

Sorry, that's also very long. Maybe someone else can be more concise than me 
[edit] I see @Pier already did a spectacular job of that :D The legal language does not, to me, give that freedom though and I have had people be told a flat no. I'll be interested to see what reply, if any, you get from Arturia[/edit]


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## GtrString

Crowe said:


> *Warning: This post is about Commercial Sound Design, EULAs and other annoying stuff.*
> 
> To begin with, are there any sound designers here using Arturia synths for their craft?
> 
> I'm so sorry to have to do this again, but it seems I've once again come across a EULA that's utterly unhelpful to me. And half of these synths don't actually feature one in the manual or on the site.
> 
> Some manuals feature a EULA part, others only a Software License agreement. Where there's a EULA, it states the following:
> 
> *5. In case a sound library is part of the purchased Product the following shall apply in addition to the EULA*
> 
> _The provided samples, instruments and presets can be used for commercial or non-commercial music and audio Productions without the prior permission from Arturia under the terms of this Agreement. The usage of this Product (in particular samples, *instruments *and presets) for the creation of a sound library or as a sound library for any kind of synthesizer, virtual instrument, sample library, sample-based Product or other musical instrument is strictly prohibited. Individual samples, sound sets or audio loops may not be distributed (commercially or otherwise) standalone. Furthermore these samples, sound sets or *audio *may not be repackaged in whole or in part as audio samples, sound libraries or sound effects._
> 
> Has anyone checked with Arturia what on earth this even means? What is a sound library here? Does this 'following' apply to the sound library, or to the whole application? Does 'instrument' refer to the product itself? Is Audio a recording, or whatever audio the synthesizer generates?
> 
> Note: To add to the confusion, this EULA is found in some of the _modeled synths _but the CMI and Mellotron, sampled instruments, don't feature this at all.
> 
> ---
> 
> So, TL;DR: Has anyone here spoken to Arturia about what is allowed here? I don't want to repackage anything and am certainly not going to be using any sampled instruments for my work.
> 
> I've contacted Arturia but have yet to hear back.


This is standard EULA for software instruments. It just means that you can’t use their software to create your own sample library or virtual instruments, and sell it as a competitive product. It has nothing to do with making music. Of course you shouldn’t be able to do this, but they need to write it, or else some schmuck will take advantage of the liberties..


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## Crowe

Thanks, both of you. This is a pretty important topic to me as I want to design my own sounds and use those to create my own patches for certain synths, but really want to use samples I've recorded as a base (for in Padshop, Pigments, Phaseplant). It's interesting to see what other, more experienced sound designers think of this.



GtrString said:


> This is standard EULA for software instruments. It just means that you can’t use their software to create your own sample library or virtual instruments, and sell it as a competitive product. It has nothing to do with making music. Of course you shouldn’t be able to do this, but they need to write it, or else some schmuck will take advantage of the liberties..


But I don't want to make music (in this case). I explicitly want to use synthesizers for commercial sounddesign, to design and create my own original sample-based synth patches and potentially sell those. There is no good reason why a software synth that doesn't use recordings wouldn't be able to be used to make 'competing' products (I don't even particularly want to make competing products. I want to make presets for *their synth*, among other things). They are not any different from my Hardware Model D in that regard. Sample-based synths and libraries are of course a completely different matter. Those recordings fall under copyright.


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## emptyvessel

IMO they are synthesisers, it's what they're for, the creation of sound. I use hardware and software synthesisers to create sounds, usually with further processing but not always, which I then use as the basis of sample-based presets. I can't imagine that's uncommon and I feel like it's absolutely fine.
A large part of my job is making presets for software and hardware synths for my own store and I've never had any manufacturers have any problem with that at all. Neither has any of my friends who also do this. I don't believe either of these use-cases are what they're trying to protect against, at all.


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## Pier

I guess what the EULA is trying to say is "don't sample our synths to make a rompler". Like if I sampled Zebra to make "Zebra Pier" and sell it well d'oh of course U-He should totally sue me for that.

But if you use Zebra to make a kick drum or a preset that then you will process with plugins and layer etc... that is an original creation. Nobody is going to sue for that. I'd be very surprised if Urs wasn't ok with people using Zebra like that. And frankly who is going to know or be able to prove you used Zebra?

And just to reiterate, making samples for your own projects (music, film, sfx, etc) is not an issue. It's making a commercial sample library or a rompler.


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## zzz00m

Crowe said:


> But I don't want to make music (in this case). I explicitly want to use synthesizers for commercial sounddesign, to design and create my own original sample-based synth patches and potentially sell those.


Based on everything I've heard on this subject, that's getting pretty close to the line of the EULA. IMO, probably best to get professional legal advice before embarking on this path.

Making music is clearly covered, but creating derivative works on the other hand without express permission of the copyright holder, maybe not so much...








Derivative work - Wikipedia







en.wikipedia.org


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## Cideboy

Well, I know what Stravinsky would say


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## Pier

zzz00m said:


> Based on everything I've heard on this subject, that's getting pretty close to the line of the EULA. IMO, probably best to get professional legal advice before embarking on this path.
> 
> Making music is clearly covered, but creating derivative works on the other hand without express permission of the copyright holder, maybe not so much...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Derivative work - Wikipedia
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> en.wikipedia.org


Right but the question is if using a synth to produce something is derivative work or not.

Is using a reverb derivative work?


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## zzz00m

Pier said:


> Right but the question is if using a synth to produce something is derivative work or not.
> 
> Is using a reverb derivative work?


I guess if you put your own creative "stamp" on it then you can claim it as your own. But then, I'm not a lawyer... obviously copying/sampling verbatim probably won't pass the test.


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## GtrString

Crowe said:


> Thanks, both of you. This is a pretty important topic to me as I want to design my own sounds and use those to create my own patches for certain synths, but really want to use samples I've recorded as a base (for in Padshop, Pigments, Phaseplant). It's interesting to see what other, more experienced sound designers think of this.
> 
> 
> But I don't want to make music (in this case). I explicitly want to use synthesizers for commercial sounddesign, to design and create my own original sample-based synth patches and potentially sell those. There is no good reason why a software synth that doesn't use recordings wouldn't be able to be used to make 'competing' products (I don't even particularly want to make competing products. I want to make presets for *their synth*, among other things). They are not any different from my Hardware Model D in that regard. Sample-based synths and libraries are of course a completely different matter. Those recordings fall under copyright.


Yeah, I see what you mean. To not be able to record samples with their VI’s and effects, appear to be an additional layer to most other EULA’s.

To not create a new rompler, like Pier states, seems like a fair concern for Arturia, though. But I can see the grey zone here, and it appears that Arturia is overprotecting themselves here. Usually they add a line or two about tracks as not to be exposed in solo (like stems), but that is to protect themselves from music libraries working with stems being able to repackage and sell their sounds as a “stem”.

I think further inquiries and clarification of their EULA will be neccesary, to fully understand the implications of their text in regard to your intended purpose. I think you can neither assume you can, nor can’t.


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## Crowe

Question for those who have also bought Analog Lab before buying V-Collection:

Can you buy V-Collection and subsequently sell your old license for Analog Lab? Or does the new license for Analog Lab overwrite the old one?


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## zzz00m

Crowe said:


> Question for those who have also bought Analog Lab before buying V-Collection:
> 
> Can you buy V-Collection and subsequently sell your old license for Analog Lab? Or does the new license for Analog Lab overwrite the old one?


I never thought about that, but it looks like you can. I have a standalone license for Analog Lab that I purchased prior to the V Collection. 

But I also see another Analog Lab bundled in the V Collection license.

So I suppose that I could sell the original license.


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## Crowe

Yeah, I figured out how to do it. it's possible. Cheers!


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## zzz00m

Crowe said:


> Yeah, I figured out how to do it. it's possible. Cheers!


Please let us know what the market value is!


----------

