Arturia V Collection 6

[SLiC]

I think if you haven't already got V collection then V collection 6 for £350 must be one of the very best bargains in soft synth.

Although the update from 5 seems a little steep its actually still good value for 4 very good new synths if you want all 4 of them, seems a bit pricier if you only want 2 of them but them that's bundles....

[BassMasterK]

I had previously bought the Synclavier so I had an option to purchase the collection for $250. That seemed like a good value so I went for it. Spent most of the evening monitoring the download. Am I just lucky or do other people have problems with Arturia's software center downloader? I had repeated failures on certain instruments. I eventually got everything downloaded except analog lab which must have failed 10 times. It makes no sense as my net is solid. It certainly was not a great experience. Anyhow, looking forward to playing with this collection.

[Ingonator]

I owned a Clavinet in the early 80s. I haven't listened to this one yet but just listen to Stevie Wonder's Superstition intro and then listen to this and you'll have your answer. A clavinet, unlike a synth, is a relatively easy instrument to emulate so I'd expect it to be very close. Now, as far as the keyboard feel, nothing is going to duplicate that exactly. It had a very different feel from all my synths. But that's something else entirely.

Using the original Superstition recording does not seem to be a good idea as AFAIK some "tricks" were used there which includes multiple recordings of a Clavinet being layered.

A big advantage in modeled pianos and also the Clavinet is that you got a more or less endless amount of velocity layers oposing to sample libraries.

Like with all Arturia plugins and being a modeled instrument Clavinet V besides the controls of the real thing has some "under the hood" features/knobs to adjusts the instrument or even create a more or less new instrument from it.
The switches available also in the real thing corespond to different filters and different pickup settings.

Previous attemps on a physical modeled Clavinet seemed to be done with Pianoteq and AAS String Studio (+ Tension in Live 9 Suite craeted by AAS) .

There is an official tutorial about Clavinet V (this also explains the switches at the main panel):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59IKvli ... e=youtu.be

[beely]

Using the original Superstition recording does not seem to be a good idea as AFAIK some "tricks" were used there which includes multiple recordings of a Clavinet being layered.

The multitracks of Superstition are "out there" if you want to inspect the individual tracks...

[Ingonator]

Using the original Superstition recording does not seem to be a good idea as AFAIK some "tricks" were used there which includes multiple recordings of a Clavinet being layered.

The multitracks of Superstition are "out there" if you want to inspect the individual tracks...

Point is that the original recording is not just a single and clean Clavinet being recorded so people could get fooled esasily when comparing this even to a real Clavinet D6 which is also true for a plugin emulation even if it is as close as possible.
I many other cases the Clavient was played through one or multiple effects which again makes a direct comparison difficult. If you want to replicate this with the effetcs added not only the instrument but also the effects must be proper emulations.

UPDATE:
The quality of ths video is quite bad but shows using the different settings of the switches which corespond to filters and pickup settings (Clavinet V has the same switches and the fader at the main panel):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMS_EyZG0Io

The switches (4 filters and 2 pickup switches) could be used at any combination, not just one at the same time.


Clavinet V "under the hood" has options to change the "harmonic profile" and/or 8 modeling parameters which are:
- String Resonance
- Release Time
- Tuning
- Key Release Noise
- Dynamics
- Hammer Hardness
- Hammer Noise
- Pickup Noise (i always turn this to zero as it makes the output noisy)

[Ingonator]

Jsut comaprd Clavinet V to the NI Scarbee Clavinet Kontakt 5 instrument included with Scarbee Vintage Keys (which is included with Komplete 10).

While the basic sound is almost similar, especially wit ha single not played you could easily notice the difference of the fully modeled Clavinet V compared to the sample based Scarbee Clavinet when playing more complex stuff/riffs. Arturia Clavinet V sound much nicer there. In the bass range Clavinet V sounds better too, epsecially if you go really low with using the octave transpose in your keyboard controller.
Other sample based libraries might be better than this one.

For comparing to another modeled Clavinet i checked Tension in Live 9 Suite (created by AAS and comparable to AAS String Studio) which is nice on it's own but is not exactly an emulation of the Hohner Clavinet D6. On the other hand Tension from those i just checked offers the most options to create your own string based instruments from scratch.

I also downloaded the Pianoteq 6 demo which is fully modeled too. The demo includes a Clavinet D6 model within the Hohner collection. The sound of this is different to that in Clavinet V and Scarbee Clavinet and personally i do not like it very much in comparison (especially compared to Clavinet V).

Overall IMO Arturia Clavinet V seems to be the best of those i had checked so far.
Like usual if i need even more low end i add Waves OneKnob Phatter or an EQ.

As the real Clavinet D6 (and Clavinet V too) has the 4 tone and 2 pickup switches which could change the sound quite a lot something like a single ultimate Clavinet sound does not really exist opposing to an acoustic grand piano that usually only has one single sound (at least it has no switches to change the sound like in teh Clavinet D6).


While not being an emulation at all i also love the Clavinet sound i recently myself with U-He Repro-5 (and later also with Arturia Prophet V3).

[jasonekratz]

Wow thanks for the research! I was especially interested in how Clav V compared to Vintage Keys as I had almost purchased that during the NI yearly sale but ended up skipping it. Sounds like its pretty worthy. Looking forward to the holidays and having some time off to be able to explore V Collection a bit more thoroughly.

Ingo....so what was your experience in making that clav sound on Repro 5 vs Prophet V3? Pretty easy? I have Repro 1 but haven't grabbed the beta yet of Repro 5 but looking forward to it. I've enjoyed Prophet V but have never had a real P5 so was never worried about how close of an emulation it was. Do have a real Pro One and think Repro 1 sounds pretty damn good. But again since even the real stuff differs from one piece of hardware to another I've never worried to much about how close the emulations are. If you cant get the same sound out of two real pieces of hardware I can accept the sound of the emulation not being exactly the same

[jdoo]

I had previously bought the Synclavier so I had an option to purchase the collection for $250. That seemed like a good value so I went for it. Spent most of the evening monitoring the download. Am I just lucky or do other people have problems with Arturia's software center downloader? I had repeated failures on certain instruments. I eventually got everything downloaded except analog lab which must have failed 10 times. It makes no sense as my net is solid. It certainly was not a great experience. Anyhow, looking forward to playing with this collection.

Congrats, great price. On downloading / installing via the Arturia Software Center... I also had problems today with some titles. What I do, to get around it - is based on a recommendation on the Arturia Forums from one of the techs. Go to the downloads html page instead: https://www.arturia.com/products/v-collection/resources and download from there. Worked for me..

[Ingonator]

Ingo....so what was your experience in making that clav sound on Repro 5 vs Prophet V3? Pretty easy? I have Repro 1 but haven't grabbed the beta yet of Repro 5 but looking forward to it. I've enjoyed Prophet V but have never had a real P5 so was never worried about how close of an emulation it was. Do have a real Pro One and think Repro 1 sounds pretty damn good. But again since even the real stuff differs from one piece of hardware to another I've never worried to much about how close the emulations are. If you cant get the same sound out of two real pieces of hardware I can accept the sound of the emulation not being exactly the same

Replicating the sound in Prophet V3 was quite easy after i already had it in Repro-5.
Anyway the parameters do not translate 1:1 and i had to be careful matching e.g. the pulsewidth.
For that i muted one of the oscillators, tweaked the PW and then the same for the other oscillator.
Anyway the Prophet V3 pathc misses velocity control, aftertouch control and voice panning.

The Prophet V3 patch was posted here (and a demo with layering Repro-5 and Clavinet V):
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 7#p6954907

The link to the Repro-5 patch is mentioned at my post in the link posted above.

[BassMasterK]

I had previously bought the Synclavier so I had an option to purchase the collection for $250. That seemed like a good value so I went for it. Spent most of the evening monitoring the download. Am I just lucky or do other people have problems with Arturia's software center downloader? I had repeated failures on certain instruments. I eventually got everything downloaded except analog lab which must have failed 10 times. It makes no sense as my net is solid. It certainly was not a great experience. Anyhow, looking forward to playing with this collection.

Congrats, great price. On downloading / installing via the Arturia Software Center... I also had problems today with some titles. What I do, to get around it - is based on a recommendation on the Arturia Forums from one of the techs. Go to the downloads html page instead: https://www.arturia.com/products/v-collection/resources and download from there. Worked for me..

Huge thanks for this tip. I don't know why I didnt think to poke around their direct downloads page myself. Really appreciate the response.

[jdoo]

I ran a Logic Pro version I had of Superstition against the Arturia Clav. TBH.. It's not the best rendition... but I think Logic's (Family Clav, specifically) Clav did a better job. If anyone is interested in the Logic file (the project uses 3 clav layered parts), it's attached. Anyway - the Logic clav, I thought, did a better job on Superstition..

[Ingonator]

I ran a Logic Pro version I had of Superstition against the Arturia Clav. TBH.. It's not the best rendition... but I think Logic's (Family Clav, specifically) Clav did a better job. If anyone is interested in the Logic file (the project uses 3 clav layered parts), it's attached. Anyway - the Logic clav, I thought, did a better job on Superstition..

As mentioend earlier Superstition was a layer of multiple Clavinet D6 recordings so replicating the original recording is not simple.

[jdoo]

I ran a Logic Pro version I had of Superstition against the Arturia Clav. TBH.. It's not the best rendition... but I think Logic's (Family Clav, specifically) Clav did a better job. If anyone is interested in the Logic file (the project uses 3 clav layered parts), it's attached. Anyway - the Logic clav, I thought, did a better job on Superstition..

As mentioend earlier Superstition was a layer of multiple Clavinet D6 recordings so replicating the original recording is not simple.

100% agree. The Logic project I posted has three Clav layers . My point though, was that the Logic Clav seemed to hold true to the Superstition Clav timbre a little better than the Arturia clav, IMO.

[Ingonator]

As mentioned above the 6 filter & pickup switches and also the Mute fader of the real Clainet D6 are found at the main panel in Clavinet.

Here is a picture that also shows the "under the hood" controls/parameters in Clavinet V:

[fmr]

I ran a Logic Pro version I had of Superstition against the Arturia Clav. TBH.. It's not the best rendition... but I think Logic's (Family Clav, specifically) Clav did a better job. If anyone is interested in the Logic file (the project uses 3 clav layered parts), it's attached. Anyway - the Logic clav, I thought, did a better job on Superstition..

As mentioend earlier Superstition was a layer of multiple Clavinet D6 recordings so replicating the original recording is not simple.

100% agree. The Logic project I posted has three Clav layers . My point though, was that the Logic Clav seemed to hold true to the Superstition Clav timbre a little better than the Arturia clav, IMO.

Did you try to edit the presets in Clavinet V to match the sound, or did you just used factory sonds as they came?