Arturia Pigments 5 out now

[wvshpr]

[3ptguitarist]

What can pigments 5 do that Dune 3, Massive X, and Ableton Wavetable can't do? I'm trying to see if I should buy it for $69 or not.

Really, you are hesitating to buy pigment 5 at 69$??
Just close the eyes and press the button!

As it was said before, 4 major reasons:
1. It goes way beyond wavetable with additive, granular, FM, etc... And excellent filters and effects.
2. Arturia has demonstrated a top level support of it with continuous free upgrades.
3. A praised modern and practical UI. (Love it or not, it is a good UI).
4. It is one of the "king" synths like Serum or Diva so the number of external materials like YouTube tutorials or presets is huge.

How do you feel about the sound quality? When I tried pigments before the sound didn't wow me. Dive on the other hand is possibly the best sounding vst I've ever heard, at least when it comes to an analog sound.

I do like how the interface is though.

If you want a virtual analog, clearly Diva is excellent (though my personal favourite is obsession from Synapse, I love OBX sound).
Pigments can do that to some extent but it is a much more "digital synth" in essence. If you want an oscillator drift, you will have to emulate it for example.
But globally to me pigment is very very good sounding and has very good filters. In particular it has an excellent korg MS20 emulation if you like analog.
I am not a big big fan of the presets though, they are nice and some are excellent, but not my favourite (spire, avenger 2 and dune 3 are my favourite).

Do you have any sound samples or a song made with Pigments 5 that I can listen to?

[Jac459]

Do you have any sound samples or a song made with Pigments 5 that I can listen to?

Uh.... Sorry, not me... I always use many different synths...

Edit: The song where I use the most Pigments (but not exclusively) is this one:
https://open.spotify.com/track/553ZCSoppjqCUr5FOt96AF

[aMUSEd]

From the 3.5 manual

Engine 1 can be an FM modulation source for Engine 2, and vice-versa. It’s easy to miss the relevant controls at first, because they are alternate mode of the Modulator section at the lower right of the Analog, Wavetable, Sample, and Harmonic engines. We already covered these Modulators separately in each Engine’s section because the controls are different depending on the Engine type. However, we’ll cover cross-modulation here because it works similarly for every Engine.

https://downloads.arturia.net/products/ ... 5_0_EN.pdf

I think it gets missed sometimes because you have to change the modulator to the engine that is the crossmod source

Screenshot 2024-02-11 at 15.53.16.png

Yeah, I tried that, but that doesn't work on samples. It only works with the Analog, WT and Harmonic Engine. The controls are there, but it only seems to modulate the modulator with its own modulator section, not the carrier. If you turn down the knob named "Output" on the modulator it's more obvious that it doesn't actually modulate the sample.

Another more obvious way to show that it doesn't work is to tune the modulating oscillator low to use it like a vibrato. Apply it to a sample with a steady pitch (like the default Rhodes sample) and increase "Mod Amt", nothing happens. All you hear is the modulating oscillator being modulated by its mod section. Sample FM seems to be the only cross mod option that doesn't really work. With all the other engines cross mod works fine.

I don't think you are right, have a look at the built in tutorial on the sample OSC. - steps 14-15. When you have the modulator set to engine 2 it is modulating engine 1, not its own engine.

[aMUSEd]

What can pigments 5 do that Dune 3, Massive X, and Ableton Wavetable can't do? I'm trying to see if I should buy it for $69 or not.

Really, you are hesitating to buy pigment 5 at 69$??
Just close the eyes and press the button!

As it was said before, 4 major reasons:
1. It goes way beyond wavetable with additive, granular, FM, etc... And excellent filters and effects.
2. Arturia has demonstrated a top level support of it with continuous free upgrades.
3. A praised modern and practical UI. (Love it or not, it is a good UI).
4. It is one of the "king" synths like Serum or Diva so the number of external materials like YouTube tutorials or presets is huge.

How do you feel about the sound quality? When I tried pigments before, the sound didn't wow me. Diva on the other hand is possibly the best sounding vst I've ever heard, at least when it comes to an analog sound.

I do like how the interface is though.

I don't think the VA OSC is intended to complete with the likes of Diva or Repro on its own, the point of Pigments is the VA engine gives you other colours to layer with other sound sources or use it to modulate other engines.

[muki]

I don't think you are right, have a look at the built in tutorial on the sample OSC. - steps 14-15. When you have the modulator set to engine 2 it is modulating engine 1, not its own engine.

exactly

except for the utility engine all the other engines are cross-modulatable

in the v5 manual it's in chapter 6.6, page 124

it's a little irritating, but:

in the lower right of the OSC window you select the mod source, i.e.: ENGINE 1 or 2
there you get a few according controls of *the other* engine (coarse/fine tune, wavetable position etc)

on the lower left and lower middle part of the OSC window you engage the destinations

if the tune of the carrier osc is to be modulated, activate and select "Modulation"
and below "Freq Mod"
on the right you select the other ENGIBNE as modulator

[muki]

Another more obvious way to show that it doesn't work is to tune the modulating oscillator low to use it like a vibrato. Apply it to a sample with a steady pitch (like the default Rhodes sample) and increase "Mod Amt", nothing happens. .....

yes...now i found the confusion:

those controls are for the other engine
it is just a sort of shortcut, so that it is not needed to switch to the other engine
for controlling coarse pitch, ratio and others, as well as "Mod Amt" only if the other engine is harmonic and it is the same (controls) the other engine's PhaseMod/FreqMod amount

set a value and inspect in the other engine

example:
engine1 = harmonic
it is the modulator

note that the coarse tuning is set to 0

set output volume to 0

switch over to engine 2
engine 2 is the carrier
set it to sample
keep default sample ep1

select as crossmod source = engine 1
and coarrse to -60

switch over to engine 1 and note that coarse tune has become -60

switch over to engine 2
on the lower left side of the engine settings there is the "Shaper Mode" module
select "Modulation" from the pulldown menu
you get a FeqMod and a RingMod dial

that's the amount you can dial in for the modulation of the modulator aka engine 1

hth

[wvshpr]

I don't think you are right, have a look at the built in tutorial on the sample OSC. - steps 14-15. When you have the modulator set to engine 2 it is modulating engine 1, not its own engine.

....
switch over to engine 2
on the lower left side of the engine settings there is the "Shaper Mode" module
select "Modulation" from the pulldown menu
you get a FeqMod and a RingMod dial

that's the amount you can dial in for the modulation of the modulator aka engine 1

Completely missed the modulation section on the left. It's more obvious in the Analog section due to the line leading to the FM knob, but the interface is different for each engine. They really need to rethink that.

But yeah, I was wrong and did not dig deep enough. It is indeed possible to modulate samples. That's pretty cool.

Again, except for Bitwig Sampler/Grid, which soft synth can cross modulate samples? Phase Plant maybe? Even in hardware land that's a rarity.

Thanks you two!

[reppinghades]

Anyone here has this option on your pigments? I was watching a video of someone making patches and they were talking about this option. I was like how did miss that but when I checked, I couldn't find it. version 5.0.1.4491

[zvenx]

I have it in my plugin version (vst3, mac apple silicon) but not there in Standalone.
rsp

[muki]

Anyone here has this option on your pigments?

you mean the "save as opening preset" item ?
yes, i have it
same *.4491 version as yours...

AU plugin, logic, osx mojave

[Spring Goose]

Anyone here has this option on your pigments? I was watching a video of someone making patches and they were talking about this option. I was like how did miss that but when I checked, I couldn't find it. version 5.0.1.4491

same version, i have that option in vst3.

[reppinghades]

Its missing on mine. Checked Arturia Software Centre and there's no pending updates either. Weird!

Edit: It's not on standalone version. I can see it when opened pigments in Ableton. Thanks guys!

It's really great that they added this option. Before this, setting the default preset was not that straightforward and also it gets reset after updation. If they add the option to set a patch as default preset like Vital and Surge, It would make it even better.

[twal]

After some time away from attention to synths, and more into recording, arranging/mixing and writing I got the urge to take notice of Pigments 5- I put it on the back burner for some time, and when i was looking at synths I was before looking at other synths. I have got to say after getting it off here that it is incredibly impressive to me, both in sound and feel.

Others have compared its sound to other synths calling it flat and sterile, but to me as it is similar to Serum I find what people perceive in this way, as not in your face and expansive for a lack of better terminology, and translation, to be optimal to my taste. It just fits better into a track and the sound that it presents is discernible so to speak. The quality is very high and precise. The wavetables give that very strong with clarity appeal, I guess what people call digital, that I just don't hear from many other synths. The quality is impressive and slapping a bunch of layers together on other synths is something that this synth doesn't have to make it to sound like jambalaya. The bells and keys are clean, crisp and fresh.

Users have complained about features like many layers not being in Pigments but its engine model just feels elegant. Yeah you don't get to blast a listener out of the water with layers and big nuance, but I don't necessarily make music to just have a massive sound world going on with drums like weird experimental electronic, or cinematic or other edm -which are all cool- but i like discernability in the sounds I use. I want tracks to have feel and purpose. Not just the how big, wide, and impacting a sound can be, i want it to be musical.

As far as it being musical, Pigments is simply very precise and crisp. Its very elegant in its design as far as features and look. It feels like things are designed with well thought out purpose. I'm a kind of, give me what you want and your intentions and I'll take it, type of guy and I enjoy their choices. Streamlined and defined. I don't necessarily want all that you can pack into a synth to give it all possibilities, and experience is what usually keeps us around. The simplicity if you call it that, makes for some other robust features added like wonderful modulation possibilities to to shine through, interesting to tweak rather then the pack multiple possibilities and everything in and let the user unravel it- I like new presentation and ideas inside an outlook that gives the user inspiration and a more sexy approach. As much as I like Dune and Avenger, I think the former squish in a lot of options approach, kind of makes for a sloppy and brutish experience imho. Like the approach of elegance, purpose, and creativity.

I think what has mostly lead me to wanting to post about Pigments is the new sequencer. I absolutely adore it, and it feels great especially it playing the musical feel of Pigments sound. I can just roll the dice and a patch with the Pigments clear and precise character becomes very presentable and palatable over a drum beat. It just works, I RARELY use arp or sequencers when setting out to make melodies because they usually sound overpowering, garbled and very unaesthetically pleasing. I primarily would use sequencing in strange patches in Avenger or dune in a layer for some substance. Spending time to create a playground. With Pigments its a more favorable let's get a simple feel and jingle to actually make a tune, both aspects are great in their own ways, but with extremely noisy presets it is more so for experimentation/cinematics, and for creating a tune. Avenger is quite impressive though, and very fun. For simpler arrangements Pigments is like a Bruce Lee one inch punch that gets you results and what you want in a precise and fashionable way.

I hope this heady, imprecise, opinionated, ambiguous, limited, and garbled ideation of my translation of Pigments provided resonation or entertainment for some one reading it.

[CoolColJ]

One thing Pigments 5 is lacking is the per key press step advance mode for an LFO or modulator.
Vital has it. The Korg Opsix and Wavestate can do this with their step advance lanes.

Allows you to get paraphonic style sounds where every key press cycles the note pitches up or down an octave to get cyclic inversions etc.

You can also do this with synths like the Matrix 12 and Oberheim 8 voice VSTs