Official Arturia VCollection5 thread

[zerocrossing]

On Windows, the gui's for the Prophet, the SEM, and CS80 the lighting on the lower right portions is "blown out". That is, if it was a photograph the photo would be over exposed. The 3D designer (Yannick?) went a little overboard with the light in the lower right corner. Therefore, whereas the keyboard is nice and crisp on the majority of the plugins, it is barely readable on the three I mentioned above, with the Prophet being the worst. I'm guessing that the designer was working on a Mac. The gamma is different for Mac vs. PC so you need to 'test' things on both platforms otherwise what may be perfect on one will probably be darker or lighter on the other. Best practice is to avoid extreme settings. Just saying. Also in case Kevin or someone else from Arturia reads this forum.

Ok, carry, on...

i don't see that on the sem and the cs80. on the prophet it is indeed really visible.

CS80 + SEM:

semCS80.jpg

Prophet:

prophet.JPG

Wait... are they rendering a different image file for every single key? That's borderline idiotic.

[crystalmsc]

A bit disappointed by the pianos (difficult not to be when comparing against Pianoteq ).

Absolutely - The pianos sound absolutely laughable in comparison to Pianoteq despite the install footprint being over 5 times the size. The only thing in the pack that I've now uninstalled as Pianoteq 5 completely destroys all the pianos it's emulating.

You guys just made me want to get the Pianoteq The Stage version is included whey buying a KeyLab 88, it's logical to expect a better piano from a newer product, especially if they want to replace Pianoteq with their own.

But meanwhile I can appreciate the Piano V, thinking of it as an additional bonus of a physical modelling based piano. I've been looking at the Petit Piano and I can get some of the vibe from the Piano V for less hd space. Not bad for the first version, since Arturia usually came with an update to make it better. For now it's more useful for a non standard piano and when being layered with other synth.

[mcbpete]

Wait... are they rendering a different image file for every single key? That's borderline idiotic.

Yeah the amount of bitmaps that get installed in this collection is rather wild - God knows how much of the install space is just for the guis !

[zerocrossing]

A bit disappointed by the pianos (difficult not to be when comparing against Pianoteq ).

Absolutely - The pianos sound absolutely laughable in comparison to Pianoteq despite the install footprint being over 5 times the size. The only thing in the pack that I've now uninstalled as Pianoteq 5 completely destroys all the pianos it's emulating.

You guys just made me want to get the Pianoteq The Stage version is included whey buying a KeyLab 88, it's logical to expect a better piano from a newer product, especially if they want to replace Pianoteq with their own.

But meanwhile I can appreciate the Piano V, thinking of it as an additional bonus of a physical modelling based piano. I've been looking at the Petit Piano and I can get some of the vibe from the Piano V for less hd space. Not bad for the first version, since Arturia usually came with an update to make it better. For now it's more useful for a non standard piano and when being layered with other synth.

I'm not a big piano guy, but is it really that bad? In one of the demo tracks I thought it sounded pretty nice. Usually one of the included sample based pianos in Komplete is good enough for me.

[Sequent]

Thanks for posting that those jpegs so that everyone can see what I meant. I was looking at this last night, so I will have to go back and double check. But yeah... on the Prophet it is pretty bad. There were two others that were not nearly as bad. I will revisit tonight and post back exactly which ones they were.

On Windows, the gui's for the Prophet, the SEM, and CS80 the lighting on the lower right portions is "blown out". That is, if it was a photograph the photo would be over exposed. The 3D designer (Yannick?) went a little overboard with the light in the lower right corner. Therefore, whereas the keyboard is nice and crisp on the majority of the plugins, it is barely readable on the three I mentioned above, with the Prophet being the worst. I'm guessing that the designer was working on a Mac. The gamma is different for Mac vs. PC so you need to 'test' things on both platforms otherwise what may be perfect on one will probably be darker or lighter on the other. Best practice is to avoid extreme settings. Just saying. Also in case Kevin or someone else from Arturia reads this forum.

Ok, carry, on...

i don't see that on the sem and the cs80. on the prophet it is indeed really visible.

CS80 + SEM:

semCS80.jpg

Prophet:

prophet.JPG

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

My initial thoughts:

A. The installer and download process are horrible. The installer should let users specify a location, and the downloads have no excuse for being this slow in this day and age. At least for a company of Arturia's size. Amazon's web hosting service will scale up or down as needed, which is something Arturia should have looked into.

What plugins are you referring to? I was able to put the vst's where i wanted them to be (the vst2, x64 ones, the rest i don't need)

It wasn't clear to me how to do that. When I ran the installer it told me where they were going but either didn't allow me to change the location, or how to do so wasn't obvious. The only customization options I had were which plugins to install. Having read through this thread a few other folks ran into this too. Either way, that's the least of my gripes.

So I figured it out...

1. If you download the "V Collection 5 Installer.exe" from the Arturia website it doesn't ask you where you want to install the plugins.

2. If however, you use the Arturia Software Center software and run the installers from there, you will be prompted for which folders you want to install the plugins to.

I only solved this mystery because I didn't originally download the 2600 or the Analog Lab and went back today and go those via the Software Center. Just to confirm, I went back to the original installer and ran that again which did not offer the install location question.

[Weasel-Boy]

aMUSEd wrote:
One thing I don't like about the new preset system is it makes it harder to find just the Prophet VS or Hybrid patches for that synth as they are all jumbled up now. You would have thought if you specifically clicked on the icon for each synth it would be clever enough to load just its presets but no.

Oh....if only this was he only thing wrong with the VS. Even at a large resolution, most of the modulation controls are unreadable, resizing the interface by draging the bottom up to kill the keyboard view "tears" the video (actually quite hideous), the LFO sync values are a all labeled with what I can only describe as a "mystery code" as opposed to industy standard (ie) 1/4, 1/8, 1//16...etc. Not only that but there are "stops" in the Synced selection that do nothing. It is impossible to set exact Mixer times in the entry fields provided. Entering 500ms for example will produce a value of 0.00. Attempting to get an exact value by mouse dragging is impossible. LFO to Filter doesn't work and the FIlter modulation controll seems to control the LFO's speed. The Mixer's ABCD time values appear to do nothing.

And again: after all this time, you'd think they would have provided a way to categorize the different instrument presets according to unit (Pro5, VS, Hybrid) This is simply moronic. That, coupled with the fact that none of the v4 patches are compatible with v5 begs the question: Why?

Thankfully, I only lost $10 to find out I was better off with the v4 version of the VS. I can't even begin to imagine how much else is screwed up across the suite.

[exmatproton]

My initial thoughts:

A. The installer and download process are horrible. The installer should let users specify a location, and the downloads have no excuse for being this slow in this day and age. At least for a company of Arturia's size. Amazon's web hosting service will scale up or down as needed, which is something Arturia should have looked into.

What plugins are you referring to? I was able to put the vst's where i wanted them to be (the vst2, x64 ones, the rest i don't need)

It wasn't clear to me how to do that. When I ran the installer it told me where they were going but either didn't allow me to change the location, or how to do so wasn't obvious. The only customization options I had were which plugins to install. Having read through this thread a few other folks ran into this too. Either way, that's the least of my gripes.

So I figured it out...

1. If you download the "V Collection 5 Installer.exe" from the Arturia website it doesn't ask you where you want to install the plugins.

2. If however, you use the Arturia Software Center software and run the installers from there, you will be prompted for which folders you want to install the plugins to.

I only solved this mystery because I didn't originally download the 2600 or the Analog Lab and went back today and go those via the Software Center. Just to confirm, I went back to the original installer and ran that again which did not offer the install location question.

Ah, i see. That's weird. Why should the total installer not ask for folders? I don't get the reasoning behind that...
On the other hand, i like the center. It just works. Never had a single problem with it. Just like Service Center from NI. I also like the build in authenticator.

[exmatproton]

aMUSEd wrote:
One thing I don't like about the new preset system is it makes it harder to find just the Prophet VS or Hybrid patches for that synth as they are all jumbled up now. You would have thought if you specifically clicked on the icon for each synth it would be clever enough to load just its presets but no.

Oh....if only this was he only thing wrong with the VS. Even at a large resolution, most of the modulation controls are unreadable, resizing the interface by draging the bottom up to kill the keyboard view "tears" the video (actually quite hideous), the LFO sync values are a all labeled with what I can only describe as a "mystery code" as opposed to industy standard (ie) 1/4, 1/8, 1//16...etc. Not only that but there are "stops" in the Synced selection that do nothing. It is impossible to set exact Mixer times in the entry fields provided. Entering 500ms for example will produce a value of 0.00. Attempting to get an exact value by mouse dragging is impossible. LFO to Filter doesn't work and the FIlter modulation controll seems to control the LFO's speed. The Mixer's ABCD time values appear to do nothing.

And again: after all this time, you'd think they would have provided a way to categorize the different instrument presets according to unit (Pro5, VS, Hybrid) This is simply moronic. That, coupled with the fact that none of the v4 patches are compatible with v5 begs the question: Why?

Thankfully, I only lost $10 to find out I was better off with the v4 version of the VS. I can't even begin to imagine how much else is screwed up across the suite.

Screwed is a big word, but yeah, it is far from ideal. On the other hand, it is the first release with these new UI's, so there will be hotfixes for sure (well, i certainly hope so).

[crystalmsc]

Not sure if it's just me, but I just re-installed the Modular V2, because of so many great patches in there and I feel like the older engine has a more vintage vibe, suitable for older type of music. Which is not because of the presets, but the synth itself has a slightly different character and I still like the older better. As for the Mini V, I like the V3 better. Anyone feel the same? I'm interested to hear about your opinion about the comparison between both version.

[Sequent]

Actually, the installer does let you install where you want... at least it did for me. You need to choose custom install at the very beginning, it then downloads the individual installs as you progress and you can install where you wish and how you wish. Meaning... that you can also choose which versions you want to install.

At the very beginning it asks you which of the 17 plugins you wish to install and then at the very end it tells you which ones you installed.

Using the Arturia Software Center is another way and maybe easier.

I have done it both ways. Using the installer last night on my main machine and installing the entire collection and then using the Software Center just to install two items on my laptop this morning. The activation appears to be all or nothing though. So you use up one activation each time you install anything whether it's the entire collection or just one or two items (just saying).

[Scotty]

The criticism of the Arturia pianos is way over the top. I have Pianoteq and the Arturia Piano compares to it quite favourably. Download the demo, add some reverb, open and close the lid and you'll be pleasantly surprised. It isn't a Pianoteq killer but neither is it crushed to the floor like some featherweight being hit by Tyson which is what some of these comments would lead you to believe.

A bit disappointed by the pianos (difficult not to be when comparing against Pianoteq ).

Absolutely - The pianos sound absolutely laughable in comparison to Pianoteq despite the install footprint being over 5 times the size. The only thing in the pack that I've now uninstalled as Pianoteq 5 completely destroys all the pianos it's emulating.

You guys just made me want to get the Pianoteq The Stage version is included whey buying a KeyLab 88, it's logical to expect a better piano from a newer product, especially if they want to replace Pianoteq with their own.

But meanwhile I can appreciate the Piano V, thinking of it as an additional bonus of a physical modelling based piano. I've been looking at the Petit Piano and I can get some of the vibe from the Piano V for less hd space. Not bad for the first version, since Arturia usually came with an update to make it better. For now it's more useful for a non standard piano and when being layered with other synth.

I'm not a big piano guy, but is it really that bad? In one of the demo tracks I thought it sounded pretty nice. Usually one of the included sample based pianos in Komplete is good enough for me.

[sprnva]

I did some more digging to see if I could figure out why my V4 Arturia plugins disappear for a second after they're first loaded in Live (OS X 10.10). If I have the Arturia Software Center running (even if I'm not logged in) this doesn't happen. So I'm guessing it's somehow related to either an update check or activation. If I then close the ASC, the plugin GUI will disappear within a minute and come back again. The new Analog Lab 2 also does this, so it presumably still applies to V5.

I thought I might uninstall everything and do a fresh install as I originally had all of these plugins installed as demos before I got my V4 licence. But the V4 Welcome App installer checks for the latest versions and downloads the V5 install files instead.

[Sequent]

Older version vs. new version... sounds like another thing to look into in more depth. So far, I've been preferring the sound of the new version. But I kept the old version installed because I had some third party sound sets, etc.

[mcbpete]

The criticism of the Arturia pianos is way over the top. I have Pianoteq and the Arturia Piano compares to it quite favourably. Download the demo, add some reverb, open and close the lid and you'll be pleasantly surprised. It isn't a Pianoteq killer but neither is it crushed to the floor like some featherweight being hit by Tyson which is what some of these comments would lead you to believe.

I actually retract my criticism I had for it earlier once I tweaked the 3 band EQ curve to boost the highs - By default the EQ mixer that comes with the Arturia Pianos sounds like you've got a cold, everything just sounded so muffled but a quick click on the mixer tab and playing with the far right node and it actually does real well in comparison, especially for their first attempt !