Arturia V Collection 6

[braj]

Is it just me or do any of you think the $150 price for any of the synths as stand alone deals is overpriced in today's market? I'd be tempted to buy one here and there @$80 or so. I think they could probably sell a lot more that way. I guess it does give the impression the V Collection is a better deal though.

I didn't check all of them, but the DX7 V and CMI V are $99 each. I think that's a decent price.

That's an intro sale price.

Exactly. Well, I don't know, but, I don't pay that much for synths very often and never for the vast majority of vendors. I don't know if that means that it's out of step with the market though. It probably just means that I'm a cheap ass.

I'm not cheap, just poor.

[Sparky77]

I understand and waiting for an upgrade sale....

[v1o]

Howcome the DX7 V is heavy on DSP with some patches? I thought FM synthesis was light on CPU - the Yamaha original was running on very slow by modern standards FM chips.

[planetearth]

Howcome the DX7 V is heavy on DSP with some patches? I thought FM synthesis was light on CPU - the Yamaha original was running on very slow by modern standards FM chips.

Arturia's emulation doesn't use the same code that Yamaha used, and this is version 1.0 of the synth. Apparently, however Arturia's creating the sounds, they just haven't ironed out all the kinks. No doubt they'll improve the CPU efficiency in the updates, as they've done with all their synths.

Steve

[Ingonator]

Howcome the DX7 V is heavy on DSP with some patches? I thought FM synthesis was light on CPU - the Yamaha original was running on very slow by modern standards FM chips.

Arturia's emulation doesn't use the same code that Yamaha used, and this is version 1.0 of the synth. Apparently, however Arturia's creating the sounds, they just haven't ironed out all the kinks. No doubt they'll improve the CPU efficiency in the updates, as they've done with all their synths.

Steve

The CPU use also depends on which features are used as DX7 V has a bunch of advanced features includidng e.g. a filter for each operator and built-in effects which could use additional CPU load.
DX7 V also offers using unison and CPU use depends on how many unison voices you are using.
Tzeh amount of unison voices is foud at the bottom right of the GUi besides the polyphony amount.

If you use the first factory preset called "Rom1A 11-E_PIANO 1" as an example you could save even more CPU if you switch off the filter in all operators. As no filter was used in the original patch this should be off anyway and the cutoff is set to maximum so this has no effect in that patch. I have no clue why the filters are not swtched off in that patch.
If you then reduce the maximum polyphony from the default 16 voices to 8 or less this again reduces the CPU load.

[functionform]

This is very interesting. The Piano still sounds like crap my god. But the options on the classic synths are very intriguing. Sadly no money for this right now.

[Antoine_G]

Somehow i think that Piano V2 was increased in quality at a level where i feel it is more or less like another new product and not just an update. As this v2 update is not available for V-Collection 5 users this is also somehow true.

I think this statement is incorrect. As a V collection 5 owner you can upgrade your Piano V to V2 for $19.99 in your My Products tab of your account.

Well, concerning the improvement in sound quality i still think it's true...

I more and more like the sounds i could get from Piano V also compared to some of my sample based piano libraries.

With the old Piano V i had to tweak it quite a lot (modeling parameters and EQ) to find a sound i really like while still this was not as good as Piano V2 or my other sample based pianos. With Piano V2 some of the presets do already sound really great "as is" while i like adding my favorite external Reverb.

Hi, I just see your posts on Piano V(2).

I'm just a hobbyist and I must declutter my library (I'm with a 256 Go SSD now on my computer). I have the updated Analog Lab 3 only (not the V Collection).

What is the best between Ableton Grand Piano (sample-based, 1,4 Go) and the piano presets in AL3?

[Zipede]

Howcome the DX7 V is heavy on DSP with some patches? I thought FM synthesis was light on CPU - the Yamaha original was running on very slow by modern standards FM chips.

Arturia's emulation doesn't use the same code that Yamaha used, and this is version 1.0 of the synth. Apparently, however Arturia's creating the sounds, they just haven't ironed out all the kinks. No doubt they'll improve the CPU efficiency in the updates, as they've done with all their synths.

Steve

The CPU use also depends on which features are used as DX7 V has a bunch of advanced features includidng e.g. a filter for each operator and built-in effects which could use additional CPU load.
DX7 V also offers using unison and CPU use depends on how many unison voices you are using.
Tzeh amount of unison voices is foud at the bottom right of the GUi besides the polyphony amount.

If you use the first factory preset called "Rom1A 11-E_PIANO 1" as an example you could save even more CPU if you switch off the filter in all operators. As no filter was used in the original patch this should be off anyway and the cutoff is set to maximum so this has no effect in that patch. I have no clue why the filters are not swtched off in that patch.
If you then reduce the maximum polyphony from the default 16 voices to 8 or less this again reduces the CPU load.

The DX7 is heavy on CPU sometimes, but manageable with some of the tweaking you mentioned. I find the Buchla much more difficult to tame (especially as I don't understand it yet) Many of the factory patches are unplayable on my system, even some of the single voice patches. Do you have any tips on how to reduce CPU use with the Buchla?

Zipede

[Ingonator]

Somehow i think that Piano V2 was increased in quality at a level where i feel it is more or less like another new product and not just an update. As this v2 update is not available for V-Collection 5 users this is also somehow true.

I think this statement is incorrect. As a V collection 5 owner you can upgrade your Piano V to V2 for $19.99 in your My Products tab of your account.

Well, concerning the improvement in sound quality i still think it's true...

I more and more like the sounds i could get from Piano V also compared to some of my sample based piano libraries.

With the old Piano V i had to tweak it quite a lot (modeling parameters and EQ) to find a sound i really like while still this was not as good as Piano V2 or my other sample based pianos. With Piano V2 some of the presets do already sound really great "as is" while i like adding my favorite external Reverb.

Hi, I just see your posts on Piano V(2).

I'm just a hobbyist and I must declutter my library (I'm with a 256 Go SSD now on my computer). I have the updated Analog Lab 3 only (not the V Collection).

What is the best between Ableton Grand Piano (sample-based, 1,4 Go) and the piano presets in AL3?

Before i get to yout question first i like to mention that i had a dedicated thraed about different Acoustic piano libraries last year:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=470003
I will try to update that soon. Due to recent changes in Dropbox i might have to add a few changes to my MP3 file links to make them playable again.

FWIW i am not a profesional piano player at all and more a hobbyist there too (without any classical piano training) while i had earned some money with sound design for synths which is a different thing and not really realted to that topic. On the other hand i had tried to replicate certain piano/e-piano sounds with different synthesis methods and different synths multiple times but that'S another story...

After i had finally bought the VI LAbs Ravanscroft 275 sample based piano i had mostly lost interest in checking other pianos but alraedy in that thread mentioend above i had mentioned that Piano V might be improved with a major update. Now with Piano V2 this indeed seems to be the case (and no i did not know if and when this versionwould come...).

While for that piano thread i used a bunch of piano libraries to do tests i did not include Ableton piano there even if i own Lie 9 Suite (and alraedy preordered the upgrade to v10).

FWIW currently my favorite preset in Piano V2 is called "American Large Studio" based on the "American Grand" model.
I currently have most of the single plugins of V-Collection 6 installed (and also Spark from VC 4) but not Analog Lab 3 so i could not check this there at the moment.

Overall the sound quality of PIano V2 seems to be really great and even without having it directly comparred to Ableton piano i would guess it sounds better also based on my piano library comparisons i had done in the past. On the other hand each piano sounds differnt (even multiple piano libraries based on teh same real acoustic piano could sound different) and if you search for a specific sound Ableton Piano might be exactly what you need.
My own opinion about PIano V2 is not based on any measurements, comparisons with libraries based on the same piano or other technical stuff but just based on the fact if i like that specific sound and also the way i could play with it. As Piano V2 is fully based on physical modeleing without using any samples one major difference might be that you have a more or less unlimited amount of velocity layers which is imposible or very difficult to do with sample based pianos.

[egbert101]

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[aMUSEd]

My assumption is that the updates for existing instruments from Collection 5 are still free as I see them in my Software Center. The upgrade to Collection 6 seems to be only for the four new instruments, at the moment anyway.

Plus the Piano 2

But yes several of the VColl5 instruments also have significant updates (eg Vox, Wurli) and everyone gets everything in Analog Lab 3 which is pretty generous really.

[Ingonator]

My assumption is that the updates for existing instruments from Collection 5 are still free as I see them in my Software Center. The upgrade to Collection 6 seems to be only for the four new instruments, at the moment anyway.

Updates for plugins in V-Collection 5 are still free, except the 4 new plugins in V-Collection 6 and Piano V2 which is a new major update (V1 to V2). As mentioned above you could also just upgrade Piano V to V2 for a certain amount of money. This seems to be 19.99 € here in Germany for a single product/plugin (for both single product purchases and V--Collection customers).
For example if you bought SEM V as a single product you would have to pay for an upgrade to V2 too, same with Prophet V2 to V3 etc. If you own V-Collection 4 you could just upgrade those pluons too instaed of upgarding to the full V-Collection 5 or 6.

Details about what is possible in terms of upgrading your Arturia products should be found in your Arturia account. If not you might ask Arturia support about it.

The older plugins like e.g. Minimoog, Modular, ARP2600, Prophet and Jupiter are curently at V3 so there were 2 major updates for them since they were originally released.

[egbert101]

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[Ingonator]

So now I'm pondering whether to buy individual instruments that I will always use, thus saving me in the long run. Decisions decisions...

The upgrade price of 19.99 € seems to be only for major updates of existing plugins (e.g v1 to v2 or v2 to v3) while buying new single instruments might be more expensive.
For V-Collection 5 owners this upgrade price only seems to apply to the major update of Piano V to V2. I have not done such single plugin upgrade myself yet so i do not know more details.

The currently discounted price for the single DX7 V plugin (and the other plugins added with VC 6 including Piano V2) is 99 € while in the future it might go up to 199 € for a single plugin. This is the same price as you have to pay for the upgrade of V-Collection 5 to 6.
The full price for Piano V2 might even be 249 € after the current discount is ended...

The older plugins currently mostly have a single product price of 149 €.

The current full price of V-Collection 6 is 399 € (later will be 499 €) which at the current discounts corresponds to around 4 new single plugins and 2 or 3 of the older ones.

[hyperscientist]

The website doesn't mention it explicitly, but since Analog Lab is part of V Collection and Collection supports NKS - does the Analog Lab 3 support NKS on its own (when bought without the Collection)?