New Pigments 2 Thread (On Topic Discussion Only, Please)

[Niowiad]

Is there really no way to set the starting phase of the Wavetable oscs when they're in Key retrigger mode?

Yeah, this is one pf the biggest issues, I have with Pigments. Parsed the manual, but found nothing, only drift knob does a small influence on phase as I understood. How can product designers of such a sophisticated synth forget, to equip it with dedicated phase controlling?

Are you guys referring to osc phase for unison or different applications?
I'm just curious if there's something I might have never considered before.

[Igro]

Pigments has a "special" implementation of phase retriggring. I mean if is set to zero, then unison is still sounds good and in a non static way. On other synths if you have set the phase reset to zero and non random, you will face with static unison with a "phasing" effect. Why Arturia decided to do this that way only they know. But that was a mistake. So basically, it has a broken phase reset or broken unison or ..... But seems like there is no way to implement back a tradtional way, as this will break the existing presets.

[Igro]

And btw guys, thanks for pointing me that Pigment still uses WAV files for its wavetables. I will check this out. Pigments wavetables are very good sounding.

[Igro]

Is there really no way to set the starting phase of the Wavetable oscs when they're in Key retrigger mode?

Yeah, this is one pf the biggest issues, I have with Pigments. Parsed the manual, but found nothing, only drift knob does a small influence on phase as I understood. How can product designers of such a sophisticated synth forget, to equip it with dedicated phase controlling?

Are you guys referring to osc phase for unison or different applications?
I'm just curious if there's something I might have never considered before.

It is not for the unison. It is more for percussive sounds and oftentimes basses. In Pigments you can set the phase retriggering to zero in Phase Modulation module. Then any sound on that OSC starts its wave from the same phase position - zero degree (so the kicks will have the same constant click in the attack. Also Pigments doesn't have the option to select the phase to a certain degree. There might be some cases where you may need need to change the tonality of the sound (say you have two saw waves and change the relationship between their phases). Or you want to add a 808 style "click" to a kick that you make in Pigments.

[SamDi]

How can product designers of such a sophisticated synth forget, to equip it with dedicated phase controlling?

I imagine it's because the actual musicians that Arturia deal with don't give a flying frig about arcane shit like that.

Yeah and that's one of the reasons you get no proper bassline out of it (you remember?). I didn't believe it first, but after trying, I have to admit - you were somehow right. Strange thing, because normally I believe, that one could do that with every synth, when knowing how to use it. But Pigments doesn't make it easy.

Missing phase control is one of the things making it hard.

Furthermore it seems that it has a strange dynamical behaviour: Going into clipping and nevertheless having no "pressure" at all. And I believe that's the reason, why so many find the presets boring. Maybe it needs a multiband compression to fix it?
When I have some time to waste, then I think I am going to investigate on this more. Nevertheless still one of my favorite synths.

[Niowiad]

Yep, when I mentioned the unison, I was referring to the attack portion.
Usually "zero phase" gives a much punchier attack, and "random phase" gives a smeared attack.

I usually don't take phase into account with single voices, only when stacking multiple voices/oscillators.
That's why I couldn't really figure out the thing with phase and the wavetable osc, but I also didn't take into account Pigments' double generator layer structure ("engines", as they called them).

[Greenstorm33]

Is there really no way to set the starting phase of the Wavetable oscs when they're in Key retrigger mode?

Yeah, this is one pf the biggest issues, I have with Pigments. Parsed the manual, but found nothing, only drift knob does a small influence on phase as I understood. How can product designers of such a sophisticated synth forget, to equip it with dedicated phase controlling?

I can understand it for the analog engine but it makes no sense for the wavetable one. Doesn't seem like it would be difficult to add at all. Just slap a knob onto the phase mod section and call it a day.

[BONES]

You don't know that.

Clearly I don't or I would not have started my response with "I imagine", would I, genius?

Yeah and that's one of the reasons you get no proper bassline out of it (you remember?).

That's more to do with not being able to reset the phase on Note On. I have plenty of alternatives for that, I don't need every synth I own to have every feature I might need for every possible contingency.

[JohnNoizz]

Hello everyone, so, in this black friday sales I'm between Rapid and Pigments 2 and I would like some advices from who already have one of those synths, I mostly produce House music BTW.

Thanks in advance!

[LoveEnigma18]

Hello everyone, so, in this black friday sales I'm between Rapid and Pigments 2 and I would like some advices from who already have one of those synths, I mostly produce House music BTW.

Thanks in advance!

I don't have Rapid, but I did demo it once. Sounds good, but did not like the UI and workflow. Rapid license cannot be resold. Just something to keep in mind.

Pigments 2 sounds good, looks gorgeous and a super easy workflow. And you can resell it for free in future, which is a big plus IMO. Not into house music, but I think it can make any type of sounds.

So, I would recommend Pigments 2 without any hesitation.

[THE INTRANCER]

Hello everyone, so, in this black friday sales I'm between Rapid and Pigments 2 and I would like some advices from who already have one of those synths, I mostly produce House music BTW.

Thanks in advance!

I've had Rapid for the past year, it's an excellent and powerful synth for anyone producing dance music which it really specialises in. It really feels like having 8 synthesizers in one with the bonus of additional Effects VST being provided, which you can use like any other within your DAW too. The GUI can be re-skinned to a certain extent (capitalised labels can't be changed). If you plan to be producing lots of music and not just playing around, then the logic that you might want to sell a software synth doesn't make a lot of sense to me. (Personally never sold any synthesizer hardware or software in 30 years). Personally if I was picking a VST instrument for creating dance music, it wouldn't be Pigments, which is really more about evolving creative textures and pads generally. Updates are free for Rapid also, and there's one coming up soon with new browser features and effects.

https://parawave-audio.com/rapid_synth

[SamDi]

Hello everyone, so, in this black friday sales I'm between Rapid and Pigments 2 and I would like some advices from who already have one of those synths, I mostly produce House music BTW.

Thanks in advance!

You can achieve with both good results, but for your style Rapid is the better choice. You can achieve EDM sounds easier, because Rapid‘s base sound is sharper/more gritty by default. In Pigments you need to take more effort for that. Also the presets of Rapid probably fit better to you. Pigments goes more into „old school“ direction there.

[databroth]

Rapid is much cleaner than pigments imo, but pigments is still great, it's harder to get going with, but once you get a sound up and running pigments actually sounds incredible

also for anyone interested I've made a short tips and tricks on pigments, it's got some incredible west coast style sequencing tricks up it's sleeve



let me know if this is "off topic" btw

[JohnNoizz]

Hello everyone, so, in this black friday sales I'm between Rapid and Pigments 2 and I would like some advices from who already have one of those synths, I mostly produce House music BTW.

Thanks in advance!

I've had Rapid for the past year, it's an excellent and powerful synth for anyone producing dance music which it really specialises in. It really feels like having 8 synthesizers in one with the bonus of additional Effects VST being provided, which you can use like any other within your DAW too. The GUI can be re-skinned to a certain extent (capitalised labels can't be changed). If you plan to be producing lots of music and not just playing around, then the logic that you might want to sell a software synth doesn't make a lot of sense to me. (Personally never sold any synthesizer hardware or software in 30 years). Personally if I was picking a VST instrument for creating dance music, it wouldn't be Pigments, which is really more about evolving creative textures and pads generally. Updates are free for Rapid also, and there's one coming up soon with new browser features and effects.

<span class="skimlinks-unlinked">https://parawave-audio.com/rapid_synth</span>

Hello everyone, so, in this black friday sales I'm between Rapid and Pigments 2 and I would like some advices from who already have one of those synths, I mostly produce House music BTW.

Thanks in advance!

You can achieve with both good results, but for your style Rapid is the better choice. You can achieve EDM sounds easier, because Rapid‘s base sound is sharper/more gritty by default. In Pigments you need to take more effort for that. Also the presets of Rapid probably fit better to you. Pigments goes more into „old school“ direction there.

Rapid is much cleaner than pigments imo, but pigments is still great, it's harder to get going with, but once you get a sound up and running pigments actually sounds incredible

also for anyone interested I've made a short tips and tricks on pigments, it's got some incredible west coast style sequencing tricks up it's sleeve

<span class="skimlinks-unlinked">>

let me know if this is "off topic" btw

Hello everyone, so, in this black friday sales I'm between Rapid and Pigments 2 and I would like some advices from who already have one of those synths, I mostly produce House music BTW.

Thanks in advance!

I don't have Rapid, but I did demo it once. Sounds good, but did not like the UI and workflow. Rapid license cannot be resold. Just something to keep in mind.

Pigments 2 sounds good, looks gorgeous and a super easy workflow. And you can resell it for free in future, which is a big plus IMO. Not into house music, but I think it can make any type of sounds.

So, I would recommend Pigments 2 without any hesitation.

Thank you very much people!
I really like both but this time I bought Rapid and yes, it's amazing! Next will be definetly Pigments 2, I really like this kind of synths with support like Arturia and Parawave where you have free updates, bug fixes, improved workflow and the most important... NEW FEATURES!

Regards!

[pdxindy]

You can achieve EDM sounds easier, because Rapid‘s base sound is sharper/more gritty by default.

Rapid is much cleaner than pigments imo