Pigments 3.5 vs Dune 3.5

[AcrossTheSky]

One more thing to notice is that
Pigments will only grow more powerful
with every update.
My guess is that we will see a layered structure at some point..

A hardware Pigments is in the making..
so I think too...

Microfreak is not the end of the story...
Needs a bigger brother..

[briefcasemanx]

What really amazes me about pigments is the bass presets. Almost all of them sound like lead presets instead, and the bottom end is completely lacking, never experienced it with ANY other synth I've tried or own.

The new (from pigments 3 upgrade) sub-osc somehow helps with it, but it's very hard to get a solid bass sound which can be achieved very fast with other synths.

Other thing which bother me with pigments is that it has a glassy or belly sound which is first cool, but after a while makes the synth being perceived as a one trick pony, although there are so many synthesis methods, somehow it's quite difficult to add weight to the sound, and to get rid of this hollow, glassy attribute of the sounds.

I'd prefer a punchy thick sound like Diva which I have. Does Dune give a thick sound?

Not nearly as close to a real analog sound as Diva is, but it still sounds really good in its own way.

Dune sounds more analog than Pigments though, if that's what you're after.

[Dencheg]

Pigments has more oscillator types, where Dune has basic waveforms, wavetable and a simplified FM module.

Pigments has samples, granular, additive, extra noise samples, wavetables. That is significantly more than Dune offers.

Dune has dual filters and effects that can be placed pre or post filter, Pigments just has effects tacked on at the end.

Pigments has dual filters too.

Dune has wavetable import and editing, Pigments doesn’t.

Pigments has wavetable import

Dune has oscillators as mod slot choices, Pigments does not.

Pigments has cross mod between Osc's.

Pigments also has a far better modulation system.

Perhaps you haven't looked closely at Dune, cause Pigments doesn't offer significantly more than Dune and doesn't have far better modulation system.

Dune doesn't have granular, but has an FM osc, nice one (which is more essential and not overkilling for a VA synth)
Dune's WT editor can work with partials of a wavetable, making Dune additive.
The oscillators can be both mod sources and targets in the mod matrix. If you check Mark Holt's wavetable site, there is an example where one wavetable osc is used as a hand-drawn bow-movement-like modulation for another osc.
Dune has a vastly superior unison engine.

Dune is on another level from engineering perspective and regarding applicability for any genre of music and scoring.

Pigments is an inspiring visual playground(sandbox) for with a prepared library of samples, and should be praised for that

[pdxindy]

Dune's WT editor can work with partials of a wavetable, making Dune additive.

Yeah, right... here is an overview of Pigments additive engine.

[Dencheg]

Any video of building a wavetable with partials and then using that with superior filters and very low CPU consumption?

[carrieres]

Both synths are great but Pigment3.5 is killing my cpu Core™ i7-7700HQ

[pdxindy]

Perhaps you haven't looked closely at Dune, cause Pigments doesn't offer significantly more than Dune and doesn't have far better modulation system.

Pigments modulation system is far better than Dune. Not even close. Dune has no visual feedback. Pigments, I can see at a glance all the modulators that are being used in a patch. If I click on LFO2, it shows all the targets that LFO2 is modulating. In Dune you have to scroll through a tiny mod matrix to see what is modulating what. In Pigments, I can hover over a parameter and see all the sources modulating it. Nothing in Dune. In Pigments, I can mute all targets of a source (say LFO3). No such facility in Dune.

In Pigments, I can select LFO1 (or any source) and then move a bunch of knobs to add them as targets and set depth.

Then take some of the mod sources... Envelopes in Pigments have slope controls, Dune envelopes do not. Pigments Env stages like Attack and Decay are in time values, Dunes are not. Pigment Envelopes can be triggered by other mod sources, Dunes cannot.

The Pigments LFO's have morphing shapes and symmetry so can have a huge number of shapes and Dune's are static shapes and only a few of them. Pigments LFO's can keytrack, and then can be reset via other sources. Dune? Nope...

Pigments mod targets can be further modulated by another source right in the target window. Dune can do that only by modulating the depth in the mod matrix. It is really clumsy and if your two mod slots are not near each other, then you have to repeatedly scroll the tiny matrix in Dune to edit them in relation to each other.

Modulation in Pigments is in another galaxy compared to the outdated system in Dune.

[EnGee]

Both synths are great but Pigment3.5 is killing my cpu Core™ i7-7700HQ

It's not that bad with my cpu (R5800x) about 15% in Live. With my previous m1 MacBook, it was also ok, slightly more cpu, but it's far from considering it heavy. Is your cpu for laptops?

[tactile_coast]

Any video of building a wavetable with partials and then using that with superior filters and very low CPU consumption?

Dune 3 has a great sound and is very CPU friendly which may cause some to choose it over Pigments but to claim it can compete with Pigments Additive engine by hand drawing wavetable frames one at a time is just outright weird.

[Dencheg]

Any video of building a wavetable with partials and then using that with superior filters and very low CPU consumption?

Dune 3 has a great sound and is very CPU friendly which may cause some to choose it over Pigments but to claim it can compete with Pigments Additive engine by hand drawing wavetable frames one at a time is just outright weird.

That would be, if I claimed that.
I was saying the WT editor is capable of
1) defining any amount of frames via partials or math formula or manual drawing
2) interpolating the entire wavetable from those frames
3) using that wavetable as a modulation source or target

It's a different approach and something Pigments isn't capable of.
Direct comparison always sounds weird, I agree.
Dune isn't designed to have amounts of features, but try to see it's orthogonality of features.

[pdxindy]

It's a different approach and something Pigments isn't capable of.

I can import any wavetable I want into Pigments and use that to modulate the other main Osc or Filter (depending on filter type). So yeah, Pigments is capable of that. There is also a dedicated modulation Osc.

Plus Pigments can load samples, can use up to 6 multi-samples across key or velocity ranges. Pigments can do full featured granular synthesis of those samples including FM and Ring Mod of the granular Osc.

Then there is the previously mentioned additive engine which is quite capable and is easy to control and modulate in useful ways.

I hadn't had much time to explore Pigments (3.5) but I spent some hours on it today. I got a bunch of useful sounds out of it and my estimation of Pigments went up. If it were using less CPU, I would prefer it to Dune in just about every way.

[Synthack]

.........

[AnX]

I wonder if the OP demoed both and came to a conclusion...

[carrieres]

Both synths are great but Pigment3.5 is killing my cpu Core™ i7-7700HQ

It's not that bad with my cpu (R5800x) about 15% in Live. With my previous m1 MacBook, it was also ok, slightly more cpu, but it's far from considering it heavy. Is your cpu for laptops?

yes, it is

[carrieres]

Pigments modulation system is far better than Dune. Not even close. Dune has no visual feedback. Pigments, I can see at a glance all the modulators that are being used in a patch.

but you can't see the values/amount of modulation

If I click on LFO2, it shows all the targets that LFO2 is modulating. In Dune you have to scroll through a tiny mod matrix to see what is modulating what. In Pigments, I can hover over a parameter and see all the sources modulating it.

you can sort the modulation matrix to see all the modulation from a source