Gforce + others vs Arturia - Sound Quality ( what's the reason for this ? )

[trusampler]

Recently I've been comparing the sound quality of the GForce plugins to Arturia's plugins, and to my ears, there's a MUCH higher quality to the GForce collection vs Arturia's. I'm no audio specialist ,but have mixed quite a few recordings,albums over the past 20 years, and was wondering what is the technical reason why Arutias stuff sounds alot less 3d,refined to the GForce plugins?

I've noticed that GForce, XILS Lab,U-he,FXpansion,Martin's PG-8X, TAL Audio,Spectrasonics, Softube, NI's Massive X, and Yamaha's new Montage M all have a much higher sound quality to them.

They all sound like there's a polish to the lows mids and high's, and openess to their overall sound character that most other plugins don't seem to have. This is imo what makes them sound more analog in many cases alike the hardware I own.

I would love it if Arturia could figure that out, is there a technical reason, why the plugins I mentioned seem to all have that more open sound vs pretty much everything else? Are they coding them in a different format, or way that makes them different to Arturia plugins?

What's your thoughts ?

[gentleclockdivider]

I've never been an arturia fan ..Untill they partnered up with d ángelo audio who is responsible for their latest (updated ) stuff (except their dx7 which was done by martinic audio )
https://www.dangelo.audio/
Arturia ms20 , and cs80 sound really great , so does the synclavier ( running og synclavier code )
That being said , I hate their guis and the cpu footprint of some of their plugs while not sounding necessarilly better ( sq80 vesus sq8l )

Agree about g-force , their stuff has and still is absolute top tier .

[trusampler]

Agreed! I'm no coder, but there has to be a reason, why they are missing the target and others are able to hit it everytime. I do agree their newer stuff sounds better, but imo still aways off from the emulations of the companies I listed above. GForces OB-1 for example which is sort of a twist from the Minimoog and MS-20, just kills and has a very wide open high end sound thats clear in the character field, which can do the same kind of filters ,yet only sound better, that I don't seem to find in Arturias even best offerings. Albeit a different animal.

[Danilo Villanova]

I agree with your conclusions. Those companies simply produce better sounding synths. I just accept that reality, and wonder at the notion that everything in art and music is “subjective” and contemplate how angry people get when you imply that it isn’t.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Arturia farms out a lot of their DSP development. And they have plugins that have received updates over the years, but still running the old DSP, mixed in collections with plugins running newer DSP. So they're a bit of a mixed bag. Keep in mind, they're also going for "broad appeal", and including a lot of additional features and modulation options, which I suspect forces some compromises to be made in order to keep CPU use reasonable. For example: the new Korg ARP 2600 sounds killer to me, but it eats CPU. Diva and others are also CPU intensive. Arturia's synths, even the newer ones, are more CPU efficient. This indicates that maybe they're making compromises in the DSP to keep CPU use down (versus , say, having these incredible DSP coders that can code U-he quality filters at a third the CPU usage).

But their newer synths aren't too bad. You get relatively CPU efficient, nice looking synths, that sound pretty close to the original thing, and add a ton of modulation options that expand the synth's capabilities, for not a lot of money. Softube, U-he, etc. will do higher quality but at more CPU usage, or in Softube's case, hardly add anything the original synth didn't have (no extra voices, LFO's, envelopes, sequencers, FX). The other thing with Arturia synths, is I'm not a big fan of their built in FX. They definitely contribute to a "plasticy" sound I don't love. Though they're improving in that regard as they add more and more from the FX Collection into the synths.

[martiu]

cpu efficient and arturia dont mix well

[gnu23]

Dry oatmeal

[Vortifex]

Gforce's SEM is the most beautiful sounding analog emulation VST, in my opinion. I think the Arturia synths sound good, definitely good enough to make records with, but the interfaces are clunky with those slide-out panels and large expanses of wasted space. Minifreak has become my favourite synth of theirs. It's versatile and fun to use.

[BBFG#]

Recently I've been comparing the sound quality of the GForce plugins to Arturia's plugins, and to my ears, there's a MUCH higher quality to the GForce collection vs Arturia's. I'm no audio specialist ,but have mixed quite a few recordings,albums over the past 20 years, and was wondering what is the technical reason why Arutias stuff sounds alot less 3d,refined to the GForce plugins?

I've noticed that GForce, XILS Lab,U-he,FXpansion,Martin's PG-8X, TAL Audio,Spectrasonics, Softube, NI's Massive X, and Yamaha's new Montage M all have a much higher sound quality to them.

They all sound like there's a polish to the lows mids and high's, and openess to their overall sound character that most other plugins don't seem to have. This is imo what makes them sound more analog in many cases alike the hardware I own.

I would love it if Arturia could figure that out, is there a technical reason, why the plugins I mentioned seem to all have that more open sound vs pretty much everything else? Are they coding them in a different format, or way that makes them different to Arturia plugins?

What's your thoughts ?

Subjectivity and context in projects always apply in terms of "best &
better". Every one of those in your list, including Arturia are very good sounding plugins. But in your list there are four companies I now recommend to others to avoid dealing with. Two that I only have because of some "price of a coffee or free" deal and that I've never found a use past playing around with it as a distraction. And of the three we do use, only the u-He gets regular use in multiple ways. Arturia and the other one are used semi-regularly as well far more than the others you consider as "better".

There are three companies/bundles/plugins I keep specifically for my spouse as her favorites, (and I like them too). And the order she gravitates to/uses/plays them are 1.Korg. 2. the one never to be named online or in public. 3. Arturia.

To each their own.
Split hairs as you will...

[vitocorleone123]

The newest Arturia synths sound... fine. Okay. Not bad. Plenty of modulation stuff but the core sound tends to be bland, which is why I sold off/deleted everything I have from Arturia in terms of software. To me, Arturia's main claim to fame is a lot of value for the money.

That said, the UX of the Arturia synths is definitely a step up from Gforce (esp. the poor UI of the latest one).

[sovietpop]

I dont think Gforce plugins sounds better than Arturia.
Arturia have a lot of emulation, some better than other. I can say the Sq80 is dead on, anyway compared to my unit , every single patch i have made sounds the same. The Ms20 V doesnt sound like my Korg ms20M but its good anyway. Lots of great stuff.

I would not bother about Arturia being inferior or whatever, its irrelevant. If you cant make good music with Arturia just do something else.

[Uncle E]

I can't comment on Arturia (I only have Spark and some free stuff) but Chris & co. at GForce are masterful at creating presets.

[foosnark]

The only Arturia softsynths I have are Synclavier and Easel, and they're both quite good. Not even interested in any of the Gforce synths except maybe the Mellotron, and for my purposes the simple cheap Mel-Lofi is good enough.

[jlgrimes11]

There are a few things I notice.

1. Some of Arturia's emulations are old (2000s era technology). While this isn't necessarily bad in itself, alot has improved technology wise since then. There are only a few synths from Arturia still on those old standards but I think that sound over time has kind of stuck with them.

2. Arturias synth outputs tends to be quieter than others. A quieter synth will many times sound duller/less exciting than a louder model.

3. Alot of Arturia's filters have a stairstep quality if you use the mouse to tweak filter. What I found our is if you map to midi controller, stair stepping goes away. But if any user who uses mouse for programming might not even realize this limitation and just assume synth is low quality.

4. Some of Arturia's presets can be on the dull side. That said I enjoy Arturia's presets over most other companies. I find Arturia's Obx not to be as exciting as other emulations but when I played an actual Ob in the store, it's presets reminded me more of the Arturia sound than others.

[plexuss]

Arturia DSP = old tech

Other's DSP = modern DSP = sounds better than old DSP tech