2025: The Year of the Monster Synth

[Matt67]

Since I don't want any monsters and my granddaughter is afraid of monsters, I'm going to stay away from all that and stick with what I have. Great synthesizer plugins that give me the excellent sounds I need. Nothing that eats away at me or my wallet.

[zerocrossing]

Was Icarus 3 mentioned? It was released last year, but still a monster.

Icarus was a man. Gorgons are monsters.

[VariKusBrainZ]

Anyone running this on an Intel ultracore ?

Sounds like its a hit n miss affair concerning performance

[PieBerger]

AFAIR there’s a smaller Massive X update around the corner (I hope, anyway ), enabling direct DAW automation and possibly more. And kHz have been working on Phase Plant 3 for a while, with audio in, a vocoder, and a new cloud preset system.

Either way, happy times ahead.

Indeed, a whole new wave of added/missing features to complain about

[nanostream]

AFAIR there’s a smaller Massive X update around the corner (I hope, anyway ), enabling direct DAW automation and possibly more. And kHz have been working on Phase Plant 3 for a while, with audio in, a vocoder, and a new cloud preset system.

Either way, happy times ahead.

Indeed, a whole new wave of added/missing features to complain about

Sorry can’t hear you over the new Pigments filters!

[PieBerger]

AFAIR there’s a smaller Massive X update around the corner (I hope, anyway ), enabling direct DAW automation and possibly more. And kHz have been working on Phase Plant 3 for a while, with audio in, a vocoder, and a new cloud preset system.

Either way, happy times ahead.

Indeed, a whole new wave of added/missing features to complain about

Sorry can’t hear you over the new Pigments filters!

That's some quality Rage right there

[swilow11]

We got Serum 2, Omnisphere 3, Absynth 6, Zebra 3, Falcon 2026. Even Massive X got updated. I probably forgot things too. Pigments 6 and Current 2 were this year, I think.

2025 killed it, people. What's next?

We have the Zebra 3 Beta not the actual finished product that's for 2026

I have all of them however

U-he’s betas are more stable than most companies’ final releases.

Indeed. I've had no glitches whatsoever with it. But yes, it is a beta as was so insightfully pointed out.

[vitocorleone123]

AFAIR there’s a smaller Massive X update around the corner (I hope, anyway ), enabling direct DAW automation and possibly more. And kHz have been working on Phase Plant 3 for a while, with audio in, a vocoder, and a new cloud preset system.

Either way, happy times ahead.

Indeed, a whole new wave of added/missing features to complain about

Sorry can’t hear you over the new Pigments filters!

Some day I'll try Pigments again and I'll be shocked if the filters are competitive. To date, they've been bland, making the synth sound very bland to me. Filters have been perhaps the biggest weak spot Arturia has. I sold Pigments as of v4 or so but have eventually tried a demo of each version (not v7 yet because I've pretty much given up on it), only to be disappointed.

That said, Phase Plant filters to date have been similarly unfortunate.

On the other hand, the new Serum2 filters are among the best on the market.

[nanostream]

Some day I'll try Pigments again and I'll be shocked if the filters are competitive. To date, they've been bland, making the synth sound very bland to me. Filters have been perhaps the biggest weak spot Arturia has. I sold Pigments as of v4 or so but have eventually tried a demo of each version (not v7 yet because I've pretty much given up on it), only to be disappointed.

That said, Phase Plant filters to date have been similarly unfortunate.

On the other hand, the new Serum2 filters are among the best on the market.

I’d say they are closer to PP than to Serum2 (in quality). Ripple and Reverb are clearly inspired by PP‘s phase and filter table shenanigans, although more limited.

I’ll have to test more thoroughly, but with certain sounds I felt they/Rage sound a bit plasticky, especially in higher registers. Not necessarily bad, and certainly not bland imo. Then again, I never thought Pigments sounded bland. At the end it comes down to personal taste I guess.

Filter FM via mod osc is very nice tho!

[vitocorleone123]

Some day I'll try Pigments again and I'll be shocked if the filters are competitive. To date, they've been bland, making the synth sound very bland to me. Filters have been perhaps the biggest weak spot Arturia has. I sold Pigments as of v4 or so but have eventually tried a demo of each version (not v7 yet because I've pretty much given up on it), only to be disappointed.

That said, Phase Plant filters to date have been similarly unfortunate.

On the other hand, the new Serum2 filters are among the best on the market.

I’d say they are closer to PP than to Serum2 (in quality). Ripple and Reverb are clearly inspired by PP‘s phase and filter table shenanigans, although more limited.

I’ll have to test more thoroughly, but with certain sounds I felt they/Rage sound a bit plasticky, especially in higher registers. Not necessarily bad, and certainly not bland imo. Then again, I never thought Pigments sounded bland. At the end it comes down to personal taste I guess.

Filter FM via mod osc is very nice tho!

I should clarify that I was referring to the analog style filters and not the more special / digital kind.

[Rastkovic]

AFAIR there’s a smaller Massive X update around the corner (I hope, anyway ), enabling direct DAW automation and possibly more. And kHz have been working on Phase Plant 3 for a while, with audio in, a vocoder, and a new cloud preset system.

Either way, happy times ahead.

Indeed, a whole new wave of added/missing features to complain about

Sorry can’t hear you over the new Pigments filters!

Some day I'll try Pigments again and I'll be shocked if the filters are competitive. To date, they've been bland, making the synth sound very bland to me. Filters have been perhaps the biggest weak spot Arturia has. I sold Pigments as of v4 or so but have eventually tried a demo of each version (not v7 yet because I've pretty much given up on it), only to be disappointed.

That said, Phase Plant filters to date have been similarly unfortunate.

On the other hand, the new Serum2 filters are among the best on the market.

The standard filters got an update with version 6, in my opinion they sound very good. But of course, it always depends on the expectations.

I should clarify that I was referring to the analog style filters and not the more special / digital kind.

I mean this one, starting at 9:35...

What's New? | Pigments 6

[vitocorleone123]

AFAIR there’s a smaller Massive X update around the corner (I hope, anyway ), enabling direct DAW automation and possibly more. And kHz have been working on Phase Plant 3 for a while, with audio in, a vocoder, and a new cloud preset system.

Either way, happy times ahead.

Indeed, a whole new wave of added/missing features to complain about

Sorry can’t hear you over the new Pigments filters!

Some day I'll try Pigments again and I'll be shocked if the filters are competitive. To date, they've been bland, making the synth sound very bland to me. Filters have been perhaps the biggest weak spot Arturia has. I sold Pigments as of v4 or so but have eventually tried a demo of each version (not v7 yet because I've pretty much given up on it), only to be disappointed.

That said, Phase Plant filters to date have been similarly unfortunate.

On the other hand, the new Serum2 filters are among the best on the market.

The standard filters got an update with version 6, in my opinion they sound very good. But of course, it always depends on the expectations.

I should clarify that I was referring to the analog style filters and not the more special / digital kind.

I mean this one, starting at 9:35...

What's New? | Pigments 6

I did a demo of 6 and deleted it again due to average-at-best virtual analog filters. Again, if I was most interested in other filters perhaps it’d be appealing, but I lean toward analog (or virtual),

[nanostream]

I did a demo of 6 and deleted it again due to average-at-best virtual analog filters. Again, if I was most interested in other filters perhaps it’d be appealing, but I lean toward analog (or virtual),

The new Rage filters are VA. Give them a try and let us know what you think!