Arturia Jup-8000 V

[IvyBirds]

This is not "silliness." Every synth developer who knows what they are doing strives to develop a plugin development platform to speed development. It's what Steinberg has done with HALion, what Native Instruments has done with Reaktor and Kontakt, and what UVI has done with Falcon. While it may be more obvious when UVI creates a GUI for one of their Falcon-based sample libraries and calls it an "instrument," there is no difference in Arturia exposing only certain Pigments features and selling that as a new standalone instrument.

It makes way more sense, just in terms of codebase maintenance, for Jup-8000 V to be the same as Pigments under the hood.

Claiming they simply reskinned Pigments and tweaked the classic filter is most definitely silly. And what's the evidence? "The supersaw sounds the same to me." That's the level of technical analysis.

Or the fact they have obviously done that in the past with a bunch of instruments in the V Collection? They fact that it can't load presets from the original and doesn't have all the features that the original has?

So what you are saying is there was a meeting in France and the powers that be at Arturia decided to invest capital and start from scratch to make a JP-8000 emulation that doesn't actually emulate the JP-8000, doesn't actually sound like the JP-8000, doesn't have the same effects as the JP-8000 and can't load it's presets? I mean they have a bunch of other Synths that can load the presets of what they are emulating and historically they add features to the synthesis engines not take them away

But sure let's just say that Arturia actually just failed for no reason, even it's biggest fans in this thread acknowledge the omissions and the fact it doesn't sound like the original

[bonch]

What Arturia did was to take Pigments and change the GUI to strip out everything from Pigments that wasn't needed to emulate a JP-8000. Then they tweaked the envelope a touch and tweaked the "classic" filter from Pigments a bit, or just made a new one that kinds sorta sounds like the one in the JP-8000

What a conspiracy theory. Arturia threads don't disappoint when it comes to silliness.

What else did they do? If they started from scratch why does it lack the basic features of the original and can't load presets from the original, and has some serious discrepancy in sound from the original

So what are you are saying is that Arturia just sucked and made a product from scratch that doesn't actually emulate the synth they set out to do and in that regard is a total failure

Awesome

You can dislike the synth and think it sucks and claim it has a "serious discrepancy in sound" (?) and is a total failure, blah blah blah. That doesn't make it any less silly to instantly latch onto a conspiracy theory that they simply reskinned Pigments because a KVR poster thinks the supersaw sounds the same.

The hardware does seem to sound somewhat better, juicier.

I was never a JP-8000 fan. To me, it has the same harsh, grainy digital sound, and its unpleasant trance sounds are practically indistinguishable.

[chagzuki]

I was never a JP-8000 fan. To me, it has the same harsh, grainy digital sound, and its unpleasant trance sounds are practically indistinguishable.

In the second video the difference is sometimes extremely small.

Well, trance is rather like Iron Maiden done with detuned saws. This seems to me a very nice synth to use, the layout and workflow is great. I always avoided the digital OSC in Diva, since Diva is supposed to be proper analog, but these particular choices of building blocks work really well for designing sounds.

[IvyBirds]

What Arturia did was to take Pigments and change the GUI to strip out everything from Pigments that wasn't needed to emulate a JP-8000. Then they tweaked the envelope a touch and tweaked the "classic" filter from Pigments a bit, or just made a new one that kinds sorta sounds like the one in the JP-8000

What a conspiracy theory. Arturia threads don't disappoint when it comes to silliness.

What else did they do? If they started from scratch why does it lack the basic features of the original and can't load presets from the original, and has some serious discrepancy in sound from the original

So what are you are saying is that Arturia just sucked and made a product from scratch that doesn't actually emulate the synth they set out to do and in that regard is a total failure

Awesome

You can dislike the synth and think it sucks and claim it has a "serious discrepancy in sound" (?) and is a total failure, blah blah blah. That doesn't make it any less silly to instantly latch onto a conspiracy theory that they simply reskinned Pigments because a KVR poster thinks the supersaw sounds the same.

Why does it have to be a conspiracy theory to think that someone at Arturia decided the Supersaw in Pigments which they obviously think sounds like a JP-8000 would be a good thing to build a plugin around? Especially when they have been making a ton of instruments in the V Collection based on Pigments the last several product cycles

[Super Piano Hater 64]

It's par for the course that Arturia's first attempt at emulating a piece of hardware isn't entirely accurate. Give it a few years and they'll make whatever improvements they think are worth the investment.

Like most developers that release loads of different synth plugins, they surely have some way of reusing code between different products, most likely in a Reaktor-like framework where you can wire modules together and experiment with different designs. Pigments would be just one of many products they built this way, and every single plugin they make would share some amount of code with it. That should really be pretty obvious if you sit down and think about their business model for a few minutes. It's not a conspiracy theory at all. There's just no other reasonable way for a reasonably-sized team of competent developers to build something like the V collection in less than the average human lifespan.

[hurricaneaudiolab]

My theory is that Arturia sat down early in development and made a conscious decision not to go for a full 1:1 recreation. Maybe because it was too complex. Maybe because it was faster and cheaper to deliver something that captured "enough" of the vibe without sweating the details. Maybe they believed that most users today wouldn’t know (or care) about things like dual layers or oscillator quirks.

From the manual:

“First and foremost, we are obsessively dedicated to reproducing the authentic sound and experience of the real thing. But that doesn’t mean we restrict the design to a knob-for-knob copy of the original in a way that would limit options for you, the sonic explorer. Instead, we strive to add functionality that both preserves the spirit of the original and makes it make musical sense in a modern, DAW-based creator’s environment.”

So I read that as them wanting the feeling of the JP-8000, not the full machine. It’s about the spirit of the original. They admit this isn’t a pure clone, it's their interpretation of what the JP-8000 might have been if designed today with no hardware limitations. I get that. I even respect it to a degree, but I don’t agree with it in this case.

A huge part of me feels like this was a missed opportunity. The JP-8000 was a landmark synth because it defined the sound of late-'90s and early-2000s trance and dance music. We’re still talking about the Supersaw today and countless synths seek to emulate and or modernize that sound. It deserved the same hardcore emulation treatment that Arturia gave to the DX7V, the CZV, and the SQ8V. Instead, the Jup-8000V ends up being a solid synth that sounds "JP-ish" but is ultimately more than a halfway tribute. And that sucks a little because with just a few more steps, it could have been truly great.

I believe the JUP-8000v does in fact sound like the JP-8000. I know it does because I have compared it to my JP-8080. You can hear it for yourself in Sean Tyas’s patch demo. That right there is the sound of the JP and it is unmistakable. But there’s definitely room for another (multiplatform) developer to give this a shot – add the dual layers, sysex import, be faithful to the synth’s quirks. I'd be all over that and it would quickly make me forget about Arturia's.

[_leras]

Same here .
Except if you lowpass it and add some long attack it can work for some padsounds .
Plucked raw supersaw sounds remind me of everything that was horrible in the nineties : glowsticks , trance ,and the song "Freed from desire "

I hear you but I don't think that had a jp 8000

This is a the great but perhaps slightly over used sound, but I think it still has more character that a lot of saws since then.



That said the spire presets link earlier in this thread was great, had modern supersaws and really quite bubbly acid sounds.

Jp 8000 €149
Arturia v collection upgrade from 8 to 11 €299
Spire $89 (current sale price)

Hmmmm....

[_leras]

From the manual:

“First and foremost, we are obsessively dedicated to reproducing the authentic sound and experience of the real thing. But that doesn’t mean we restrict the design to a knob-for-knob copy of the original in a way that would limit options for you, the sonic explorer. Instead, we strive to add functionality that both preserves the spirit of the original and makes it make musical sense in a modern, DAW-based creator’s environment.”

So I read that as them wanting the feeling of the JP-8000, not the full machine. It’s about the spirit of the original. They admit this isn’t a pure clone, it's their interpretation of what the JP-8000 might have been if designed today with no hardware limitations. I get that. I even respect it to a degree, but I don’t agree with it in this case.

A huge part of me feels like this was a missed opportunity. The JP-8000 was a landmark synth because it defined the sound of late-'90s and early-2000s trance and dance music. We’re still talking about the Supersaw today and countless synths seek to emulate and or modernize that sound. It deserved the same hardcore emulation treatment that Arturia gave to the DX7V, the CZV, and the SQ8V. Instead, the Jup-8000V ends up being a solid synth that sounds "JP-ish" but is ultimately more than a halfway tribute. And that sucks a little because with just a few more steps, it could have been truly great.

I have to agree with this. I think sometimes the limitations in the past forced people like Roland to really push to get a good sound out.

I do like the sound of this, but back to back with examples of the hardware it seems (very) slightly lacking.

I think lack of limitations is also perhaps why sometimes software synths are a bit bland and generic.

[Hyperbole]

This is not "silliness." Every synth developer who knows what they are doing strives to develop a plugin development platform to speed development. It's what Steinberg has done with HALion, what Native Instruments has done with Reaktor and Kontakt, and what UVI has done with Falcon. While it may be more obvious when UVI creates a GUI for one of their Falcon-based sample libraries and calls it an "instrument," there is no difference in Arturia exposing only certain Pigments features and selling that as a new standalone instrument.

It makes way more sense, just in terms of codebase maintenance, for Jup-8000 V to be the same as Pigments under the hood.

Claiming they simply reskinned Pigments and tweaked the classic filter is most definitely silly. And what's the evidence? "The supersaw sounds the same to me." That's the level of technical analysis.

If you had taken the time to actually read my post, you would realize the "evidence" is that this is both software development best practice AND the smart way to do business.

You might want to avoid a career in software development, as you seem incapable of grasping how that industry works – that is, when it is working well.

[Hyperbole]

That said the spire presets link earlier in this thread was great, had modern supersaws and really quite bubbly acid sounds.

Jp 8000 €149
Arturia v collection upgrade from 8 to 11 €299
Spire $89 (current sale price)

Hmmmm....

Even if Spire cost the same as the entire V Collection upgrade ($299,) it would be worth it over this dud of an upgrade, IMO.

That's said, the Virus TI still sounds bigger and better than Spire, to me. Spire has a pleasing squelchy quality that was clearly inspired (unavoidable pun) by the Virus. But if you compare The Usual Suspects osTIrus plugin to Spire, the TI still rules.

While the JP8000 kicked off the Trance sound, the Virus TI took it to the next level. I'm just glad that there is no need to wait for Arturia or someone else to emulate the TI (or for Adam Szabo to ever release a Mac version of Viper). The osTIrus plugin works great and perfectly reproduces the Virus sound, including the thousands of free presets still available on the Access Music site.

[bonch]

Why does it have to be a conspiracy theory to think that someone at Arturia decided the Supersaw in Pigments which they obviously think sounds like a JP-8000 would be a good thing to build a plugin around?

Because the claim isn't that they re-used a supersaw voicing algorithm. It was that they simply took Pigments, reskinned it, tweaked the classic filter a little (whatever that means), and boom, a JP-8000 plug-in is for sale.

Especially when they have been making a ton of instruments in the V Collection based on Pigments the last several product cycles

You've claimed this twice now without naming anything, but you're probably talking about the Augmented series, everyone's favorite non-controversial V Collection instruments. They're essentially performance-focused romplers with hybrid synthesis functionality. Who cares if they're re-using sample playback or modulation code for romplers? That's not "based on Pigments."

Zebra 3 will incorporate work done for Hive. Does that mean Zebra 3 is based on Hive? There seems to be a misunderstanding of how software development works and how low-level components might be re-used without it being merely a reskin of another project.

This also isn't the first time an emulated synth hasn't supported patch imports. Matrix 12, For example

The collection will sell well despite people claiming Arturia dropped the ball, a year and a half will pass, and we'll do it all over again for whatever drops with V Collection 12. It's the Arturia cycle.

[bonch]

If you had taken the time to actually read my post, you would realize the "evidence" is that this is both software development best practice AND the smart way to do business.

I'm glad you put scare quotes around "evidence" since speculation in a forum post doesn't count.

[IvyBirds]

Why does it have to be a conspiracy theory to think that someone at Arturia decided the Supersaw in Pigments which they obviously think sounds like a JP-8000 would be a good thing to build a plugin around?

Because the claim isn't that they re-used a supersaw voicing algorithm. It was that they simply took Pigments, reskinned it, tweaked the classic filter a little (whatever that means), and boom, a JP-8000 plug-in is for sale.

Only that's not what I said, but sure spout conspiracy theories all you want

you're probably talking about the Augmented series, everyone's favorite non-controversial V Collection instruments. They're essentially performance-focused romplers with hybrid synthesis functionality. Who cares if they're re-using sample playback or modulation code for romplers? That's not "based on Pigments."

They most certainly are based on Pigments however and that becomes extremely obvious to anyone who has experience using both, many people think this exact thing it's not just me

Pigments is a pretty awesome plugin, it has many great features, engines and can make different sounds for different genres

Why wouldn't Arturia reuse their IP for other products? So if you have a product that has a great sampler engine that can make lots of lush Ambient sounds, why would you as a software developer reinvent the wheel when you can just make a version of that instrument that has the features to quickly make a new instrument that you can market as part of the new Collection you like to sell every 18 months or so

That is not a conspiracy theory that is standard practice in software development and marketing

The reality is that Arturia these days is focused on being a hardware synth company, a MIDI controller and MIDI sequencer company, and a virtual instrument company, and an effects plugin company. That's a lot of irons in the fire

Not sure why anyone would be surprised to think they would reinvent Pigments into another instrument so they can market something different? You are already almost all the way there after all

Arturia has a frame work called TAE that they use for a TON of their Synths why is so hard to think that Pigments or the engine underneath it is another such framework

After all, you can use all of them in Analog Lab which is a significantly smaller download than the V Collection is so they obviously have some sort of very common synth engine

[bonch]

Only that's not what I said, but sure spout conspiracy theories all you want

You wrote: "What Arturia did was to take Pigments and change the GUI to strip out everything from Pigments that wasn't needed to emulate a JP-8000. Then they tweaked the envelope a touch and tweaked the 'classic' filter from Pigments a bit, or just made a new one that kinds sorta sounds like the one in the JP-8000"

They most certainly are based on Pigments however and that becomes extremely obvious to anyone who has experience using both, many people think this exact thing it's not just me ... That is not a conspiracy theory that is standard practice in software development and marketing

If you mean there is shared core functionality such as sample playback, some of the filters, and some of the modulation sources and effects, then that's most likely true and is common sense. However, to claim that these as well as Jup-8000 in particular are "based on Pigments" in the context of the statements made earlier implying that they simply made a new GUI on top of Pigments with a few minor tweaks and gave it a new name is a silly conspiracy theory.

TAE is most likely a component-modeling framework similar to that used by other companies, such as Softube (there was an article about theirs years ago) and probably every other major plug-in maker, in which common infrastructure and algorithms are shared. If you implement an anti-aliasing algorithm or a modulation source or a diode behavior or whatever once, it makes sense to make it modular and reuse it. That's not the same thing as plopping a new GUI onto Pigments, tweaking the filter a little, and calling it a JP-8000 emulation.

[Hyperbole]

If you had taken the time to actually read my post, you would realize the "evidence" is that this is both software development best practice AND the smart way to do business.

I'm glad you put scare quotes around "evidence" since speculation in a forum post doesn't count.

No, but the manner in which all leading software is developed (and how all successful software businesses are run) indicates that you don't know what you are talking about.

You might want to leave this to people with experience in such matters. Otherwise, you'll continue to sound ignorant and foolish.