Official Arturia VCollection5 thread

[fmr]

Well, i like presswerk, satin and repro (the newer ones...) over these new arturia skins. They scale better, have good zoom level and all the text is just good visible. In contrast to arturia's.

Yes, I like Presswerk GUI too, but, as I said, totally different styles. I don't think the GUI style of Presswerk would go well in something as complex as, for example, CS-80, ARP 2600 V or Modular V.

[ENV1]

u-he plugs have several settings for gui size, without the installer file becoming humongus

Thats because they use a much smarter approach, namely 1 set of large UI images which are being scaled down as you go below 200%. (Which is fullsize.)

Arturia on the other hand took the probably worst approach thats technically possible: Several sets of UI images in several different sizes consisting of thousands of files in hundrets of folders, (example minimoog: 18.899 files in 528 folders), which not only results in a hefty RAM usage per instance but also creates quite some overhead on the harddrive because all these small files dont always entirely fill a cluster. (Example minimoog: Actual Size of bitmap folder 218MB, Size on Disk 256MB.)

Not good for people on low-capacity SolidState Drives...the whole set of plugins will probably take space in the gigabytes only for the images alone. (Unless of course you manually relocate the stuff, which luckily is possible. But of course the size will stay the same.)

Really makes you wonder who greenlighted such a wasteful UI system. If i had anything to say over there, no way in hell i had sanctioned this because after all better ways are available.

[exmatproton]

after playing and testing the new Mini, i can say i am impressed by what they did. The old one is jaggy and when modulating at high rates, it sounds aweful, to be honest. Lots of digital artifacts/aliasing. That is less apparant in the new one, so props!
The new one sounds better (to my taste; better resonance response), sounds a bit more like the real deal and has smoothing per midi value (e.g. value 56 to 57 when changing cutoff). Which is more of a stepless feel and because of that feels more "real".

[plexuss]

In that case they are different for sure. Don't know which one i like more. Some further testing with high resonance and pulses would result in a defenitive answer.

What is your opinion? Which one do you prefer?

I have owned many of the synths represented in the Collection. I've definitely used them all except a Synclavier and Modular 55 (I have used a 15). In general I was very impressed with the Collection 4 sound - although I didn't do a direct comparison. In fact of all of those the only one I own now is a Minimoog. But they all sound great. Exactly like the originals? Probably not. But close enough for use in music.

Between the Mini 4 and 5... frankly close enough. I mean when it comes to analogue synths, each specimen within a given make/model usually sounds slightly different than the others. the Arturia synths are withing the ballpark as far as I am concerned.

[4damind]

IMO with some scalings the text becomes a bit fuzzy?

[Aloysius]

For me, the text is nearly invisible around the keyboard area on 'Analog Lab 2'.

[exmatproton]

The BP/LP switch on SEM isn't properly aligned. The click (audio) from BP to LP is later, then the actual UI.

[HunterKiller]

u-he plugs have several settings for gui size, without the installer file becoming humongus

Thats because they use a much smarter approach, namely 1 set of large UI images which are being scaled down as you go below 200%. (Which is fullsize.)

Arturia on the other hand took the probably worst approach thats technically possible: Several sets of UI images in several different sizes consisting of thousands of files in hundrets of folders, (example minimoog: 18.899 files in 528 folders), which not only results in a hefty RAM usage per instance but also creates quite some overhead on the harddrive because all these small files dont always entirely fill a cluster. (Example minimoog: Actual Size of bitmap folder 218MB, Size on Disk 256MB.)

Not good for people on low-capacity SolidState Drives...the whole set of plugins will probably take space in the gigabytes only for the images alone. (Unless of course you manually relocate the stuff, which luckily is possible. But of course the size will stay the same.)

Really makes you wonder who greenlighted such a wasteful UI system. If i had anything to say over there, no way in hell i had sanctioned this because after all better ways are available.

Arturia have always seemed to be completely insulated from everyone else, neither interacting, nor learning from them. Whether it be customers or other developers. So it's no wonder they are still doing things in the worst possible way. With only a few bright spots here and there, because of so much pressure on them.

It always was a company who succeeded because of their guis and the guis sold the products to the masses.
There are so many people out there in the world who think simply, and having something pretty on their desktop, in their DAW, something they've always dreamed of having as real hardware...is too much to resist. It's akin to being able to buy the hottest chick of your dreams, for a mere 200 bucks. But as reality often has proven, the external looks/packaging may be a 100% beaut, but the inner substance is very often, very unfortunately, far far less, disappointing to various degrees. Almost as if the product itself knows it is compensating, right from the start.

I wish this wasn't so, but since the early days Arturia has been like this. And instead of focusing years into perfecting a few products sound-wise (like uhe and a few smaller devs), ONE by ONE until they are right, they've instead created a plethora of average ones. Almost taking cue from the post WW2 capitalist world system, where nothing is of the best quality it could be any more, rather just mass-produce everything, distract them with ever more new shit for them to digest and spend on. They will never be fulfilled, but each new product will cement in them that drive to find fulfillment. Because there is no substance to anything, the new product on the horizon promises to fix that. Or maybe the one after it.... maybe

The day a company focuses on building genuine relationships with people, on building genuine quality that no one can criticize, not on selling products, is when it will sell more than it will be able to produce.

[lnikj]

The day a company focuses on building genuine relationships with people, on building genuine quality that no one can criticize, not on selling products, is when it will sell more than it will be able to produce.

I hear U-He are getting really worried that there will be byte shortages in the future

[ENV1]

Arturia always was a company who succeeded because of their guis and the guis sold the products to the masses.

May be, but this is getting ridiculous. 256MB of graphics for a 23MB plugin with so few controls, (minimoog), consisting of literally thousands of files in hundrets of folders, that just seems like total overkill and i can only hope that this will not become the new norm.


(Just imagine what it would do to your C: drive when every plugin would suddenly drop such filebombs on it. Eventually OS backups will take an eternity to make and restore and their own size will of course grow out of control too. And im not even talking about limited space SSDs here.)

[nix808]

Do the bitmap references then allow user skinning though?

[ENV1]

As far as i could see you could theoretically recreate the UIs any way you want, images, item positions, everything.

(Check the XMLs in the resources folders.)

[lnikj]

Maybe some bright spark could write a script to clean out all files from the unwanted resolutions.

Edit: Or replace all the interface graphics with the ones from Poly-Ana

[Echoes in the Attic]

If I'm not mistaken I think arturia have exposed some controls to automation that weren't before, like the switched on the arp and probably waveform selectors on the moog. So that's a cool thing.

[ENV1]

Maybe some bright spark could write a script to clean out all files from the unwanted resolutions.

Only to find that the UI would come up blank unless the one you want to keep happens to be the 200% folder.