Please convince me NOT to buy Arturia Pigment 6

[liquidsound]

I demoed many times since it came out.
I’ve never liked enough to buy it even at the $69 offer.

But then, one day, the whole negative experience evaporated and took the deal.

Great synth indeed.

[Vince]

I don't know what it is about Pigments. It has a nice clean functional UI. It's versatile and sounds great. And yet I hardly ever feel like using it.

what does it lack in your opinion ?

[jancivil]

Tarriifffssssss!

Inflation.

non sequitur

[swilow11]

I don't know what it is about Pigments. It has a nice clean functional UI. It's versatile and sounds great. And yet I hardly ever feel like using it.

what does it lack in your opinion ?

Just jumping in cos why not?

I feel like Pigments has heaps of B+ features. On their own, each engine is really nice. VA does the trick, can add analogue drift and feed these oscillators into a variety of filter types. Fm sounds good too. Granular is relatively simple but works, and modifiers like the resonator are great. Wavetable engine is good too, nice warp modes and good factory tables. The harmonic engine is interesting albeit limited as far ass additive synthesis goes. The modal engine is nice- limited but an interesting additional texture. Fx are decent- I like the pitch shift delay and the shimmer sounds pretty. The sequencer is probably A-. Modulation wise, you're covered very nicely. But wysiwyg- you're not able to add more (or less). This is generally fine though.

It's just that none of it is great. Phase Plant also has B+ components, and things like the filters and VA engine are maybe B- imo but the almost limitless modulation options, multiple FX lanes (which Pigments sort of has) which can be per voice if you want to start a fire in your studio is great, and things like Snapheap and Multipass really elevate it. Pigments just doesn't have anything outstanding imo. It is fun and easy enough to use, it sounds good albeit somewhat tepid but it doesn't really offer anything mind blowing or all that unique. I've owned it for 3 years and still find myself forgetting it exists. I never feel at home using it. I have to make myself use it.

I prefer Current which has better FX and things like granular are implemented just a little bit better. I really love the sub oscillator in Current which is actually a mini additive engine, and the chord sequencer is a nice touch. It's probably the FX that elevate Current over Pigments imo. And I prefer the gui in Current too. But overall, I mainly use Serum 2. If I want granular, I use the granular engine in Kontakt (the one in the Ashlight/Straylight series). For additive, I'm using Razor. For modal/PM, it's Prism. For VA I will use Talmod or BX Oberhausen.

I always imagine there will be a point where Pigments will finally click with me and I'll use it more but until I stop forgetting it exists, this doesn't seem like it'll happen.

In short, demo it extensively because it's one of those synths that seem great and many people love it but many people find it underwhelming or almost boring.

[Ah_Dziz]

It's not the most exciting thing but it does well with everything it does. I feel the same way about diva but I still use it all the time. If you don't like it for some reason that's cool too, but it is useful all the time. It has good MPE support and microtuning support, works as a processor etc. grab it on sale. Havi6all the free updates was a definite plus.

[Igro]

Pigment 6 is a workhorse. It sounds great, in my opinion. They really polished well that version. I have a feeling that some folks even haven't played with the latest additions.

[martinjuenke]

I have a feeling that some folks even haven't played with the latest additions.

But they have strong opinions.

[Igro]

I have a feeling that some folks even haven't played with the latest additions.

But they have strong opinions.

Like: "I just don't like it, but don't know why".

[Vortifex]

I don't know what it is about Pigments. It has a nice clean functional UI. It's versatile and sounds great. And yet I hardly ever feel like using it.

what does it lack in your opinion ?

I don't think it lacks anything in terms of features. I think for me it's about the sound character. It can sound great, very fat and analog with some of its filters. The granular is cool. But outside of that, I find it has a tendency to sound weirdly airy and weightless, like something is missing from the frequency spectrum that's not a simple EQ cut. Maybe that's just placebo.

[stoopicus]

I dunno man Pigments sounds great to me. I just found I always used Phase Plant instead.

[Vince]

I prefer Current which has better FX and things like granular are implemented just a little bit better. I really love the sub oscillator in Current which is actually a mini additive engine, and the chord sequencer is a nice touch. It's probably the FX that elevate Current over Pigments imo. And I prefer the gui in Current too. But overall, I mainly use Serum 2. If I want granular, I use the granular engine in Kontakt (the one in the Ashlight/Straylight series). For additive, I'm using Razor. For modal/PM, it's Prism. For VA I will use Talmod or BX Oberhausen.

I always imagine there will be a point where Pigments will finally click with me and I'll use it more but until I stop forgetting it exists, this doesn't seem like it'll happen.

In short, demo it extensively because it's one of those synths that seem great and many people love it but many people find it underwhelming or almost boring.

Thanks for your detailed and well explained opinion.

I am going to pay a closer look at Prism, Talmod and BX Oberhausen.

[Vince]

Pigment 6 is a workhorse. It sounds great, in my opinion. They really polished well that version. I have a feeling that some folks even haven't played with the latest additions.

You're right, I might have made my opinion based on the old features ... which latest additions do you think should be tested to maybe change my mind ?

[mabian]

Try Sequencer and Arpeggiator, they are really powerful and have a lot of generative features to produce random - but guided - variations in pitch, gate, velocity, ecc.

Not sure other synths have such a powerful set of arp/seq functions. Serum has some, but they are not completely the same.

- Mario

[stoopicus]

Try Sequencer and Arpeggiator, they are really powerful and have a lot of generative features to produce random - but guided - variations in pitch, gate, velocity, ecc.

They can also output MIDI for use in other synths, Arturia made a killer feature there. That was my main use of Pigments, actually

It's a really nice arp and seq.

[Igro]

Pigment 6 is a workhorse. It sounds great, in my opinion. They really polished well that version. I have a feeling that some folks even haven't played with the latest additions.

You're right, I might have made my opinion based on the old features ... which latest additions do you think should be tested to maybe change my mind ?

The have added some experimental filters and they sound very usable. The vocoder in FX section is a nice addition. They have also improved the modulation assignment. It is much faster now. And the Modal Oscillator for organic plucks is very musical (and it has plenty of options for a module).