Arturia Pigments 3 is out!

[chk071]

I made a short comparison of sound between Diva, Massive X, and Pigments using the same sounding patch based on Van Halen's 1984 filter sweep. I didn't put a huge amount of effort into this, so please give me a break lol. Which do you think sounds the best?

Interesting comparison though I note that on Diva you are using a classic analog filter where on Pigments you are using the default clean multimode filter. If you want a classic analog sound look on the filters tab, where you will find accurately modelled analog filters borrowed from V collection. You can choose from Moog ladder, SEM, Matrix, Roland Jupiter or Buchla filters. It would be interesting to see the same comparison when correctly matching the same type of filter across the synths.

The mini filter was the best sounding to me. The others don't give me a similar sound to the actual sound from the oberheim.

To be totally honest with you, I'm not surprised about that... the filters are kind of the weakest part of Pigments, IMO. In general, in the Arturia synths.

[Fleer]

Strange, as they seem to have good filters in their FX.

[Examigan]

I think it would be better to hear it compared using OB-Xa V instead of Pigments, as I believe Eddie used the OB-Xa on much of that album. Pigments sounds pretty good to me there, though it's not an emulation of any one synth.

[nirm123]

Strange, as they seem to have good filters in their FX.

Exactly. and these filters were taken from their synths (together some modulation addition but the basic sound is identical).

Also, these synths from which the FX filters came from are relatively old, the new ones (jup8-v4 for example, whose filter was also added to pigments) sound even better.

[LoveEnigma18]

I made a short comparison of sound between Diva, Massive X, and Pigments using the same sounding patch based on Van Halen's 1984 filter sweep. I didn't put a huge amount of effort into this, so please give me a break lol. Which do you think sounds the best?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1l9y2APu_0g

Good comparison.

Diva sounds the fattest (perhaps that's the reference preset here for recreation?). Massive X and Pigments were about the same in the low end, and while both sounded great, Pigments sounds surprisingly good for this type of sound. Massive X seems to have less resonance compared to others and still doesn't have that fatness - I wonder it is something to do with the recreation of the patch?

The Asimov filter won't go very far in terms of resonance.

There's a state variable filter, which should mimic the Oberheim filter better (think it's loosely modelled on the SEM filter). Also, if you want to replicate that sloppy "envelope lags behind" sound, you can use the voice randomization (VR) modulator on the attack stage, or anything else, of the filter envelope.

I see. Thanks for the suggestion.

[Biome_Digital]

I made a short comparison of sound between Diva, Massive X, and Pigments using the same sounding patch based on Van Halen's 1984 filter sweep. I didn't put a huge amount of effort into this, so please give me a break lol. Which do you think sounds the best?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1l9y2APu_0g

You haven't go the envelopes the same and you should have used a different filter in Pigments.

My recommendation would be: Uhbie filter in Diva, SEM filter in Pigments, SVF filter in Massive X.

SEM is my favourite filter in Pigments.

[3ptguitarist]

Thanks for the advice everyone. I'm a beginner at synthesis and I don't know much about filters.

[zzz00m]

SEM is my favourite filter in Pigments.

I love what Cherry Audio did with the SEM in their Eight Voice synth! I also picked up their SEM modules for the Voltage Modular!

[Arashi]

I love what Cherry Audio did with the SEM in their Eight Voice synth! I also picked up their SEM modules for the Voltage Modular!

It does sound quite good. Eight Voice is their best sounding plugin overall.

[zzz00m]

I love what Cherry Audio did with the SEM in their Eight Voice synth! I also picked up their SEM modules for the Voltage Modular!

It does sound quite good. Eight Voice is their best sounding plugin overall.

I think that Cherry may have raised the bar a bit with their recent MemoryMode (Memory Moog emulation) release. Check it out!

[Arashi]

I love what Cherry Audio did with the SEM in their Eight Voice synth! I also picked up their SEM modules for the Voltage Modular!

It does sound quite good. Eight Voice is their best sounding plugin overall.

I think that Cherry may have raised the bar a bit with their recent MemoryMode (Memory Moog emulation) release. Check it out!

I have it. It’s good too. CPU usage can get quite high though. Their previous plugins are all very efficient.

[Rastkovic]

I made a short comparison of sound between Diva, Massive X, and Pigments using the same sounding patch based on Van Halen's 1984 filter sweep. I didn't put a huge amount of effort into this, so please give me a break lol. Which do you think sounds the best?

Interesting comparison though I note that on Diva you are using a classic analog filter where on Pigments you are using the default clean multimode filter. If you want a classic analog sound look on the filters tab, where you will find accurately modelled analog filters borrowed from V collection. You can choose from Moog ladder, SEM, Matrix, Roland Jupiter or Buchla filters. It would be interesting to see the same comparison when correctly matching the same type of filter across the synths.

The mini filter was the best sounding to me. The others don't give me a similar sound to the actual sound from the oberheim.

To be totally honest with you, I'm not surprised about that... the filters are kind of the weakest part of Pigments, IMO. In general, in the Arturia synths.

That's interesting, how do you come to this conclusion?

In my ears, it sounds that their synths are programmed with a focus on cpu efficiency. They sound like. In fact, I don't know if they are cpu efficient. It's already okay for me, when one instance of a plugin doesn't burn my cpu....

[chk071]

I made a short comparison of sound between Diva, Massive X, and Pigments using the same sounding patch based on Van Halen's 1984 filter sweep. I didn't put a huge amount of effort into this, so please give me a break lol. Which do you think sounds the best?

Interesting comparison though I note that on Diva you are using a classic analog filter where on Pigments you are using the default clean multimode filter. If you want a classic analog sound look on the filters tab, where you will find accurately modelled analog filters borrowed from V collection. You can choose from Moog ladder, SEM, Matrix, Roland Jupiter or Buchla filters. It would be interesting to see the same comparison when correctly matching the same type of filter across the synths.

The mini filter was the best sounding to me. The others don't give me a similar sound to the actual sound from the oberheim.

To be totally honest with you, I'm not surprised about that... the filters are kind of the weakest part of Pigments, IMO. In general, in the Arturia synths.

That's interesting, how do you come to this conclusion?

How does anyone come to such a conclusion? Probably by comparing.

Pigments sounds nice, but, the filters suck a bit. Which is a shame, because, filters can be an integral part of many sounds, and really add a lot to them. ESPECIALLY with synths which feature many waveforms without much harmonic content, like many wavetable synths.

If I had to conclude it in one word, I would say "lacklustre". If I compare it to Largo, then Largo begs me to play with the filters, while Pigments says "Meh... yes, there's also filters in me.".

If you don't really play around much with resonance, or snappy sounds, they're probably alright for you.

[Rastkovic]

I asked, because the low input is sometimes a problem (in terms of harmonic content and/or dB) and not the filter by itself. Aside from PianoV, I have no Arturia plugins on my system anymore, so I can't test it. Maybe I have to install at least Pigments again.

But(!), as far as I remember, the SEM filter was not that bad....

[nirm123]

none of them are bad, all pigments filters are great.