Suggestions for a CPU friendly alternative to Pigments?

[QuietSheep]

I love Pigments, its so easy to use and I get ideas quick, but pressing one note raises 75% of CPU on my DAW (slight exaggeration of course but pads can get to the 70%+ mark)

I need a synth that fits the swiss army knife role Pigments has so I can fit it nicely alongside the synths I use for specific uses like DUNE, Legend, and Diva.

[Igro]

Vital, Serum and Surge XT come to mind. They are similar in many aspects. Surge XT is lightest on CPU.

[chk071]

If you want all the synthesis engines Pigments has (wavetable, analog, sample, granular, additive), I think you have to take a look at the "big boys", Falcon or Halion.

That's the big advantage Pigments has, it has a lot of capabilities and is still easy to use. Frankly, I don't even see much of a competition to what Pigments does.

Might even consider a PC upgrade.

[carrieres]

Hive2, Zebra2, Dune3 or Vital

[Choikdoi]

In swiss army knife terms, VPS Avenger maybe.

[Dencheg]

Vital, Serum and Surge XT come to mind. They are similar in many aspects. Surge XT is lightest on CPU.

They are more different to Pigments than similar. They aren't do-it-all synths with an extensive tagged preset library. Recently I've been percieving Pigments as a "smaller Omnisphere".

Nevertheless, I'd say if not Pigments, than Dune. You get both powerful and efficient.
Or Ana 2 - versatile, with a bunch of cool presets in many genres and great arp implementation

Another suggestion - it's kind of actually strange. Pigments (even though being demanding one) never has been a CPU hog on my 8-year old PC. May be it's a matter of the preset, but it's strange to observe 75% CPU. If it's caused by a simple preset, smth is wrong with the setup

[whassup]

Swiss Army knifes: Zebra2 and SurgeXT. They give you roughly 7000 quality presets for a hundred bucks currently.

[martiu]

Avenger and Falcon both are a little bit more efficient in terms of CPU use, if you can give up the granular sampler (you can always use granular FX like Fragments) Phase Plant is very good option (granular sampler expected in future updates)

[martiu]

I forgot the best advice, just bounce the presets you want to use in a project and dont buy anything new, cheers.

[a9k1tp]

Pigments is the worst cpu optimized synth, maybe it was developed in a hurry. It is good for preset creators and sound designers who do not need more than one instance at a time. But for producers, this synth is a nightmare.

Pigments is the most overrated synth considering the practicality. I can use 3 Dune and create much better sound with lower cpu usage than 1 Pigments.

Coding cpu efficient plugins require very good team of computer programmers and mathematicians. u-he, Synapse Audio, Cytomic etc are a few great examples.

[a9k1tp]

I need a synth that fits the swiss army knife role Pigments has so I can fit it nicely alongside the synths I use for specific uses like DUNE, Legend, and Diva.

Zebra Legacy is a steal at 99 €. It includes Zebra 2, The Dark Zebra and all u-he-hosted Zebra2 soundsets.

[Korg Supporter]

Icarus 3 comes to mind.

[Echoes in the Attic]

I'm demoing Rob Papen Blue 3 right now and it seems like a possible alternative and pretty good on cpu. The mod assignments aren't quite as elegant as Pigments but it's very powerful.

[Echoes in the Attic]

Icarus 3 comes to mind.

There's an Icarus 3? I think there's just Icarus 2, but yeah very powerful and very cpu efficient.

[chk071]

Pigments is the worst cpu optimized synth

Nah.