Pigments 5 redundant if i have Falcon 3 and VPS Avenger?

[zahush76]

Pigments 5 is currently on sale for $49 for owners of other arturia plugins, so i was wondering.
I already have these two "mega synths", each covering VA, FM, wavetables, granular, sample manipulation etc etc.

Does Pigments 5 offer something the others don't, in my case?
The only thing i was thinking of was perhaps the ability to input incoming audio and use pigments as a complex fx processor.

Someone here has Falcon 3 or VPS Avenger and also decided to get pigments 5 and see the value in it or if it brings something else to the table these other two don't?

Of course this wasn't a question if i didn't own these other two.

[DrGonzo]

Just a few thoughts as I've made sounds for both.

I would say Avenger 2 is the winner as it just sounds fantastic, even if you are not into dance genres - the sound quality is of the top layer. The only thing I don't like about Avenger is the interface, it's a bit messy. But that's not a huge thing. You just have to learn how to live with its sometimes weird way of doing things.

Pigments is cool because Arturia is releasing yearly updates for it for free. The sample engine and the effects are great. The sample library is not huge, but have some good and interesting material in it. I am not fond of the internal synth engine in Pigments. It's not bad - it's just not as good as the other parts of Pigments.

Between the two Avenger would be my first choice. But I do expect Pigments to evolve into cool things in the future. Falcon also sounds great, but building sounds in it is almost as painful as with Kontakt.

/C

[IvyBirds]

I have had Pigments and Falcon since the first releases of both

At $49 for me Pigments would be a no brainer

I like Falcon, I know it well, it's deep it's powerful, but Pigments is a joy to use and is much easier to get around

It's very visually based and very logical. Pigments takes me places I don't go when I use Falcon

[pandafish]

I haven’t checked out Avenger so no comment there. Pigments and Falcon have a lot of overlap - the biggest advantage of Pigments for me would be that it’s a little lighter and more immediate with most of the UI visible and a simpler workflow. It’s also very affordable and regularly updated.

[aMUSEd]

Pigments for me, although I have the other 2, Pigments is the one I go to the most, it's the most accessible and musical for me to work with, and it has the most diverse range of engines including a very original additive/harmonic engine.

[twal]

Pigments is its own thing. Is there overlap? Yeah, but there's a lot of overlap with a lot of these big daddies and Pigments which is a step down for the most part in options. I'll say this, I love Pigments, it has unique modulation abilities as far as I know that are unique to it, as well as its step/arp sequencer that is a joy to use, sleek, has randomizer with cool options. I know some don't like the sound but to me it has different qualities because of the modulation that can be difficult to achieve in other synths (I've been told) and pads as well as keys have a very enjoyable, tone, I would have to say...

[Ah_Dziz]

Pigments is great. It's very versatile without seeming like a big ol workstation. It also supports MPE and mts-esp tuning. It's a great balance of deep and quick to work with. The other two seem more like a workstation to me and I've got enough of that kind of stuff with Omnisphere and kontakt ( I know they aren't directly comparable ). I'd say it very much depends on what you need as well as what you already have. I have a bizarrely large amount of plugins and don't see Pigments as redundant at all. I might have if I hadn't gotten such a huge discount on pigments though.

[Jac459]

I hate to say it because pigments is nice but.... To me you are absolutely right in what you suspect. It is redundant for me. Avenger 2 is better in sound and much much more powerful. The UI is a bit less shiny than pigments but after a bit of practice it totally make sense.
Falcon if you like the presets. UVI soundwares are great. But I am still not able to understand the workflow.


One advantage of pigments is that it can be easier on CPU than avenger 2 and even falcon.

[W23]

I don’t have Avenger, but I do have Falcon and Pigments. I think the experience would be different enough to justify Pigments, even though there is a bit of crossover between all 3. Pigments interface alone makes it worth owning, and it’s not “just another wavetable synthesizer”. It’s a joy to use and really encourages experimentation.

[DrGonzo]

Falcon if you like the presets. UVI soundwares are great. But I am still not able to understand the workflow.

Yeah, this is my experience as well. Extremely powerful with a great sound quality and absolutely fantastic libraries.

But getting into it requires serious dedication.

[Razzia]

I'm not trying to convert anyone to my perspective, but I never really felt Avenger and Pigments share a niche as closely as the frequent comparisons would suggest. Avenger has more bells and whistles and more flexibility in the number of oscillators filters, modulators, effects, routing options and so on. It's closer to Phase Plant than Pigments IMO, with Pigments and Current being more comparable to one another.

A lot of people say they like the Pigments UI and not so much the Avenger one, so that's a facet I understand. I wish I loved Pigments UI as much as everyone else seems to. It's prettier than Avenger but Avenger always felt more intuitive to me as it's very smartly designed. Current too, for that matter.

[zahush76]

Pigments for me, although I have the other 2, Pigments is the one I go to the most, it's the most accessible and musical for me to work with, and it has the most diverse range of engines including a very original additive/harmonic engine.

I don't know how that's implemented on Pigments but Avenger also has additive.

[zahush76]

PI'll say this, I love Pigments, it has unique modulation abilities as far as I know that are unique to it, as well as its step/arp sequencer that is a joy to use, sleek, has randomizer with cool options.

I get that, but my concern is that Falcon, for example, also has a plethora of arps, step arps, step sequencers, randomizers, bolean etc:



As does Avenger. It's step arp has - in addition to the usual suspects - randomizer with lock to scale if you want, chance (of note, velocity, gate etc), roll the dice to generate, it also has a repeat mode where each cycle it generates a new sequence while playing.

[twal]

PI'll say this, I love Pigments, it has unique modulation abilities as far as I know that are unique to it, as well as its step/arp sequencer that is a joy to use, sleek, has randomizer with cool options.

I get that, but my concern is that Falcon, for example, also has a plethora of arps, step arps, step sequencers, randomizers, bolean etc:



As does Avenger. It's step arp has - in addition to the usual suspects - randomizer with lock to scale if you want, chance (of note, velocity, gate etc), roll the dice to generate, it also has a repeat mode where each cycle it generates a new sequence while playing.

It may just come down to workflow. Not sure how Avenger and Falcon stack up in comparison to Pigments stacking lfos, functions with combinate, but fast landscapes and quick ways to get results modulating are easily accessible. In Halion it's quite sophisticated making a patch like Falcon, so there's that while Pigments you just jump in. Not sure about Falcons seqs/apps when it comes to enjoyment compared to Pigments.

For people wondering, what to get, it comes down to sacrifice. Yeah Falcon and Avenger ( Avenger not so much as Halion, Melda..) have much much more capabilities than Pigments but you have to trade ease, quickness and understanding in exchange for those abilities; and possibly fun. Avenger is pretty easy compared to Falcon and Halion as those two latter are huge tasks at hand just to be able to do much of anything really drastically more sophisticated than Pigments (It's my understanding Falcon and Halion have many more abilities than Avenger).

Mostly only very, very, serious designers have need (as far as sound design) for the likes of Falcon and Halion. I think Avenger is a cakewalk compared to those two. And, Pigments is a nice balance when it comes to abilities between it all imho...

[twal]

To be frank, seems most people don't need much more than Pigments (and/or other instruments similar in nature) and sample based products if you want to simply make music...