Arturia just updated and upgraded their V Collection to version 5. I've used their instruments since they came out, and have kept them all current, so I upgraded and can give a preliminary report.
First, they've added an acoustic piano, a B-3, a Farfisa, s Synclavier (!), and a Fender style electric piano. I haven't spent enough time with these, obviously, to report, except to say that all sound good so far.
But they've also upgraded and redone their earlier releases with new scalable graphics and (it is claimed) improved sound quality.
The graphics are a big improvement; in fact, the entire interface, including the browser, all the editing features, MIDI assignment, and the like, are vastly improved, state-of-the-art for plugins. I like the audio better, but I haven't lived with the emulations for long enough to know if that's just a matter of better sounding presets, or whether the audio engines themselves are actually more accurate. I have to dig in for that.
Having a Synclavier model is epic; I lusted after them when I first got into the commercial scoring biz, but could never quite swing the six figure entry price tag. They had the original designer of the Synclav's software, who had saved all of the original code, working with them on it. It was always a digital synth, so whether it sounds truly analog or not isn't an issue for me.
As many here know from prior posts, I prefer analog stuff to digital stuff in general. These synths do sound really good, however. I'll have to use them in projects to know whether they get lost in a mix, like so many plugins have in the past, or if they really can stand up to analog instruments.
If they can sit in a mix with real hardware instruments, I will be very, very impressed.
And I'll report back.
First, they've added an acoustic piano, a B-3, a Farfisa, s Synclavier (!), and a Fender style electric piano. I haven't spent enough time with these, obviously, to report, except to say that all sound good so far.
But they've also upgraded and redone their earlier releases with new scalable graphics and (it is claimed) improved sound quality.
The graphics are a big improvement; in fact, the entire interface, including the browser, all the editing features, MIDI assignment, and the like, are vastly improved, state-of-the-art for plugins. I like the audio better, but I haven't lived with the emulations for long enough to know if that's just a matter of better sounding presets, or whether the audio engines themselves are actually more accurate. I have to dig in for that.
Having a Synclavier model is epic; I lusted after them when I first got into the commercial scoring biz, but could never quite swing the six figure entry price tag. They had the original designer of the Synclav's software, who had saved all of the original code, working with them on it. It was always a digital synth, so whether it sounds truly analog or not isn't an issue for me.
As many here know from prior posts, I prefer analog stuff to digital stuff in general. These synths do sound really good, however. I'll have to use them in projects to know whether they get lost in a mix, like so many plugins have in the past, or if they really can stand up to analog instruments.
If they can sit in a mix with real hardware instruments, I will be very, very impressed.
And I'll report back.
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