But here’s the overview of why followers of this soft synth are suddenly excited to block out some music making time with the update:Ĭross modulation between engine 1 + 2 (with either as modulation source, so flexible routing – something you don’t always get with the historic models). Pigments 3.5 is free, so you can save a fair bit of time by just running Arturia Software Center and hitting update. It’s not just swapping bits and bobs of generic synthesis parts, which was commonplace early in the soft synth era, but actually remaining true both to some authentic models and some new, particular creations. But the other twist from Arturia lately has been some cross-pollination. Now, we sort of know Arturia for their recreations of historic instruments – I really love their new Ensoniq SQ80. In-the-box sound making is essentially having a sound studio in some sort of virtual form, so it’s all about what that sonic kitchen is stocked up with. It’s down to having a range of tools that can lead you in musical and sonic directions. But what tends to set the best of them apart is not just an endless set of modules and routing – the sort of on-paper, spec horsepower for synths. There are a lot of excellent leading-edge synths. Pigments now adds cross-modulation, distortion, new filters and wavetables, and M1 native performance, but the sum is greater than those parts.Īrturia’s Pigments is something special. For all the hardware and software out there, some tools just shine as dreams for sound design – and this particular update is well worth the wait.

Pigments 3 free