Advice on Arturia V Collection 6

Envato Authors AudioJungle
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On NI´s website its on sale right now (5 days left) and i have to say: 50% off for 21 synths / keys / piano its pretty tempting.

But…

I already have KU11, Logic´s synths and some freebies.

And i´m no synth expert at all (but i´m falling in love with it)!

Some people say that Arturia is an step up from what i have (in terms of quality and options) and will improve my workflow.

Others say that i should stay with i already got.

I downloaded some demos and fell in love with some instruments (and some did not - i´m talking to you B3 :wink:).

I read everything I had to read and watched all the videos to watch.

The doubt remains!

I know we have some really experts on synthesis here, so, give me an advice, people. Please!

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Just wonder if you’d be better off buying Native instruments komplete?

https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/bundles/komplete-12/

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Thank you for your response, @simaudio!!

I already have Komplete Ultimate 11. I´ll probably upgrade sometime.

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No worries, thought you might have…it’s good value! Don’t know much about the Arturia stuff but I’ve heard some good things, also got some great reviews!
For organ i use the old native instruments B4 via jBridge in Cubase. much better than their vintage organs and it’s now vintage software ha-ha :smile:

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:smile: Awesome!!

I´m in a similar position. The reviews are quite positive and i saw some interviews from famous producers that use it (like Greg Wells) even having many hardware synths.

If you want to check it out, they have demos for all instruments (with some limitations).

From what i could test, the B3 is not good, but i´m impressed by their Piano, Rhodes, Wurli and some synths that i know.

Some even praise some rare synths that they have (but that goes far beyond my knowledge).

The ease of opening an locker full of Pianos / Keys with the ability to change it with an single click its really tempting to an lazy guy like me. :smile:

The full integration with Komplete Kontrol too.

I know its a bit confusing, but i posted here really hoping to get some insight from our fellow stock music composers to see if in an long term it is really useful for us. If its an addition to Komplete or its just more of the same (and money waste).

I confess that by now i´m 90% convinced not to buy it. :smile:

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It’s not related to native instruments correct me if I’m wrong? Only in the sense It’s logged in the Komplete control library…I think they’ve just partnered for this offer. Native instruments seem to be doing a lot of that lately.

I always think carefully about buying stuff now, i have an array of stuff i never use as a consequence! A lot of money has been spent! I try to be wiser now :wink:

Have you had a look at this ? What do you think?

https://www.spectrasonics.net/products/keyscape/index.php

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You’re right!

And…wise words! Difficult to live by, but i´m trying… :joy:

About Keyscape, from what i´ve heard and saw, its awesome.

That’s exactly what i have on my list about Pianos & Keys:

Keyscape or V Collection or EzKeys.

The ease of having one big central for an department of instruments works nice for me.

I have that with drums (Superior Drummer 3) and bass (MODO Bass). Don´t need anything else (good quality) and my workflow speeds up tremendously.

As i mentioned, Arturia is a little ahead for me because of the price right now ($250 for 21 good quality instruments).

I´m downloading the other demos right now to play a little and compare with what i have! That’s gonna be my final test (i hope so :smile:).

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Sounds good :smiley: I have more piano’s than i can poke a stick at! Ha-ha :smile: So I’m not in the market for one at the moment but I do love the Spitfire labs Felt piano…if you want a softer one and it’s free. Anyway sorry I’ve gone a bit off topic :blush:
Let us know if you make a purchase and how you rate it. All the best :wink:

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Thank you for your assistance, @simaudio !!!

Here’s my thoughts:

The synths, to my ears (i´m no expert), sounds really good. I really liked the Moog, Juno, Prophet, DX7 and CS-80. Was very quick to get an sound that i like and a lot of fun to tweak - since the GUI is very good (and have high resolution, resizable too). For an non-expert like me, the fact that the instruments look like its originals and have the original name also helps in the “synth education” side. :smile:

I loved the Electric Pianos (all of them). Really good out of the box and really authentic (at least the Rhodes and Wurli that i know really well the “real thing”). Its so fun to play an instrument that sounds and feels real. Was an good surprise and, even with the fact that with some tweaking you can get a great sound from all Native Instruments Keys, at least to my taste, Arturia has done a better job here.

The Piano (i mean, PianoS - there´s 12 of them in one instrument) have a lot of love and hate around the internet, but i love it. It’s the best Piano VST I’ve ever played (and i´ve played some, believe in me). The funny thing is that isn’t sample based. In a famous forum, people who were saying that Pianoteq is the best piano to date, were the same ones who chose Arturia´s Piano over Pianoteq on a blind test. Since Native Instruments Pianos (and some others) doesn’t give me instant gratification, i´ll choose Arturia again. I don’t understand why this Piano is not an constant on Piano VSTi´s discussions.

On top of that, NKS ready, fast loading times (at least for me and i don’t have an super machine), organized presets and everything at one place (with the included Analog Lab). Just one click to change an instrument and tweak fully.

The weakest link for me are the organs. Especially the B3.

Conclusion: I´ll buy it, but not now. I heard that they make an annual sale every january with the same 50% off.

Since Black Friday is coming, i´ll save money for that and ,in 2 months, i´ll buy Arturia V Collection .

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Thanks for the detailed review, could be useful to those who might be interested in purchasing!

Interesting to hear your thoughts about the pianos though? I might give the demos a try when i get around to it…if i get some spare time. You’ve tempted me ha-ha :smile:

Probably gonna wait for Black Friday myself before i purchase and part with some more hard earned cash :wink:

I like this piano do you know of it? http://www.imperfectsamples.com/website/samples/steinwayconcertgrand/steinwaygrandpiano.php

And the 8Dio Steinway 1969 grand although i think they’ve stopped selling that one now?
Here i go again getting off topic :blush:

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V collection gives to you thousand of possibilities, many presets and if you know synthesis there are endless possibilities; i use it mainly for background stuff, it gives to you flexibility but if you want a really good sound you should consider u-he Diva. V collection gives you more flexibility and good sound, u-he Diva less possibilities but really beautiful and organic sound.

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Its not off topic, @simaudio ! The Piano is one of the reasons that i liked Arturia V. I was there for the synths, but other things also caught my attention.

Wow! I’ve heard about this Imperfect Samples Piano but i´ve never checked out. What a beautiful tone!

I think that it shines on orchestral / jazz / intimate music. With some tweaking probably can do everything else but i think its not that versatile.

Although I loved this timbre, i think you can get close results with Piano V (please, don’t resist the temptation and test it! :joy: ). After that, come here and tell me what you think.

The Piano V is versatile to do absolutely every genre easily. Just change the pianos and you will hear what i´m saying. Also runs very smoothly over here! Fun to play something and quickly check it with other possibilities.

With the full version you get even more controls to tweak.

As far as 8Dio´s Piano, i think the tone is great, but achievable with Native Instruments Pianos.

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Your right! It has that intimate tone that’s why i love those piano’s so much :smile: 8Dio, Felt piano etc…

Funny though I’ve never been a lover of those native instruments piano’s! I’m gonna get shot down in flames now :scream:

On your recommendation I’ll check it out :wink:

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Thank you, @BecomeStardust !!

I like the idea of having “everything at one place”. Including Pianos & Keys! This is very tempting for me. :grin:

2 questions for you:

1- I read on the internet that sometimes Arturia´s synths crashes DAWs. I just tested the demos and did not saw that, but i know the demos have limitations, so i would like to know from a long term user. Is this really true? I mean, they frequently bugs everything on a ordinary machine (like mine)?

2- I´m getting into the synth fever, so you think i´m better with only Native Instruments synths or Arturia will help me more? My impression so far is that Arturia can help me understand synthesizers more. That makes sense? Reaktor is very difficult to dominate for me. By the way, the only synths that i really know well are Monark (the part of Reaktor that i understand) and Massive. For everything else, i just go with presets (shame on me :sweat_smile:). I’m asking you that because I want to make sure I’m not trying to convince myself to buy this. :joy:

Thank you for your attention!!

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Believe me: I´m no lover at all of Native Instruments pianos.

I like that intimate tone too. To get that with Native Instruments, i needed to think outside the box.

For an example, the Grandeur would be the obvious choice for that Steinway intimate sound. I just could get an ok sound with that.

Playing very softly with an good reverb and sometimes removing high frequencies i was able to get close to that with The Maverick / The Giant and even Alicia´s Keys.

About the test, alright!!! :grin:. Looking forward to hear your thoughts!

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I never had a crash for the Arturia software; if you already have all the native instruments synths maybe you’re are ok, massive, fm8 and absynth cover almost all the sounds that you can create with a synth, you have also monark, razor, form, etc… Arturia mimics the behavior of classic synths, you have those signal path for the creation of the sound, and that can help you to have the sound similar to the real machine, in other words limits guide you to those type of sounds. Try to discover the potential of those NI synths before buy the V collection, in your “conditions” you should learn even more how to use a synth and not to have more “colours”, unless you want that specific sound. Reaktor is more difficult and cpu heavy.

I really don’t like the sound of arturia’s piano, i can get much better results with NI pianos, maybe you can try to discover more those instruments. You will be surprised :wink:

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Thank you, @BecomeStardust !!

You really convinced me about the synths.

Nice to hear your opinion about NI pianos too. I know them well and really don’t like much the tone and response overall, but off course, we do music, its a matter of taste. On the other hand, i don’t think they’re bad at all.

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I think with the piano’s it comes down to taste and depends on what genre your using them in :wink:

These guys have a 50 percent off sale Addictive Keys - XLN Audio

Use the Halloween 18 code though :wink:

Yep…most definitely! :smile:You beat me to it :wink: Ha-ha :smile:

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Thanks for the tip. I have their CP-80. Its very nice!

I have to admit, @simaudio . That Imperfect Samples piano is still in my head.

My friend has an Steiway D (he got poor after that :joy: ) and i remembered him playing while listening to the demos.

The other vst that reminded me instantly of that was the Embertone´s: https://www.embertone.com/instruments/concertD.php#HEAR

You know this one?

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hahahaha

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