Arturia V Collection 5 - worth the upgrade?

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Gravity Jim
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Arturia V Collection 5 - worth the upgrade?

Post by Gravity Jim »

I own the V Collection 4, and am getting e-mails about their special offer right now to upgrade to v.5 for $99.

Anybody here done this? Is it worth it, IYO?
Jim Bordner

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terrybritton
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Re: Arturia V Collection 5 - worth the upgrade?

Post by terrybritton »

Definitely worth it. There are many good reviews online if you need corroboration to my statement. Videos, too. So, I won't re-write what is already said. But the recent improvements are terrific, I assure you.

Terry
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Gravity Jim
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Re: Arturia V Collection 5 - worth the upgrade?

Post by Gravity Jim »

Thanks, Terry. It looks good, for sure, but it's always nice to hear it from other users.
Jim Bordner

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kgdrum
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Re: Arturia V Collection 5 - worth the upgrade?

Post by kgdrum »

I only used it briefly but imo the Synclavier is worth the $99 upgrade by itself,add the improved gui's, the Farfisa etc....and it's a pretty nice upgrade.
Before the sale the upgrade was $199 I didn't & wouldn't do the upgrade but for $99, no problem.

I wish Arturia would update some of the older plugins imo they're not in the same league as some newer soft synths like U-he's Diva, Zebra or Repro1 or the Xils-Lab Poly KB2 or even NI's Monark etc..... but Arturias Synclavier is really special.

As a $99 upgrade the V Collection does offer a lot of sounds for the pallette.
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Re: Arturia V Collection 5 - worth the upgrade?

Post by mhschmieder »

Yes, the Synclavier V is worth the price of admission alone. This instrument just sits in the mix so easily! It fills the space without dominating. Of course, that was the original intent by its designers.

One of Dave Polich's presets for Synclavier V just saved me on a project this week, where I had to re-track something due to arrangement, tempo, and key changes, and my old Arturia Prophet VS preset was no longer compatible with the new engine.

Synclavier V to the rescue! It can work on FM stuff and wavetable stuff. A different flavour from WAVESTATION or the DX7 for sure though.

Oh, also, the formerly-free Farfisa Combo Organ -- same developer as the Vox Continental plug-in -- made it to the Arturia stable in this release as well, with HUGE additions to the functionality vs. the free version, and an engine so different that I had to re-do my personal patches, but for the better as the slice through the mix a lot easier now than before.
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Gravity Jim
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Re: Arturia V Collection 5 - worth the upgrade?

Post by Gravity Jim »

Well, this sounds like a mortal lock.

I'll go upgrade now.
Jim Bordner

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philbrown
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Re: Arturia V Collection 5 - worth the upgrade?

Post by philbrown »

I've been on the fence on this as well. I was blown away by the Synclavier demo to my surprise but thought I just had more of that starry-eyed "HEY IT'S ON SALE!!!" thing happening (had that a lot lately).
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Re: Arturia V Collection 5 - worth the upgrade?

Post by philbrown »

OK I bit. Wow- the Synclavier FM sure sounds different than a DX7! I used to sell DX7 sounds back in its day. I dig FM even in my modular synth world so yeah it's pretty cool. VERY Digital but I dig it. I'm watching some tutorial vids so I can get a bit of a grasp on programming the thing. EDIT- does anyone remember Camel Audio Cameleon 5000? This one will definitely get in that additive synth zone.

Calling up a couple of the acoustic and Rhodes piano presets I thought they both sounded horrible- hey you asked. Maybe they need some deep tweaking or I chose bad presets. But yeah no, for now anyway.

2 nice improvements though are new preset browsers with categories etc and resizable GUI's. I'm not really a preset guy but for these types of plugs it's nice to hit some starting points so I think the browser improvement is a pretty big deal and a time saver in The Land Of A Thousand Patches.

It's not new but I do really like the Solina and diving under the hood for cool textures, pads and stuff. It sits in mixes nicely IMO. It's cool and warm at the same time and I know that makes no sense but it's audio so adjectives.

Just one guy's early opinion. I await others.
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Re: Arturia V Collection 5 - worth the upgrade?

Post by terrybritton »

Congrats! It is a nice assortment, and the new UI is definitely a winner.

If you ever buy into the Native Instruments S-Series keyboards or Maschine pieces, you will be pleasantly greeted with having all the knobs already mapped to logical places in the Arturia universe as well.

Terry
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Re: Arturia V Collection 5 - worth the upgrade?

Post by Gravity Jim »

Finally some time to get this installed. The V Collection 5 Installer won't work, for some reason: three attempts at downloading, and each time the expanded .ZIP, when double clicked, returns a "This file is damaged and can't be opened" message.

So I'm doing them one at a time in the Software Center, which is no big deal... most of it is automated.
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Re: Arturia V Collection 5 - worth the upgrade?

Post by Gravity Jim »

Well, wow. You gentlemen were certainly correct.

The Synclavier and SEM are both really great, and I love the CS-80 and the ARP 2600, too. The electric pianos are pretty good if you're looking for a plain, effect-free Rhodes or Wurly... Everything I've tried out this morning has really hit the spot.
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Re: Arturia V Collection 5 - worth the upgrade?

Post by philbrown »

Gravity Jim wrote:Well, wow. You gentlemen were certainly correct.

The Synclavier and SEM are both really great, and I love the CS-80 and the ARP 2600, too. The electric pianos are pretty good if you're looking for a plain, effect-free Rhodes or Wurly... Everything I've tried out this morning has really hit the spot.
The CS-80 is worth diving into- I've been using that one for quite a while. At least now you can see the knobs and sliders with the new GUI. It takes some time getting to know but worth it. Never been within a 12-state region of seeing or smelling a real CS-80 in my case. They're expensive, really heavy and expensive to maintain so hello Arturia.

SEM I agree is sweet.

The Prophet 2600 is pretty damn analog sounding and that's coming from an old school knob-twistin' boy. They did a good job on the filter IMHO. But if someone hears aliasing at 18K I say "What? Huh?"
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Re: Arturia V Collection 5 - worth the upgrade?

Post by mhschmieder »

SEM is one of my faves in the bunch. CS80 gets better with each release but isn't quite all the way there yet IMO. Yet I do use it now and then.

I'm actually a fan of the Solina, and like it better than my other three or four Solina libraries or emulations. I wrote a post about it when it came out; it emulates a particular mode that most don't, for hybrid trumpet sounds as I recall. A real winner; cuts through the mix and does what it does.

Now that I bought 32 Lives, I wish I hadn't deleted Cameleon 5000 from my system. I just assumed I needed to move on, even though I never liked Alchemy as much and could never match Cameleon 5000 with it even after dozens of hours of deep tweaking and programming under the skin.

Synclavier V is the first thing to come along that has me hopeful that I can get back some of that sonic territory with warmth and mix-ready timbre.
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Gravity Jim
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Re: Arturia V Collection 5 - worth the upgrade?

Post by Gravity Jim »

I noticed that V Collection 5 didn't overwrite V Collection 4's instruments.

Does anyone see any reason to keep the old ones?
Jim Bordner

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Re: Arturia V Collection 5 - worth the upgrade?

Post by philbrown »

User presets mainly I think. They have a converter to V5 presets.

https://www.arturia.com/faq/utilization ... -questions
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