I purchased Sound packs but they're not showing on CS-80V4

[SebSaghini]

Last night I bought Arturia CS-80V4 and followed all the steps including installing the software center app first. So that is working perfectly fine.

But earlier today I bought 4 packs from the Sounds store, the two Vangelis, Toto and Genesis, plus the free one. If I go to my account on the Arturia website, they all show under my products just fine. I had to manually download these PKG files and install them because that's the way it's supposed to be according to the website unless you have the Analog Lab.

However, they are not showing in my list of presets inside CS-80V4, either standalone or as a plugin. And, they are not showing in my list of products in the software center app, while they all show in the website under my account. This is after I pressed the sync button several times, and even rebooted my computer and tried to sync again but they're still not showing up in there or in the list of presets.

I know they are installed, because I went into the installation folder, which is [root]/Library/Arturia/Presets and that folder has these 5 packs in two ways, one is they show as .json files (I opened a couple in Xcode and the only line is "{"version": "1.0.1.308"}"). As for the presets themselves, they were not installed in the "/Library/Arturia/Presets/CS-80 V4/Factory/Factory" folder like the native ones, but instead to the "/Library/Arturia/Presets/CS-80 V3/Factory" folder. So I tried moving them to that folder, but CS-80v4 still doesn't see them.

This also happened with that Paul Schilling Blade Runner preset that he offered in his Soundcloud account, but that one was like 5 years old, so I figured that was the reason why it didn't work. But these sound packs that I paid for except for the free one, and I filtered the results in the sounds page by CS-80V, so they are supposed to work, are they not?

Unfortunately I learned that Arturia is in France, which means that probably they're all gone for the weekend and I was really excited about playing with these packs this weekend. Has anyone here come across this problem?

[LBH]

Hi,

The CS-80 V presets in the soundpacks you have purchased is for CS-80 V3. CS-80 V4 is a totally new rebuild, and can't use V3 presets.

The V3 presets require the CS-80 V3. They will not sound the same in V4 either.
The presets also can be used in Analog Lab, but you will not be able to edit them in a CS-80 application unless you own the full CS-80 V3.

This should explain what you exsperience.

As Arturia have'nt specified the application versions the presets is for, then i would say you are in title for a refund, if you wish. I suggest you caontact Arturia through your account.

[SebSaghini]

Well, that sucks. In the sounds page, you can't filter by CS-80 V3 or V4, it's just CS-80 V, so anyone buying CS-80 V4 without any prior experience with the instrument, would think those would work just fine. However, whether they work with V4 or not, why are they not even showing up in my list of products in the software center, but still show as purchased and registered in my account on the Arturia website? I mean, the software center is independent of CS-80 V4, it just lists the products you purchased, am I right?

And also, wouldn't my license for V4 also be good for V3 if I download it from the downloads page? I would prefer that solution and use V3 for those presets, since the main reason I spent $150 on CS-80 V was to have the Vangelis Blade Runner sounds. And I would assume that at some point they are going to update the presets for V4, right?

[SebSaghini]

Well, I went ahead and installed V3, but my V4 license doesn't work. The presets do show in V3 in demo mode, but are a lot less than what is advertised in their respective descriptions. Doing more digging in the Arturia installation folder, I can see why: many of these presets are made for other synths. And while in their description it shows a list of synths, I and anyone not familiar with this company would assume that if the Genesis one says 39 presets, I will see 39 presets, and not in an older version I don't even have a license for, but in the one I just bought.

This seems to me like a case of false advertising, not being really clear about the fact that all those presets do not work in the current version of the software (which is something I have never seen any other company do before) and on top of that, they advertise a false number of presets for each of those instruments. There are 10 instances of the Genesis Tribute folder, each for a separate instrument apparently, but the description doesn't say that, it lists 9 synths and two versions of the Analog Lab, which I'm still not clear what it is after looking it up on the website. It seems like a bundle of several analog synths and presets for them, but does it include all those synths? Does it include the CS-80 V? Because if it does, plus all the others for $200, then I made a really bad deal buying just one of them for $150.

I sent them a message telling them there is no indication anywhere that these banks/presets are only functional in V3, so I'm entitled to a refund, but also that I'd be much happier if they just gave me a free license for V3 so I can use these presets that I bought. But still it's rather unethical that they would not include a warning anywhere that these presets don't work with the current version of the software. That's usually a problem you may have with very old software that is over 10 years old and you try to install it in a new OS.

I mean, perhaps someone who has been buying software from this company for a while and is familiar with their products would know all this, but there's no obligation to be an insider in order to be a customer. They should at the very least offer a big warning saying "Hey, this nice preset bundle you'd love to have, it doesn't work with the current version of our instrument. You have to go back in time and get a license for the old version to use them. Oh, and although we say 39 presets, we only mean 3 for the CS-80 V3."

This is just common sense. Sorry if I sound a little sarcastic but I wasted hours today trying to figure out why these presets, the main reason I bought the expensive software instrument for, do not work at all.

[Imyself]

Hi,
I too buy the last version of CS-80 and i have been disapointed to realize that none of All the presets/sounds banks available on Internet are only for the CS-80 V3 and do not run on the last V4...
Regards

[SebSaghini]

Also not cool that it's Monday night in France and nobody has replied to my support ticket yet. I didn't expect them to reply during the weekend, but definitely today.

[MajorFubar]

The sound packs I believe use instruments from the entire V Collection, not just eg the CS80. So you would need to open them in Analog Lab to use any which aren't for the CS80, because Analog Lab contains the sound engines for all the V Collection instruments. I think this is where you are getting a little confused.

One thing you are definitely right about though in my opinion, if the presets do not work in the current versions of the software, that's quite a bit of an 'oversight' and you should be entitled to a refund. NB I'm not Arturia staff, I'm just a volunteer mod, so my opinions are (only) worth as much as any other guy's on the street...

[renel26]

It's the same for me. I bought today the two libraries which are a tribute to Vangelis. I had this disappointment to see that the libraries were not compatible with the V4 version.

Arturia is at fault in the current situation, because I tried to find on the Arturia _Sounds web page if there was any notice indicating the incompatibility of these libraries with the V4 version, but I did not find anything. It seems to me a total nonsense to give any advice concerning the compatibility of the products. I really feel like I got cheated.

I contacted technical support to find a solution to this problem. That's a possible 48 hour wait or more before my ticket is processed. I imagine and hope that if they have no solution to this problem the refund will be smooth.

Very very very disappointing! Notifying customers of possible incompatibilities is the least you can do and it should be done quickly.

What is the point of buying their products if all the sound libraries are not compatible with the latest versions?

[SebSaghini]

I just wanted to post this as a follow up, because it might've taken a day longer, but Arturia definitely gave me a very satisfying solution. I told them it was easy, either they gave me back the money for the sound packs since they are not usable in V4, or they could give me a free license for Analog Lab V, which is what actually plays all the presets. And when I woke up today, I was very happy to find an email saying that they had put a license for it in my account, and when I logged in, it was there. It says "not for resale", which is perfect to me, because it's an awesome product, so I wouldn't want to sell it. Plus, now I can buy several more sound packs that will play in it.

But after I thanked them, I suggested to them that they definitely need to put a warning about these things with the presets descriptions, and I would think they will probably update that soon to avoid more upset customers. Obviously they are not misleading anyone on purpose, but it's still a bit misleading.

[renel26]

I just wanted to post this as a follow up, because it might've taken a day longer, but Arturia definitely gave me a very satisfying solution... they could give me a free license for Analog Lab V, which is what actually plays all the presets...

I'm glad things worked out well for you. I am in the same situation as you, so if he offers me the same solution, I will be very happy as well. Thank you for sharing your experience.

[MajorFubar]

It amazes me there isn't a simple warning telling users that soundpacks aren't compatible with the current 'rebuilt' synths. I do believe there was no intention to deceive, but still...it's kinda lame.

At some point there's obviously going to be soundpacks only compatible with the latest versions and not the earlier versions, so the same thing will apply but in reverse with the users of V3 and older.

A really smart website would know what you can and cannot use based on your license data, and would only allow you to download what you can use. Failing that level of 'intelligence', just a 'Compatible with' sentence after the description would be something.

[renel26]

A simple solution for the Arturia _Sounds web page. Instead of having only CS-80 V as an instrument choice for libraries, simply offer CS-80 V3 or CS-80 V4 as a selection. No confusion would be possible, because only compatible libraries would be available. It's so simple, why didn't they think of it?

I hadn't been interested in this plugin before Steinberg made a gift to all Cubase users who purchased or upgraded Cubase to version 12. It was a pleasant surprise to get CS-80 V4 for free, an electric piano library from HALion, and VST effects from Softube, Nebula and Melodyne.

This is the reason why I started to look at the libraries available for CS-80 on the Arturia site, but unfortunately, now disappointed, because other libraries interested me, but it is now without interest.

It's still an excellent synth. Thanks to Steinberg and I hope Arturia will be more vigilant.

[MajorFubar]

A simple solution for the Arturia _Sounds web page. Instead of having only CS-80 V as an instrument choice for libraries, simply offer CS-80 V3 or CS-80 V4 as a selection. No confusion would be possible, because only compatible libraries would be available. It's so simple, why didn't they think of it?

This is a good idea but sounds to be as much work as my idea of putting a 'Compatible with' sentence after the description, which they haven't done either, sadly.

It's a bit strange that they chose to give out a V3 licence to SebSaghini, rather than a refund. I'm happy of course he got a solution that worked, but if they're going to give out licences 'by exception' to people who complain, instead of correcting their problem at source, how is that fair to V3 purchasers like myself? Essentially he's only paid the price of the soundpack for a CS80V3 licence. It totally devalues the product to being worth the price of the soundpack.

Perhaps they just did this as a one-off, and shortly we will see the website updated to warn V4 users that they cannot use V3 soundpacks.

[WiLLi the MusicMachine]

  Arturia U need to update the sound packs to be compatible with the new versions or CLEARLY mark which version that they are compatible with. I own collections V7, V8, & V9 and this is a consistent problem with ALL the upgraded models in the V series. U seriously need to fix this. 

WiLLi & the MusicMachine