The MiniMg is the essense of what phat and warm synthesis is all about. The history of the MiniMg is like the history of analog synthesis. As a hardware piece it was the first commerically available analog synthesizer (1971) and immediately became a defining sound. Synth bass lines were not called "synth bass" they were referred to as "Mg bass" - the word Mg came to be interchangeable with synthesizer. Like Band-aid or Kleenex the word Mg and MiniMg became part of the everyday language. As a youngster then I dreamed about buying a MiniMg - they were like $1495 back in 1971 - and trust me that was a lot of money back then. Hate to sound old... but that was a ton of money...
Every major act that used a synthesizer had a MiniMg... it is by far the icon of the synthesizer. the Arturia MiniMg V not only nails the essence of the unit (it was endorsed by the late Dr. Robt. Mg himself), it has many updated features that we would have killed for back in the day.
I finally got one around 1980 (by then I had a job and was working full time as a musician/recording engineer) and still it was monophonic - and had no presets - every sound had to be made from scratch - each and everytime.
When you get an Arturia MiniMg V not only are the there presets for instant recall, you can play the unit polyphonically - something that was only a dream back in the day.
I still have my MiniMg (lost it and got it back but that is another story) and when you compare the original with the Arturia unit - the ability of the Arturia to duplicate the subtle nuances of the original is completely nailed - it is extremely accurate and uncannily flexible. And when you add to it the fact that you can now do things that the original could not (like stay in tune :-) - it is a no brainer.
No matter what other virtual analog synth engine you look at - it is trying to be what the MiniMg started. When you hear a sweet singing lead sound or a phat, phat bottomed synth bass, it is trying to emulate the MiniMg V...
In short you can't beat it, period.
