V Collection showing its age?

[kcearl]

 Kinda the first thing you type when describing it to a potential buyer. Its always SEM and Wurlitzer are great but the rest show there age and sound, well crap, for want of a better word.

Well am using them as my only synths at the moment due to a big move and CPU constraints, and they sound great. As emulations Im sure the arguments are obvious, but to take them for what they are they still shine. Matching up the Mgs with Kirnu Cream is getting some great sequences, and the Jupiter makes some of the best pads!

I hope theres a GUI update on these at some point, in fact a complete overhaul would be fantastic, but dropping the cumbersome and dated lookalike GUI and making it something more modern and simple would open these up to a new generation of users...

[kcearl]

Also, to expand on the GUI Im using a Win 8 tablet...its a baytrail quad core, cheap, but remarkably good for music production (if you dont push it). Analog Lab is brilliant on it, its one of the few VSTi's that is really touchscreen friendly...the knobs etc work perfectly. Great GUI!

[channel0]

Hi,
Your suggestion certainly makes sense for the increasing number of tablet-users,
but people with ordinary pc's/macs will still prefer the classic looks IMHO.
Either way, there should be a choice to use the classic default interface or
a more touch-friendly GUI.
Not sure if the people at Arturia have the time to do a total make-over...
But how about a dev-toolkit, with which people can design new, more touch-oriented GUI's?
It might boost involvement and contributions from the user community, as well as attract
a new generation of noodlers
Mind, I would only limit this toolkit to customizing the GUI.
IMHO something the devs at Arturia could cook up with not too much of a fuss
best regards
peter

[SoundGoddess]

Honestly the reason I didn't get V-collection on the 50% off sale is because the GUI's are too small/complicated for me on most of the plugins so I just bought the two plugins I felt I could really play with (SEM and Prophet).  I still have Analog Lab if I want to mix in some stuff from the other synths, but those two were the ones I felt like I could get my hands dirty with and really do some interesting sound design.

[Ian Lawson]

I agree knob-twirling by mouse isn't that great, especially for those of us of advancing age and poor eyesight.  That's why Beatstep is so great -- it provides satisfying actual knob-twirling wherever you want it and a sequencer to boot.  As for the V-synths showing their age, I say that's incorrect.  They are beautiful instruments hampered only by the limitations in each of our computer set-ups.  iOS computing with twirling by finger-tip is the way to go!

[stuey]

In reply to the OP, isn't the point of the GUI to recreate the look and sound of early analog gear?

There's a reason it looks old 

The Arturia Soft synths are great, but as is said, it's frustrating to twiddle with a mouse, but then they do sell hardware which has the relevant knobs to twiddle. But also there's loads of 3rd party midi boxes to map knobs.

I've actually mapped the spark and the beatstep to a few of the synths and they are far more useable, especially in pro tools when all automation is recored.

Cheers, Stuart 

[kcearl]

I dont think GUI's contribute anything to sound

[stuey]

Not directly I'm sure, but you must have seen Heston Blumenthal do his thing. Same principle here, the look of the mini v for example makes your mind and more importantly your ears, believe that it's hearing a real Mg. So GUI design is a very big part of the sound in my opinion

Thanks, Stuart

[lilo]

@kcearl: GUI does not contribute to sound, it contributes to the will you have to open a particular plugin vs. one another among the plethora of existing plugins. If you know you're going to have to fight to get what you need, no matter how good the plugin sounds, one will just go open another plugin.

[exmatproton]

Not directly I'm sure, but you must have seen Heston Blumenthal do his thing. Same principle here, the look of the mini v for example makes your mind and more importantly your ears, believe that it's hearing a real Mg. So GUI design is a very big part of the sound in my opinion

Thanks, Stuart

Try Bazille, Hive or Monark. Those interfaces are amazing to work with. These (old) Arturia plugins could use an overhaul. CV80 for instance, you cannot read a freakin'n thing on a 21 inch 1080P screen. It is horrible. Face it, those interfaces are truly and really outdated!

[kcearl]

Not directly I'm sure, but you must have seen Heston Blumenthal do his thing. Same principle here, the look of the mini v for example makes your mind and more importantly your ears, believe that it's hearing a real Mg. So GUI design is a very big part of the sound in my opinion

Thanks, Stuart

naw...I have a Mg, even its appearance makes no difference on its sound, even less so with a tiny plugin gui

[kcearl]

@kcearl: GUI does not contribute to sound, it contributes to the will you have to open a particular plugin vs. one another among the plethora of existing plugins. If you know you're going to have to fight to get what you need, no matter how good the plugin sounds, one will just go open another plugin.

I completely agree. I think some of these plugs would reach a wider audience if they were re-skinned tbh.

[stuey]

Not directly I'm sure, but you must have seen Heston Blumenthal do his thing. Same principle here, the look of the mini v for example makes your mind and more importantly your ears, believe that it's hearing a real Mg. So GUI design is a very big part of the sound in my opinion

Thanks, Stuart

Try Bazille, Hive or Monark. Those interfaces are amazing to work with. These (old) Arturia plugins could use an overhaul. CV80 for instance, you cannot read a freakin'n thing on a 21 inch 1080P screen. It is horrible. Face it, those interfaces are truly and really outdated!

Yes, that is true. I mean I agree with you in that it needs to be clearer, but it still has to remain authentic to the instrument is is trying to emulate.

Thanks, Stuart

[stuey]

Not directly I'm sure, but you must have seen Heston Blumenthal do his thing. Same principle here, the look of the mini v for example makes your mind and more importantly your ears, believe that it's hearing a real Mg. So GUI design is a very big part of the sound in my opinion

Thanks, Stuart

naw...I have a Mg, even its appearance makes no difference on its sound, even less so with a tiny plugin gui

If you have a real one then you don't need the help

Thanks, Stuart

[Koshdukai]

I dont think GUI's contribute anything to sound

If all you care about in a soft-instrument is sound, I guess you can ignore the GUI and use your DAWs own parameter editor.

I care immensely how a good sounding instrument (software or hardware) presents itself to me i.e. its GUI, especially if it's a virtual recreation of an existing one. How it looked, how its sections were organized and exposed is part of its legacy along with how it sounds.


Having said that, I agree that older Arturia soft-instruments would benefit from a GUI update to support the higher DPI densities of today (and the near future if possible) while retaining their "legacy" look.

Analog Lab is a good "more modern GUI layer" to use over those GUIs, for those that don't really care to use the original GUIs directly.