Pigments 7 is the latest version of Arturia’s incredible soft synth. Is now the time to finally take the plunge? Despite no new sound engines, the answer is yes. Here’s why.
In 2019, Arturia dropped Pigments, their first real non-emulated soft synth. Taking the ethos of more is better, Arturia have continued to update it with new sound engines, effects and features, adding more colors (as it were) to the sound palette.
We last checked in with Pigments at version 3, calling it a “one-stop synthesizer solution” and awarding it 4 1/2 stars out of 5. We’re now up to Pigments 7. The instrument already has virtual analog, wavetables, sample playback and physical modeling engines, plus more filters and effects than most people could even know what to do with. What more can Arturia possibly add? Unfortunately, there is no new sound engine, but what we do get with this update is a handful of new filters, an additional distortion effect, a revamped Play Mode, and some nice brush ups like snappier envelopes and better CPU usage.
The update is free, so no complaints for previous users. Is this latest package enough to tempt those who have yet to hand over their credit card number?
The Three R’s: Rage, Ripple and Reverb
In the absence of a new synthesis engine (the latest was the beautiful physical modeling-powered Modal in Pigments 5), the biggest selling point—at least in terms of sound design—is the three new filters. Coincidentally, they all start with the letter R: Rage Filter, Ripple Filter and Reverb Filter. Each member of the trio is unique in its own way, as well as creatively surprising.
Unlike your bog-standard analog-style filters, which Pigments already has loads of thanks to its many classic synthesizer emulations, these new ones take things beyond what you may expect from something originally designed to subtract frequencies. The Rage Filter, for example, injects distortion into the filter circuit by overloading the feedback path with one of five different modes. This behaves polyphonically too, giving each note its own harmonic saturation. The Reverb Filter is what it sounds like: reverb used as a filter. Think of it as a way to color rather than just shelve frequencies. Finally, there’s Ripple, which combines multiple all-pass filters to create ringing, zappy sounds. None of these is likely to become your new go-to for basic shaping, but for radical sound design, they’re handy to have.
Additionally, Arturia have added an FM section to the Classic Filter, with both sound engines and their modulators as possible sources for frequency modulation.
Sing This Corroder To Me
Pigments is already bursting with effects, but number 7 adds one more: Corroder. If the name didn’t already give it away, this is a distortion effect. And while the software has long had an effect called just Distortion, Corroder does things a little differently. Rather than lop off the top of your signal, it modulates it with an LFO, an incoming sound source, or another element in the synth, creating everything from amplitude modulation-like effects to unpredictable filth. Again, as with the new filters, it’s not an everyday effect, but certainly an interesting sound shaper that lies somewhere between distortion and modulation.
Revamps and Resnaps
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