PIGMENTS 4.0 Update
Arturia has brought yet another free update to their flagship software synthesizer Pigments. This update is a bit smaller than previous ones, but if we include the 3.5 update along with this one, which included new a new filter and many new distortions, it’s enough to warrant a full .0 title change, Likewise, this review will be rather short, though I do plan a FULL Pigments review in the future. Here are some of my thoughts on the update, I’m not going to cover every new feature, but will go into a bit more detail on all the new things I personally found exciting.
What’s included in this update?
Arturia have added a new ”light mode” and “play view”, bringing it even closer to their Augmented line. You might also notice a new “nueomorphic” stylization to some buttons. They’ve added yet another new filter, some minor oscillator improvements, and a couple new effects, as well as various presets and other improvements including drag and drop modulation. Answering a question I’ve forgotten to ask in regards to modulation systems, “why not both?”, the New drag and drop system, does not replace the old mode based system.
NEW FX: A couple interesting items to note here, first of all, the new MS-20 Filter gives yet another touch of analog character options to pigments. On the digital side, we get a new “Super Unison” effect which copies the incoming signal and detunes the copies to replicate unison, this can be a nice touch for extra spread and smear, but without the usual chorusing motion, really nice addition. Also there is a new Shimmer Reverb, which pitch shifts the signal in the reverb feedback for blooming tones. The shimmer is nice and luscious, and can be pitched both up and down at the same time. They’ve also made a couple additions to the bitcrusher module adding input and output filters, jitter, and precision scaling (which I’m honestly not 100% sure what this does yet, I’ll update this if I find out)
OSC IMPROVEMENTS: Unfortunately we don’t get a full new oscillator engine this time around, but Arturia have added a couple little features to the existing Osc section. Wavetable mode now has Phase transform now has a “pulse width” mode, which slices the wave in half and stretches the two halves apart, and freq mod section now includes a ring mod option. Harmonic Engine has a couple new touches, with phase and freqency modulations as options, and a new phase random mode, which breaks things out of the locked phase which often gave Harmonic Engine a bit of a saw-like tone no matter what.
In addition to that, the modulation oscillator in all engines now has a much wider range and can be adjusted by harmonics, which is a nice touch for FM enthusiasts.
LIGHT MODE: I know many people hate light mode, but I want to discuss something about light modes and dark modes in general. Personally, I don’t think it’s enough to simply swap out white backgrounds for black, or dark backgrounds for white (or cream). I think. true dark or light mode news an entire palette swap. Colors and designs that look nice in dark mode, don’t always look nice in light mode, and vice versa. I really appreciate devs offering both, but I hope designers will opt to do a bit more in the future and actually create two completely unique skins. Minimal Audio Rift for example does a really good job at creating both dark and light modes that look visually “correct”
also, hopefully this means dark modes for Coldfire and Fragments in the future
You might also notice a new “play” view, which simplifies the controls to just the basics for each section and macros, this is perfect for people who prefer to browse presets and simpler adjustments rather than diving deep into the synthesis engines and effects. Speaking of presets, if you enjoy my content and want some presets made by me (back in version 2.0). You can find my pack SPECTROSCOPY here: https://www.databroth.com/spectroscopy
Again, it’s a small update, but when you look at everything we also got in 3.5 it really is quite an improvement, if you think the lack of a new osc mode is a big deal, consider they added the ability to modulate across engines in 3.5, and now have a harmonic based tuning system for modulation oscillators, so in a sense, between 3 and 4 they’ve added a secret FM mode
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Pigments 4: https://www.pluginboutique.com/product/1-Instruments/4-Synth/5018-Pigments-4?a_aid=61c378ab215d5