Arturia V Collection vs the Real Hardware : Part 1
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- Опубліковано 12 чер 2023
- I'm an avid user of vintage synths and keyboards and also a fan of the Arturia V Collection. So I thought it would be fun to put them side by side.
No processing of audio is applied except for a dash of UAD EMT 140 Plate Reverb.
1. 1982 Roland Juno 6 vs Arturia Jun-6V
2. 1984 E-mu Emulator ii + HD vs Arturia Emulator IIV
3. 1984 Sequential Circuits Prophet 5 Rev 3.3 vs Arturia Prophet-5 V
4. 1974 Solina String Ensemble vs Arturia Solina V2
5. 1978 Rhodes Stage Piano Mk 1 73 vs Arturia Stage-73 V2
#arturia #synthesizer #comparison
The models are more than good enough! Especially compared to the amount of money , space , and hassle the originals will cost you.
I might have lost some tiny bit of tone when i switched to software, but I do not miss having to use a minivan to go to jam with my friends, never mind dealing with spaghetti hell every time i set things up or took them down.
The most important part of music is your vision and you use whatever tools you have at your disposal to bring it to life. It can be software or hardware, you just need to get it down. Hardware synths are beautiful but they do come at a cost and with continual upkeep!
I think his friends go to his place to jam 😉
@@alistairfletcher6187 Sadly, no.
I had less to move than the drummer, by a lot, so i had to take the hit for the team.
Now, many years and several bands later, my kit consists of a laptop and a controller and fits in a backpack.I ask for a stereo pair to give to the house sound guy at soundcheck, and that's it for when we play out.
Its vastly less hassle this way, and sounds 99.9% as good as my hardware setup back in the late80s/early 90s, especially if i make sure to include the little things like channel strip models and amp simulation etc for getting all the nuances right.
i own quite a few of Arturia products and they all sound amazing especially when you get them on sale😅😅
Agree 100% - if the software instrument emulations can get you to 99% of the original sound, saving tens of thousands of dollars and lots of physical space in your music studio is totally worth it. I have been very happy with the Arturia software instrument emulations, as well as those from Cherry Audio, Native Instruments, Rhodes, Uhe, UA, etc. Music producers are extremely lucky with what we have at our disposal these days, and for a very reasonable price.
All of them sound great, thank you for showing the side by side!!
It may sound bragging, but I did own most of the hardware of the V-collection back in the days. (80's - 90's) Apart from the money I could have got today, I never regretted selling all thos synths. I still remember each time firing up my studio, some of the old stuff was broke, and csted me each time lots of money to get it repaired. Sound wise, we arrived at that stage that no one can tell the difference in a full music production. And last, there has always been that false myth about vintage being better, which is absolutely not. There are no 'better' synths. That is a complete misunderstanding of the matter and proves that a lot of people are just talking bs. Take a Juno 60 as example. people going (falsely) crazy about it, but after a few months they sell it again. Seems that its sound is rather boring without the chorus... that's why it's on sale a lot...
Excellent comparisons!
This drives it home that emulations will effortlessly get you 96% of the way there but the real item has a depth and soul which is absent in the emulation.
Generally agree. There is probably a real psychological lift if (say) one was performing live and you had a whole setup of classic keyboards to switch between. And maybe a feel thing. On the other hand, it is a lot to lug around! So even live it may be better just to have a solid laptop and run the emulator(s) like this Arturia software…
True, but I think that will change. There's no point in an emulation that's 4% better but costs twice the resources, especially if the userbase is likely to misperceive that as poor optimisation, so companies have to wait until research shows the userbase's computers having significantly jumped in power. We already see that in how much better emulations become every 5 years or so.
@@joechapman8208we have been waiting the last 20 years for that to change and the wait goes on. Its like waiting for fusion reactor. We’re always almost there… but we will never get there😅
@@legeartis78 We are getting there, though! Softube take the step up every few years. The Liquidsonics reverbs. With a good computer by today's standards, you can run as many instances of their effects as you would have expected to run of much less complex equivalents in the past on a machine of the day. Zynaptiq's Orange Vocoder IV is a great example of this: it was clearly working and ready to release years ago, with hints dropped every time it was live-demo'ed at trade shows that you'd need a good computer for it, but they didn't put it out until this year.
I think we should remember that there are 4% (I'm not sure how we're quantifying that, but for the sake if argument we'll go with it) or greater differences between *hardware* instances of these synths. We're also not talking about EQ and environment and the effects of time or monitors vs onboard speakers or... ad infinitum. It's not like there is some Platonic ideal of these analog synths with which to compare Arturia's emulations at the 100% metric. 😃
This video shows how close the originals are to the Arturia VSTs. I hardly notice any difference if any on this video. Great Job!
0:40
Don't ask me
What you know is true
Don't have to tell you
I love your precious heart
Thanks for the comparison and congrats on the selection of songs for the demo… amazing playlist
Most of them sound really close. I think the only big difference is on the prophet and the Rhodes. Great vídeo by the way. Waiting for Part 2 🔥
Pour le Rhodes, chaque Rhodes est différents donc c'est difficile de juger, mais c'est vrai que les instruments de ce genre on encore des progrès à faire dans l'émulation.
Bro they are not going to be identical to any real model chosen for comparison except the exact piece of kit Arturia used to make the plugin. All hardware synths have slight variances in sonic output
Somehow I stumbled into the deepest circle of sound hell.
Thats really impressive, actually. Thank you for doing this!!
I think the Rhodes fell through, but the others are so close.
Agreed.
Always wondered how close they were.
There are better Rhodes plugins though.
Luke, this is fantastic. Just subscribed. Can't wait to check out your other videos!
Just finally gave in and bought V-Collection, this video is making me super excited about it. Perfect demonstration.
So that sound is a pro 5. Thanks for showing that.
yes I have them as well, I think they sound incredibly realistic. great tunes to demo. Riders was ace
Wow. This is better than i expected. But i wonder that to get the same sound the settings are exactly the same as hardware or you get the same sound with different settings on software.
Thank you
Looking forward to Part 2!
Wow I wasn’t expecting them to sound so good
Estuve esperando este video por añoooos! muchas gracias!
That was excellent. Shows you how good the Arturia plugins are.
Glorious GAS relief!
Fantastic comparison. A million thanks!
Arturia know their stuff, awesome
Good comparison, I think. Showing that any differences are so minor as to be negligible really. There is nothing LIKE PLAYING the real thing - but soundwise, the software in the studio will do the job.
The plug ins are getting close, but not there yet. Still better than they were just a few years ago. Thanks for sharing!
I believe emulations got there years ago and that one can't pick out which is which in a properly conducted blind comparison.
Great comparison Luke, thanks for the effort :) For me I think the Solina and Rhodes are the most different - more soul in the real instruments.
If you take the recording process, preamps, mixer, normalisation etc.. in account, for me they are identical. Even dare to say some arturia emulations sound more pleasing to the ear, clearer.
Great vid, must’ve been a lot of work, thank you.
Ps an effect version comparison would be cool too 😊
With all the advances in chips over the last couple decades the difference between software and hardware is so small it's not worth bothering with the cost and issues of using hardware. Plus most important the audience at gigs doesn't know or even care if something reminds them of a song they liked their happy so no need to sweat the details.
Awesome! Do a blind A B quiz for us and let's see who can truly hear the difference for part 2.... :)
Great comparison. When first listening on my phone, the plugin versions sounded thinner than the real hardware. However after listening on hifi headphones, the diference for some comparisons is almost abscent. Just the volume of the plugins which sometimes seems to be lower compared to the hardware.
I believe it's the circuitry and that gave the original instruments their bite. I can hear the difference. And since I had the first Roland synth in 1972 and have owned tons of synths I can attest there is a distinct "edge" to the originals that was almost raw at times. Also, I worked in music stores and got very acquainted with many of the Arturia instruments that replicate them (not duplicate). The software engine for any manufacturer will create a certain "sameness" to even the most disparate synths (such as DX-7 vs Jupiter 8). However, I cannot deny that I love owning software versions of instruments I could have never afforded back in the day--which are just as expensive on the open market today. I imagine we're talking $200,000 or more (when you consider instruments like the Synclavier which I was tempted to buy in the early 80's at over $10,000 at the time). The other nice thing about Arturia is the effects. The original DX-7 was DRY. Another issue is stability. Because the oscillators were voltage controlled, they would waver in pitch. Very nice demonstration! It was cool.
Thanks for making this video! Very helpful :)!
Hardware sounds clearly better, as it should. VSTs do a good job though. Very nice mate :)
bravissimo! Thanks for helping me make up my mind. Take my money Arturia!
As usual: The difference is most apparent when there are quick filter cutoff changes with a fair amount of resonance as this is computationally taxing. The Arturia prophet is not bad but lacks the pleasing character of the real prophet with some settings. It's still very impressive how close and spot on most of the sounds are, and these nuances would be even less apparent if treated and in a mix.
Luke, you think you could please list the most simple/easiest synths in the collection to understand to master fully? i want to start making my own sounds but it easily becomes a bit overwhelming the amount of features on them. Cheers
i did a comparison of my Juno-6 and the Roland Juno-60 VST and there are differences...it's hard to describe but just a different depth ...they can be very close depending on the "patch" (i recreate patches using the Juno-60 manual)
Hello! Thanks for doing this. And i highly recommend you trying the U-he Repo-5, it has the best emualtion sounds in the synth software market for sure. Thanks again for what you've been doing!
I heard the same for a long time. However also saw quite some comments that the latest Arturia Prophet V version seems to be even better than Repro 5.
For me they are really close and in the mix for the most part will be fine. I do miss the impulsive knob fiddling and happy accidents that frequently result from it. Like others have said there is some fullness missing. Still plan on buying another Rev 2 to replace the one I had to sell one day.
Wow that emulator is amazing.
I love my Arturia V Collection 9 running within Bitwig. It's amazing to have all these iconic synths in a laptop any time! They sound spot on too and while not quite as punchy as the hardware its still very close enough. Which Vst is you favorite mate? Mines the OP-Xa
They sound great but I was surprised that I tell a difference, even with my small speakers. The virtual versions were usually thinner, especially with the Rhodes. Perhaps something different in the analog recording path? Perhaps it doesn’t matter why.
This was really cool. Thanks.
Chaque Rhodes est différent, pour en avoir possédés plusieurs du même model je peut vous dire que la différence était flagrante d'un Rhodes à l'autre. Mais il est vrai que pour les piano et autre instruments acoustiques/electro acoustique les emulations sonnent en grande partie moins bien que l'original.
There’s no getting around the fact that the emulation is inferior. For some reason people in UA-cam comment sections love to deny it though. Trust your ears.
Great comparison. This shows how cool the real ones are compared to Emulations. One thing is, in the Emulator II V I see that you used the preset named Marcato Strings. Is it available in library or a custom preset. If its a custom preset, what did you do to achieve that sound? Once again, amazing video and keep up with the great work.
that preset is on the original and arturia version.
Holy smokes, they are impressive! Thanks for showing them side by side
Imagine you did a “blindfold” test where you have to name the real vs software and guess. Answers at end of video. I’ve seen a few of those vids on Andertons and they’re pretty entertaining.
VST's are improving al the time. I still use a few originals, but even some of the Behringer clones are good sounding too (even if some don't agree with their morals).
Very nice! I was convinced the least by the Rhodes. Maybe the new Rhodes plugin has some value after all!
Hmmm.... The Rhodes... If the setup was similar to the real one, well... It failed miserably. I mean, it's not a BAD tone per se, but totally different from the real one (and yes, i know that even on hardware counterparts from the same batch the sound might not be the same). The Solina, the Juno... Almost identical to the real ones. That said, great demo Luke, thanks a lot for sharing this.
Thanks Davide. I put the Rhodes difference down to the inconsistency in my Hardware version. Every key has its own variation with pickup distance and action which adds to the magic. I think with processing of the Arturia plugin you could get more vibe if you run it through saturation etc. but the rest weee very impressive 😊
The rhodes in arturia has always been kinda lackluster. I would instead grab scarbee keys or keyscape, much more authentic sampled sounds compared to the physical modelling stuff with arturia.
The Arturia Rhodes has a lot of presets, I agree it isn't quite as good as the real thing but handy to have.
@@lukemillionmusic I think it did quite well. Anytime you do a comparison you will get people who hyperbolically say the VST is so far away as to be irritating. Not the case at all. 😃
I agree about the Juno and Solina. Just listening on a phone but both sound spot on
Very interesting!
Amazing how close some instruments are... clavinet seems to be hardest to emulate, which makes sense
the main differences are in the acoustic electric instruments like the rhodes. the samplers are the best because it’s all digital to begin with. the analog synths are very close but somehow feel like they’re missing high frequency content. i wonder if those would sound closer at higher samples rates because the high frequency smearing could be a result of aliasing
Spot on, bro. Anyone who can't hear the difference are probably suffering from loss of high freqs in their hearing.
I find that the analog emulations still fall apart at the extreme high and low ends. The middle range is very usable, but if you want super low growl or super high airy plinks, you have to use real analog.
I think you can improve that with clever processing on the software counterparts. Sometimes I actually find the hardware synths too big in sound to fit in a mix and find myself doing drastic EQ cuts to make them sit in.
@@lukemillionmusic No, if you play the highest possible note on an analog synth, and then play the same note on the emulation, you will hear what I mean. It's not something you can fix with EQ, it's a limitation of the digital technology. For the most part, you can use emulations if you don't need those super high tones, but it's good to have some analog on hand when you want a really bright chrip or bleep.
@@user82938Bullshit. You just don't know how to do it.
@@user82938 That's easily solved by just using a sample player. Period.
@@RogerBrenonno "period " about it. Samples are lifeless and unresponsive.
Cool... I knew the Arturia synths were close. I'd like to hear more comparisons please.... MiniMoog?
Don't have a MiniMoog at the moment, but I will have another video in a few days 😀
Something about hardware Emulator II that sounds in your face. Noticed on another comparison demo too.
These are great to hear. I’d be interested in a blind test and adding a touch of saturation to the emulations turning their built in fx off e.g the Rhodes felt shinier in the plug-in but could roughen that up may be indistinguishable. Juno and Emulator couldn’t really hear a difference. People on here saying they hear the difference hard to say how much of that is in your head. Blind test might be closer than you think and harder to say
I was thinking about doing a video showing how specific processing can make the software sound more like their hardware counterparts. You can definitely get them closer. The sounds in this video are completely dry.
Wow you cannot tell the difference at all! Thanks for this video. Do you think Arturia will ever have a special sale price for the V collection? I hope so.
Keep an eye out for sales! 😊
It's incredible! Arturia is really close to the original!
I've said it before, but your programming is 😙👌
Nice!
Its hard to catch the power of analog prophet 5 😀 Lead sound for juno is nearly identical but I believe pad sound might be differ. Difficul to copy the intensity of the hardware. Still, samplers like emulator 2 rocks on digital. Fun to watch these comparisons, waiting for next. Thank you.
Thank you 🙏 Next video will be up soon!
Could you please try to have the synth oversampled? I really feel like oversampling will bring this comparison even closed. If you ever have the time i would highly appreciate it. What i can say is that the DX and the Jun from Arturia get a mid more of the warmth and mids back when oversampled. I suspect they are still not at the hardware level but I think that the oversampling might bring them closer.
The thing I wonder is the difference in person as the analog signal and sound has been digitized and squashed by UA-cam
Interesting comments. There will always be both, but I feel that real synths are going to sell in fewer numbers in years to come. Prices for some are getting a real p1ss take. The place I live at isn't a constant enough heat for classic analogue gear to stay tuned. Even famous musicians who have earned their life income from music use their hardware and software too. That speaks volumes.
If I earned lots of money, had lots of space, and could afford to buy and maintain old stuff then I'd be tempted to own a few - but don't satisfy any of those scenarios lol. There are on some synths subtle differences, but as many have said - in a full track, it would be harder to pick the differences in a full mix.
The issue is, this debate is locked in the hear and now. The truth is, every year or two - Arturia launch new rewritten code, offering better simulations. Andertons Music YT channel did a blind test with a bunch of peeps, and they didn't all get their answers right in blind tests in a studio through room monitors whilst sat in the same room lol.
There's space for both. Some ppl have little choice but to go with software. Gr8 vid!!
It's not 100% on point but unless you hear them side by side you'd never know.
Yeah The Software Sounds Better 😂
If you had two of the hardware units they wouldn’t sound exactly the same either. Plus you have to factor in the aging of the components as well.
Ehhhhh.... Almost all of them lack a certain magic across the whole scale.
For example, the Rhodes. The real one is obviously more balanced, the high notes sound like the same stuff being hit but just smaller - whereas Arturia's version's highs are clearly resampled and extraordinarily bright. The same kind of effect in the lows, with Arturia's version being too low.. the real one is mostly loud and peaky in the human musicality range mids, rather than deep bass and airy highs.
I think this is because when you try to copy things, unless you do it EXACTLY, it's super hard to recapture all the subtleties of the intent of the designer; you lose all the experience and nuance that goes into the original masterpiece.
I'm not saying Arturia's stuff won't make you go "Oh, that's a Rhodes" and will get the job done to convey social correlation (hear rhodes, think (i dunno...) *"mister Rogers" * and feel nostalgia). But, if all you want is checking a box, rather than deep complexity, you lean very heavily on the famous artworks that have used those things, rather than making NEW works using a fully nuanced and well rounded instrument, known to stand on its own.
I think when it comes down to it, they're two different things. Arturia is the remake, and everything along with that connotation; and the original is the original, and everything that comes with *that* connotation.
Rhodes sounded really different
Software is the future
i wonder how accurate these models sound, if you were to run them loud into the same mixer/outboard and into the same monitors into the same room etc as the hardware?
I spent a lot of time with a Juno106, played through either an old Ross amp or through a Roland JC120, and in my garage studio It sounded HUGE!
I tried for years once i switched to plug ins to nail that level of ballsy present tone i had going on and always failed miserably
I found out the hard way , that a bunch of "that sound" from old hardware was simply the result of how you heard the synth and the amplifier interacting with the room, vs going straight into the board and into headphones. A guitar plugged straight into the board and recorded that way sounds weak dull and lifeless too...The difference was the sum of the signal chain and how they interacted was greater than the parts
I agree. The way sounds were/are recorded have a huge impact on the final result you hear.
I cannot seem to find LM Take on me for the June-6 V. It is wonderful. Did you program it and/or can I get it?
I programmed that sound. I might actually pop all the sounds I made for these videos in a download link.
All lot of the envelopes sound longer in the real thing, might be from recording speakers with room Mics instead of straight from DAW which always sounds better
The difference is very much noticeable in Emulator ii, the real thing has a "consistent" low end, we can hear it throughout the note that's being played while the Arturia thing seems to be lacking that quality, also it sounded quite dull. To be considered is the fact that the hardware costs a fortune while the digital counterpart is relatively much affordable. These minute differences won't be noticeable in the mix anyway if you glue it the "right way" :P
Hey Luke, can you plz do a separate review of each one of your synths?
I will be doing that soon 😊
@@lukemillionmusic thx
well id say they are very well modelled indeed
whaooo! very cool !
what's the song you played on the Prophet 5? It's driving me nuts.
Très fort Arturia !
Great demo. I wish you lied to us by switching the audio ( harware demo playing the emulation audio and vice versa) .. It would shush some people lol .. Seriously it sounds the same.
I did consider that haha
They all sound very different. Sometimes I like one or the other. But I can't Imagine someone preferring that digital rhodes over the acoustic one.
That meme with the two pictures.
The difference is there, especially the Solina and Rhodes sound better then the plugin. But yeah for a couple of hundred bucks you get a facsimile that will do the job in most cases.
The Emulator II had the biggest contrast for me. Which is somewhat surprising. Might be able to get it closer with a little EQing but the hardware just sounds fantastic.
To me it seems that VST just needs a bit of EQ and it's identical. Also we should take into account, that even two different Emulator units doesn't sound same!
Solina and juno are spot on
Is there actually a loss of quality/depth, or do the VSTs just need eq?
They may sound close but what about performance playing on a real hardware synth vs with VST pluggins ? No VST will bring you that creativity and feeling playing a real instrument.
Where did you find that sound @ 0:07. When i went through the jun-6 it wasnt there is it a expansion?
I made it to emulate my Juno 6.
Wow, Arturia is real close to your hardware synths sounds, just some eq touch away...
Les simulations sont un peu terne... les vrai instruments ont ce punch et cette ouverture du son qui est magique.
Everything pretty close, in descending order. The last is the most different.
what about deep basses?
What’s the song you play on the Prophet5?
'Release The Beast' by Breakwater... also famously sampled by Daft Punk in 'Robot Rock'
@@lukemillionmusic thank you ❤️
We've gotten to the point that the emulated versions sound near enough as makes no difference. Thanks for this.
0:49 ROBOT ROCK!! 🤖
Not sure what these would have sounded like in real-life but I'd say UA-cam mashed the sound enough to be a "just OK" comparison. Seriously though, I wouldn't care what was playing in a song so long as I enjoyed the song and the instrument player's take on it.
I think if they were in the mix you wouldn't notice, they tick the box. But for the musician playing them individually, the real ones give a richness that feels more inspiring and less flat.
The Solina sounded a little more consistent and brighter in the box compared to the real deal - probably better in a mix though
Hardware wins every time. It s pretty obvious. Really love inxs, it was my wedding song openingsdance. The string synth is so good, i need one
My Emulator II actually used to belong to INXS! Got it when they were clearing out a storage unit of old gear :)
Really just need an analog drive box to run the sound through and it would be there IMO.
That won't helpthe missing high frequencies, though.
No doubt in my mind. $400 for 34 vintage keyboards and synths that would otherwise cost $50K on the used market. End of discussion 😂
Probably would be closer to $300-400k if you were to buy all 34 vintage units! So definitely is more affordable haha
The Rhodes vst is a bit thin
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Hey Luke, have you done any videos about all your hardware synths? A bit of history about them? I love the bass sounds of Moog synth you have, still sounds great today, must have been used on so many 80's tracks and some!
I have some videos in the works 😊
More Friday Funk Jams please! 😁
Many people may think they’re close enough, but not for me. All of the Arturia V models in this video are not punchy enough and unnecessarily darker than the real things. Try Arturia Pigments instead of V Collection to get more analog results (plus you get way more advanced sound design abilities, deep controls and modern UI. Plus plus you get a lot more free disk space by not installing giga tons of the bitmap graphic shites from V Collection.)
pretty dam close for many of them
it captures the essence of the sound , not the same though
The essence has definitely been captured and in the absence of owning the real thing, the software can be quite inspiring when looking for a certain flavour.