Arturia Pigments Overview

Pigments is a modern, all-purpose software synthesizer designed for deep sound design with a clear, visual workflow. It combines multiple synthesis methods, extensive modulation, and a large preset library into one instrument that works equally well for beginners and advanced producers.

Core Capabilities


Synthesis Engines

Pigments 7 combines multiple sound engines that can be layered and mixed:

• Virtual Analog
• Wavetable
• Sample
• Granular
• Harmonic (additive)
• Modal (physical modeling)
• Utility engine for noise and helper sources

Sound Shaping

• Large filter collection with many models and modes
• Flexible effects section with serial or parallel routing
• High-quality modulation sources including envelopes, LFOs, random generators, and function curves

Modulation and Sequencing

• Drag-and-drop modulation system
• Per-voice modulation support
• Built-in polyrhythmic sequencer and arpeggiator
• Generative and random modulation options

Workflow and Interface

• Color-coded, animated interface for clarity
• Visual feedback for modulation and audio movement
• Preset browser with tagging, filtering, and recommendations

Presets and Content

• Over 1,700 factory presets
• Regularly expanded with optional sound packs
• Covers basses, leads, pads, textures, sequences, and effects

Recent Updates and New Features

Pigments 7 Highlights

• Added Modal synthesis engine for physically modeled sounds
• New filter types including updated analog models, lo-fi styles, and cluster filters
• Vocoder effect added to the effects section
• Expanded granular engine with improved scanning and randomization
• Improved modulation system with per-voice control and enhanced function generators
• User interface refinements and improved preset browsing
• Added new wavetables, samples, and over 100 new factory presets

Synth Anatomy Overview
https://synthanatomy.com/2025/12/ar...rade-for-the-flagship-synthesizer-plugin.html

More info:
https://www.arturia.com/products/software-instruments/pigments/overview

 

Last edited: Dec 16, 2025 at 6:37 PM

GIMMEGIMMEGIMME!

 

What ? V7 ? This software been around for few years and now it's on v7 ? Serum is there for ages and they just released v2 ! I used to like Arturia but their strategy is 100% money grabbing, sometimes they add one or two plugins and they call V Collection 5 after just few months from the previous release! Unless it's becoming subscription i can understand, other than that it's just a total BS

 

To be fair, I don't think they've ever charged for an update of Pigments. So not really fair to say it's 100% money grabbing.
As for the V Collection, perhaps but I've always felt I've got my money's worth.

 

Last edited: Dec 16, 2025 at 8:17 PM

This "it's all about the money" argument is so tired of hearing. Do they work for free? You want to be paid, don't you? Or does your boss say you work for free these days? A company has to be very innovative and produce things that people find useful and buy. If they don't succeed, the company closes down...and disappears from the market.

 

Hoping for the day we get a third main engine, third filter slot, more customized effects routing similar to Serum 2, a multi-operator fm engine type and spectral effects… now we just need to hope I don’t get sick again like when Pigments 4 came out

 

Could never get into Pigments for whatever reason i rarely go to it to make sound, maybe non of the synth engines sound that great. I guess i will give it another go with 7.

 

Me neither (although its availability is certainly nevertheless appreciated)...

And this could be why:

There seem to be two kinds of synths (and I guess everything in-between, but we're focusing on the first two); one where the basic signal paths are drawn and essentially completed and where the processing (filters, etc.) happen 'after the fact' ('tacked on');...

...and the other where the signal paths are not just basic, but that there're more and different kinds of complex routing/manipulation/filtering going on before the facts of the synth's aftereffects.

Pigments seems to fit into the former category, while synths like Linplug's Spectral, Sylenth1 or the hardware synth, Nonlinear Labs - C15 seem to fit into the latter.

It's one thing to have a number of 'synth engines' just kludged together but yet a whole other to have each of them holistically, or more so, more 'integratively', working together to produce 'a sound' that's more than the sum of its synth-engine parts. Like it only has one engine.

And I highlight that because I think it's important.

U-He, for example, seems a bit in the middle, so I suspect that Stephan, who's been in the business a bit longer perhaps, has a bit of an edge over Urs in this regard, at least so far.

Spoiler: Nonlinear Labs C15 - CINEMATIC - the new Sound Designer Bank by Kevin Schroeder (Hans Zimmer)

In this video, Simon, in his Spectral series-- and eleven years ago, so on an older system-- is generally using only 2 oscillators (out of 4 possible) and under half the voices in his sounds:

Spoiler: more Spectral

Tip-of-the-hat to all those responsible for making this available, by the way.

 

Last edited: Dec 17, 2025 at 8:58 AM

looking forward to, erm... evaluating it.

 

This wasn't my point Mr. Wise, what i said is that i don't like companies who are pushing upgrades for something that could've been just an update within the version cicle just because they want to sell more, i'm not referring to Arturia only but many others like Presonus and lately Cubase , Native Instruments with Kontakt.... And that type of behavior, some would argue and say if you don't like them don't buy their stuff, but i have respect for devs that are more consumer friendly and we have tons like SoundToys and others, of course everyone should get paid for their hard work and what's even this has to do with me and whether i wanna get paid for my work or not ,i wasn't even complaining btw i just want to express my point of view and you just jumped on to defend them like they are family to you, what in the world that anytime one say some, someone else just jump on...

 

maybe its just me but on AMD GPU 7600 , Pigments 3 becomes slower and slower in Studio One 7.
the more instances i load into a project the slower everything gets.

 

You can like companies or not; that has absolutely no bearing on their corporate policies. The only thing you can do is buy a product or not. Every company has the right to sell its products however it wants. They just have to abide by applicable law. I'm also an Arturia and PreSonus customer and use their products; the marketing isn't important to me, it's the product itself.

As soon as there's a little criticism of what you write, you accuse me of being my family. You're also making sweeping generalizations again, and I quote: "Why does someone always jump on me when someone says something?" @Starpino23, this is a forum.I'm just expressing my opinion and exercising my right to freedom of expression. In a forum, you have to be able to handle criticism. Besides, we're just exchanging our views on a topic.

Every company is 100% focused on profit maximization; every business student learns this phrase at university: profits, profits, profits. This also applies to your favorite companies. Every company has to generate revenue, sell high volumes, and make a profit.

 

It only matters if they’re charging for the updates. If the updates are free, calling them new versions is basically just marketing and doesn’t affect existing users at all.

It becomes a problem when they’re using new major version numbers to charge for what are really just minor updates like 1.x changes.

 

Free upgrades and they do regular sales, you can have their stuff quite cheap, so you are very wrong.

The problem is not in the price, but in their GUIs that take too much space on the disk (basically they have prerendered images for all types of resolutions, which is insanity, that's why their plugins take gigabytes of space...)
Pigments specifically also is taxing visually, I find this trend of new plugins requiring semi-decent visual card (Avenger is another such example) offensive since musical PCs should be optimized in a different manner than gaming or graphical/video editing ones - (Nvidia video cards are a major source of problems in terms of audio latency spikes etc).